Re: Throttle Therapy, April 10 Sooke SOOKE NEWS MIRROR.
While there are lessons to be learned in the rear-end collision you highlighted in a recent issue, many drivers and pedestrians are slow learners.
Not looking is a common problem – people miss playground speed zone signs, road closure signs, cars coming out of driveways, and other things they shouldn’t.People are too aggressive – perhaps a factor in the rear-ender, instead they should pause, then expect the unexpected as they proceed. Yesterday a delivery driver made a u-turn in front of me just as I started to move forward. (Flag people told her to turn around due to road closure, she did not look in my direction when making the turn. I added her employer to my do-not-deal-with list.)
It is easy to err – witness the woman up-island who stepped back on the curb to look at the crosswalk signal to make sure it was on, then started to cross without looking for traffic again. She was run over by a truck driver who was looking across the intersection to where he had to run into a construction site, rather than watching out for that active pedestrian who might change her mind.
Drivers shouldn’t assume that a cross- walk is clear if the light has stopped flashing – a slow person could still be in it, or a person could have started across too late. I saw a person step out from behind a pole and cross the street just as the pedestrian who had first activated the signal reached the sidewalk in front of the pole.
Then there’s the people who can manage to speed through a well-signed construction zone, playground zone, and school zone all at the same time. Are they zombies, or deliberately dangerous people with no regard for others? Only police feet on the street will re-educate either type. Voter, do you have the decency and guts to foster and elect officials who will fund police adequately?
Keith Sketchley
Saanich
