i feel like part of it is the culture of entitlement among drivers.

It is also incredible how often i see people jaywalking. I live near 41st and West Blvd, and constantly witness people cutting across the street less than a block from a marked crosswalk. I see parents taking their kids across too. Great example they are for the next generation.

There’s a culture of denial around motor vehicle accidents in general. Intellectually we may be aware that on occaision people get hurt or killed, but for whatever reason it doesn’t resonate unless a person has a first-hand accident experience.

On friday night I was walking home and passed an accident scene at the intersection of 8th and Clark. Police were documenting skid marks, vehicle damage etc. There was a real messy gore scene around 50ft from the location of impact. I have no idea whether the person lived or survived and couldn’t find anything in local news media…go figure

Beyond additional traffic enforcement and safety oriented road modifications people (drivers and pedestrians) need to be appropriately aware of the dangers

Having just moved here from Paris in France, I have wondered about the rate of accidents. I hear sooo many ambulances speed by (often on the wrong side of the street), I see sooo many accidents on the streets of Vancouver: and I have had a lot of near misses when walking, together with my six-year-old son (at my hand, mind you).

I have tried to come up with a reason, why the streets are sooo unsafe here: part of it is a lack of regulation, or rather lack of enforcement thereof. It is dead easy to get a driver’s licence here. It is also near impossible to loose it, even with a lot of reckless driving. No speed enforcement in the city, no automatic radar photos. And intersections don’t have separate traffic lights making pedestrians safe — there is always the right turn on red car. A myriad of reasons, and a myriad of things that could be changed, a lot of them easily, some with some investment — and shouldn’t that be a top priority for the city? Thanks for bringing this to public attention.

“Originally, the legal rule was that ‘all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way.’ In time, however, streets became the province of motorized traffic, both practically and legally. Automobile interests in the USA took up the cause of labeling and scorning jaywalkers in the 1910s and early 1920s.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#Origin_of_the_term

Time to share the streets again.

@frances: A well written story about a tragic incident. Not sure how much blame will come to rest on the driver of the Infiniti, but i do think that many drivers in vancouver are total asshats when it comes to driving. They are bad bad bad.

Several general thoughts…

1) I am mostly a bicyclist or pedestrian. Occasionally I drive for work or when on vacation. I’ve also lived or travelled many places around the world, and in my opinion Vancouver drivers are on average the most polite I’ve seen anywhere. They will stop for a pedestrian – or even bicyclist! – to cross an intersection, even when it isn’t required. You can’t depend on it every time, and you always have to watch for the idiots and jerks, but if you wait then people will often let you cross.

2) Vancouver pedestrians are the worst I have seen anywhere other than in China (with the exception of the poor, overcrowded, underfed population of Moscow during the systemic collapse, about 1990-91). And in China, the problem was across the board – cars, bikes and those on foot – not just one mode. You can’t walk down the street in Vancouver without three people coming the other way side by side, and refusing to move over an inch. Even in China, people will casually move over to miss each other, while saving face by not admitting that’s what they’re doing. Not in Vancouver, though – they’ll run right into you! Crazy.

3) In my Old Home Town, people used to get killed by trains a few times every year on the railroad tracks that run next to the downtown. Then the city installed walkways and barricades, and no one gets killed anymore because it’s more or less impossible. Physical arrangements do matter.

I’m reminded of the accidents I’ve seen over the years. The saddest was a very simple scene: a big fireman’s tarp spread over the pavement in front of a car with a pair of little kid’s boots sticking out of the front edge of it, and weeping adults sitting on the curb.

I have my memories, and read stories and anecdotes like the above and think, man, maybe it’ll be a good thing when the oil runs out.

@Dan Cooper

How ridiculous. You comparing a minor annoyance when walking down the street to violations of law by motorists that lead to death and come to the conclusion that pedestrians here are bad and drivers are great. Give yourself a shake and then read Frances’ great article that described how a vehicle illegally changed lanes and raced pasted a car stopped for a pedestrian and killed him.

blaming pedestrians for “jay-walking” is more stupid that running crosswalks (which is illegal, “trevor” and others who make the same point), and yeah, if you’ve never seen a city where more people “jay-walk”, you obviously haven’t been almost anywhere in the world, aside from a few western canadian towns and maybe a few towns in the u.s.

wow.

>The bottom line is that in Vancouver, road
> users, be they in a car, on a bicycle or on
> foot think they have the right to do whatever
> they want and everyone else should yield.

Please let’s not overgeneralize here.

I only feel I have the right to do whatever I want when gmgw is in front of me.

Some moron scribbled…
“but if he didn’t have his music ears on, he probably would have have heard that car accelerating around the traffic to run the light.”

“In that sad respect, his death is partially self-inflicted.”

Wow. Talk about blaming the victim. This person doesn’t cross enough intersections with the light in their favour, otherwise, they’d have formed a brainstem by now. Presumably, they’re but another lard ass car driver.

Hey moron,
as but one of hundreds of examples I could give of car drivers idiocy, I was crossing Renfrew at Hastings – *with* the light, and am just tall enough to be able to see over the behemoth vehicles you drivers are so fond of these days to notice some jackass idiot speeding down the curb lane towards the intersection I was crossing.
I’m an experienced enough pedestrian to know that the idiots speeding down the curb lane are doing so so that they can get in zip in front of traffic waiting at the light as it changes. Had I not stopped in front of the mammoth SUV waiting at the light, I and my dog would probably be dead (literally, you freaking goof, had I made myself “visible” to this driver, I would be dead; since in order to do so, I would have had to walk in front of the car waiting at the light and undoubtedly been struck dead by this moron) – as, I had anticipated, the moron jerkoff loser sped right through the crosswalk into the intersection a split second before the light had changed to green. This jerkoff/loser/beloved relative of yours slammed on the brakes *in the intersection* when they realized a pedestrian had been forced to stop in front of the vehicle waiting at the light. All because *they* were in a hurry and saw themselves “competing” with other drivers.

Had I been killed performing the otherwise simple, legal action of crossing the street at a lit crosswalk, with the right of way, you – and your privileged idiotic way of thinking – would have blamed me. [edited].

Idiot drivers being idiots and thinking people walking through their neighbourhoods are somehow an impediment to their driving ways – *that’s* what gets people killed.

Drivers bear the greater responsibility by dint of the fact they’re effectively waving a baseball bat in front of them wherever they go. Accept it. Embrace your responsibility to be MORE cautious. To be more CONSCIENTIOUS.

I don’t need a license to walk around my neighbourhood – but you will if you want to drive through it. Ask yourself why that is, you freaking stupid dirtbag.

So pal, for you to say this guy died by his own hand – I say to you – eat shit and die, [edited].

Sorry for all the swearing Frances – but callous ignorance needs a bright light and plenty of heat brought to it. That’s mine.

In addition to what the city can do, here’s what citizens are doing in one neighbourhood this summer…

Local residents in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood and Think City are working together to get citizens to develop and propose their own ideas to re-allocate road space for the benefit of the entire East Vancouver community.

We will be surveying citizens in-person and online to start. Over the summer, in collaboration with a working group of local volunteers, we will incorporate survey feedback into a set of transportation proposals which will be presented to the Grandview Woodland Area Council this fall.

For more info, go here:
http://www.thinkcity.ca/node/274

Want Vancouver needs is a campaign like Montreal’s to dramatically reduce pedestrian injuries and fatalities. The goal should be zero death a year.

One other note (and readers will probably not like it) is that Vancouver does not have freeways – so that means that all vehicles – whether travelling long distance or short distance potentially interact with pedestrians.

i.e. drive down Granville St. and you’ll cross in excess of 70 intersections – places where there may be a car/car accident, a pedestrian/car accident or bike/car accident. A comparable stretch of freeway would segragate cars from pedestrians and bikes and would prevent T-bone accidents and have maybe 2 or 3 interchanges. That’s also why Vancouver has more car accidents than other cities.

But the risk is inherent (by placing cars, bikes and pedestrians in the same realm) in the “livable” built form without freeways.

I am astounded at the number of times I see people trying to cross at pedestrian crosswalks, while cars zip by without even thinking about stopping.

And as someone has noted, when one car stops, (whether at a cross-walk or not) the others often do not. Unfortunately, I don’t think we can rely on human decency to address this problem. We need a public campaign and stiff fines to help people get the message.

I think the situation at many major intersections is now so serious that we should consider banning the right to make a right turn on a red light.

We should also consider copying what they do in Auckland and other cities, (and what we used to do in Vancouver) and stop vehicular traffic in all directions so that pedestrians have the right of way at the intersection…they can even cross on the diagonal.

While it would probably be beneficial to subject motorists to regular retesting of their drivers’ licenses, I realize this would be a challenge to implement. However, ICBC and the police could initiate a ‘continuing education’ program for motorists and pedestrians with full page ads in newspapers, and on-line quiz’s.

I am the first to admit I don’t always understand the respective rights of pedestrians and motorists, especially at some intersections with flashing lights, and some of the new roundabout configurations.

Finally, we need to change the driving culture in the cities and province. For one thing, anyone who drives into an intersection when the light is changing, and gets stuck in the intersection should be pulled out of their car and publicly assaulted. Ok, maybe that’s going too far. But let’s do what they do in many UK cities and fine that person an obscene amount of money for ‘entering the box’.

I would also like to see us implement regulations similar to those in Australia, where you are fined for passing ‘on the right’. (Well, it’s on the left in Australia, but you hopefully know what I mean.)

Yes Virginia, you are not allowed to pass in the curb lane. We all do it, of course, myself included. but I don’t even know if it is against the law here. It is in many parts of Australia. By promoting and enforcing such a rule, we might be able to help reduce some traffic fatalities.

I would also like to see us mark dangerous intersections as they do in some jurisdictions. A bright yellow sign with some red zig-zags and exclamation marks should help some people get the message.

Hopefully someone from ICBC will let us know if any of the ideas posted on this blog make sense. And if they do, let’s see some changes.

BTW, the situation in China and Vietnam and many other countries is much more dangerous. But we can’t do much about those places. We can do something about Metro Vancouver.

I would also like to see us mark dangerous intersections as they do in some jurisdictions. A bright yellow sign with some red zig-zags and exclamation marks should help some people get the message.”

Reducing the amount of signage is arguably more effective.

“In Denmark, the town of Christianfield stripped the traffic signs and signals from its major intersection and cut the number of serious or fatal accidents a year from three to zero. In England, towns in Suffolk and Wiltshire have removed lane lines from secondary roads in an effort to slow traffic – experts call it “psychological traffic calming.” A dozen other towns in the UK are looking to do the same. A study of center-line removal in Wiltshire, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, a UK transportation consultancy, found that drivers with no center line to guide them drove more safely and had a 35 percent decrease in the number of accidents.”

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html

>I think the situation at many major intersections is now so serious that we should consider banning the right to make a right turn on a red light

Downtown, it’s just as hard to make a right on green as it is as a right on red, as so many of us disregard the flashing red hand. The situation is now so serious we may as well ban all turns altogether.

This was a big issue in the late 50’s in Vancouver, and was noted in the book “How come I’m dead?
Careful research by the City Coroner deduced that the single biggest cause of pedestrian deaths was: Bingo games.
You laugh, but the powers that be figured out that most deaths were at night, had some weather factor like rain, and the respectable people of Vancouver would dress head to toe in black to head out for the massive Bingo games around the City.
As far as I can see, the same circumstances still exist, with black being the number one choice of colour for clothing, especially at night. Throw in the weather, add in people cracked out, who wander into traffic, and the deaths go up. The street lighting of today is all of the low energy, low lumen variety, which still doesn’t reflect off of black all that well, so a consideration might be to increase the illumination in some of the worst areas.

I have driven on every major continent on the planet – only in Vancouver do pedestrians step off the sidewalk without looking (as kids are taught in grade o in most countries) as if they have a force shield on! Then you have turn right on a red light. Mixing crossing pedestrians with the ability for a car to turn right is inviting mutilation…the road system is also to blam.

The only real question is why Vancouverites don’t see this? maybe becasue most BC’ers have never left the Province and seen the real world…!

This is going to ramble a bit, so be warned.

I haven’t read the article that started this blog but the comments and their range give me some idea. The range of positions is amazing and echoes what I’ve seen in our local free paper, The Courier. Pedestrians saying that the drivers are atrocious, drivers saying the pedestrians are atrocious, and pretty much both of them saying that the bicycle riders are the worst of the lot. Guess what, it all boils down to not enough people actually knowing what the laws are and not caring about them if they do.

First, there’s the myth that the pedestrian has the absolute right of way. Look at the Provincial Motor Vehicle Act and the City of Vancouver Street and Traffic By-Law No. 2849. You’ll find that the rights of the pedestrian are clearly marked out and they are not absolutely placed above any other traffic on or near the road. Pedestrians are required, by law, not to enter the street until they have ascertained that it is safe to enter the street and they may not enter the street contrary to traffic control signs, signals and directions by police. I’m beginning to think I’m from another age. I remember little songs we were taught as children to remind us to Stop, Look and Listen before we cross the street. I doubt anyone else remembers them or that anyone less than 40 years old has even heard them. By these same by-laws, cars are required to stop for pedestrians when they are in the street but they are not required to stop for pedestrians who are safely standing on the sidewalk. I was told recently by a Vancouver city traffic planner that all the traffic on any street, 41st Avenue, for example, must stop if I am standing on the curb looking like I might be considering crossing the street. I’m pretty sure that this traffic planner hasn’t read the provincial and city laws and by-laws.

Bicycle riders are an interesting lot in that they are considered as motor vehicles under the law but, since they cannot actually compete with the modern motor vehicle they actually travel in the gray area between the road and the sidewalk. If the road is too crowded they’ll happily move onto the sidewalk under the logic that since they don’t actually have a motor, they must be more like pedestrians. Sorry, gang, you are not pedestrians unless you get off the bicycle and onto your feet.

Now, here’s the real crux of the matter. The traffic laws, both provincial and city, are really nothing more that a hard written expression of common sense and how to be courteous to each other on the road. The sense of entitlement that everyone seems to be embracing is overriding both the common sense and the courtesy that everyone should be showing each other.

The pedestrian feels entitled because they are the most vulnerable of the travelers on the road so the law must have been written to protect them.

The bicycle rider feels entitled because they are saving the planet by riding their bicycles rather than driving those horrible environmental disasters called automobiles so the laws must have been written to protect them.

The driver feels entitled because there is already such a huge infrastructure put in place to make moving from place to place by car so the laws must be written for their benefit.

Wake up and read the laws. They are written to protect each group from the other, if you understand which group you’re in, and they are written to give each group rights and protections appropriate to their capacities for moving on the road.

I’ll comment about my situation. I’m a middle aged, 55, individual who used to bicycle commute all over Greater Vancouver before it became politically correct to do so. A back injury has taken that from me. I still walk and, when it’s cheaper than paying parking, I use transit. But there are times when I or my elder parent simply cannot depend on public transit. One of the earlier comments said our driver’s exams are too easy. I think I can agree that the Class 5 license is too easy to get, especially when one remembers the episode a few years ago where people were hiring others to take their driver’s exams for them, but then I have a commercial grade license and that wasn’t as easy to get.

Now, I’m afraid I’m falling into the camp that believes the bicycles are being pandered to. We’ve recently been told that, with the purpose of calming traffic in my local neighbourhood, we are going to have a bicycle permeable median installed at 41st and Ontario that will stop all automobile traffic from crossing 41st at Ontario Street and will stop any left turn on or off Ontario Street or 41st Avenue. A conversation about this with a city traffic project manager started with the explanation that these medians are to cut down on cross neighbourhood automobile traffic. It took a bit of doing but with the application of a little memory for what he was saying and logic I got him to admit that the median actually has nothing to do with local traffic calming. It’s only purpose is to impede automobiles from using a street that’s been designated as a bike route and actually increase the amount of cross neighbourhood traffic but specializing it to bicycles.

Two other statements were finally stated plainly by this project manager. These sorts of projects are going to be imposed on streets and neighbourhoods across the city with no consultation or compromise with the local neighbourhoods. Such a process is considered too cumbersome. The other statement that actually shocked me was that there were other projects in other parts of the province to make automobile driving better. This project manager was inviting me to leave the city if I didn’t like what was happening in my neighbourhood.

Okay, I was born here, lived all my life within a few kilometers of where I was born, and now I’m being told by a city official that I’m not welcome here because I’m looking for the ability to have some input into a process that affects the neighbourhood I’ve lived in for 43 years.

So, Vancouver has become the place I live. It’s no longer my home My home is somewhere else but I cannot reach it. It’s a place where common sense or common laws and courtesy tell people how to live their lives and how to interact rather than a place where each individual lets their sense of entitlement place them above all the other individuals that should make up their community. There are no communities. All that’s left are sparse coalitions of entitled individuals competing with every other sparse coalition for whatever resources they can take control of.

I’ve been a transit user (absolutely horrible and awful in this province) and walker, and started driving again several years ago. I drive quickly with traffic and always slow down way ahead of intersections, and look carefully in every direction, and am often polite to both pedestrians and drivers. Yet I found myself literally YELLING at the odd pedestrian who literally scared me to death by stepping out without looking or even caring for that matter! No matter how careful I was I could have hit someone because of their stupidity. I have also had cyclists jump out in front of cars without cogitating that a 3,000 pound vehicle is about to move, and have yelled at the odd driver too who seemed hell bent on hitting something…..whether my car, a pedestrian, or cyclist. I agree with everyone but especially Tracy. The people here are like walking automotans, arrogant, uncaring, and carrying a “sense of entitlement” with them. It sucks. I was absolutely dumbstruck when I started driving again here how truly awful the drivers were. The only good thing I can say is that I definitely prefer driving to taking transit or being a pedestrian in BC. And yes, pedestrians here will sometimes walk right into you – no allowance at all.

The other day at the corner of 12th & Commercial, when the light changed I started across the street. I have crossed there before many times, but later in the day. I was unaware that the light changed in favour of drivers turning left at certain times of the day (which is itself very dangerous to pedestrians), so started across and one woman nearly hit me.

She didn’t just keep going after I ran across to get out of her way. My mistake, so sorry.

The woman just wouldn’t let it go. She followed me down the street got out and came after me, shouting, “HEY LADY! I’VE GOT KIDS IN THE CAR!”

I quickly jotted down her license plate number and went on my way, worried that drivers like her are why kids are killed on our roads, as well as pedestrians.

I’ve noticed in just the last couple weeks around my friends apartment around 7st ave and Granville st. There are whole blocks that have street lights but they remain out of order. Not even cycling on /off to conserve energy, but off. Which leaves the neighbourhood pitch black.
What is the problem here? Forget the added stress driving in the dark…. is it really even safe for someone to walk in the neighbourhood? Not that assaults happen frequently around Vancouver (be it sexual or otherwise) why provide an environment in which the idea could even be entertained and exercised?