Three Pedestrian Traffic Accidents in Week Provoke Questions

A string of recent motor vehicle collisions with pedestrians have raised public concerns about traffic safety.  CBC radio had a useful discussion of the issues this morning and I had a transcript made.  Here's the first part, the final part will follow tomorrow.

More respect for safety and the rules of the road, from both drivers and pedestrians, is the prescription offered.

Mr. Gilhooly:        An 85 year old man dies after being knocked down while crossing a busy stretch of highway in Long Pond, an 11 year old girl is in critical condition at the Janeway after she was struck by a car in Grand Falls-Windsor, and on Monday, another pedestrian was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver around lunchtime on Elizabeth Avenue in St. John's.  A spike in car-pedestrian accidents has a lot of people wondering, what is going on.  Jim Brazil is the Manager of Traffic Safety for Safety Services, that's the group we used to call the Newfoundland Safety Council, and he's live in the studio.  Good morning Jim, thanks for coming in.

Mr. Brazil:             Thanks.

Mr. Gilhooly:        I know that we don't know the specifics of each of these cases so we're not going to go there but when you hear about a string of accidents like this in a fairly short period of time, what goes through your mind?

Mr. Brazil:             Well, I think it's not typical, what goes through my mind is I'm seeing and our instructors are seeing a lack of respect for other road users, typically from the driver side. A lack of respect in the sense of ignoring crosswalks; ignoring people in the crosswalks.  Now it goes both ways.  You'll see jaywalkers all over the city who don't use the crosswalks when they're supposed to use them.  So while there's a spike as you say, I'm not certain that it's tied to anything that's sound, I think it's simply something that has occurred.  There has been a lack of respect on our roadways it seems for a long time. 

Mr. Gilhooly:        We always hear comments about there's too much traffic now, it's more than the infrastructure, I guess, was built for, or we talked about speeds, drivers are, they're too fast these days, does any of that make sense to you?

Mr. Brazil:             Well statistically in the last 25 years we've increased our vehicle registrations by 60% across the country, we have 35% more drivers than we had 25 years ago, so obviously there is increased traffic out there, there's no doubt about that.  Speed, well speed is always a factor.  We all have this understanding that we can drive 60 in 50 kilometers alright and 65, we're not going to get a ticket, we can drive 150 in a 120 on a 100 kilometer an hour stretch and we're not going to get a ticket.  The reality of it is though speed impacts on us in a number of ways.  It increases our stopping distance and obviously it also increases our kinetic energy or our force of impact.  Statistically it's interesting to note that someone who's hit, a pedestrian is hit at 30 kilometers an hour and has only a 5% chance of actually dying from that collision, whereas someone who's hit at 65 kilometers an hour, there's a 85% chance that they will die from that collision.

Mr. Gilhooly:        Wow.  I think some people would also be shocked with the latest statistics on the percentages of pedestrians killed in all traffic accidents in Canada.  I was when you told me this number yesterday.  Can you lay that on us now?

Mr. Brazil:             13 out of every 100 fatalities in Canada are pedestrian traffic fatalities. 

Mr. Gilhooly:        Everybody I asked that question to guessed much lower than that.

Mr. Brazil:             They typically do.