on a more serious note

I had a little panic attack at Yorkdale mall today.  In the throes of being overheated and tired of trying to find my way out of my least favourite mall, I talked to someone who was empathetic to my plight, and offered a joke about the parking lot being even worse than the mall.  For a moment I was completely confused – all I could think was why would I have to deal with the parking lot.  And then I remembered.  I was in the suburbs and as a non-car owner; I was the odd woman out.

A few springs ago I became aware that a lot of people where trying to hit me with their cars.  At first I thought I was being a bit paranoid, until my other pedestrian friends noted the same thing.  

There was no real rhyme or reason to the attempts.  The spring seemed to be the worst, but not exclusively. Right hand turns seemed to be an issue, but crossing in a crosswalk, or at a light didn't seem to stop the issue.  Rolling stops, and playing chicken with me was also a situation I didn’t want to be involved with. Think about it, you’re in a 2 ton vehicle, and I’m wearing my coat.  People - drivers, were trying to hit me with their cars.

At the start of 2014, I found evidence the supported my suspicions.  And an editorial that I agree with; where is the demand, the absolute urgency, for some sort of revelatory response to the fact that in 2013 pedestrian fatalities outnumbered murders in Toronto.  There were 63 traffic related fatalities in 2013, a year where the murder rate hit the mid 50’s, most of these incidents in the last 6 months of the year.  This is people being killed by cars when walking, on their bikes or motorcycles and includes victims of car accidents.  But by and large the most are pedestrians, hit at wide, signaled, suburban cross walks, by cars.  And more than half of them seniors. 

What does this mean?  Well first off that I was right.

Secondly it means that all of us, pedestrians, drivers, people who figure out how to time lights and how to make traffic flow need to take a good long look at how we move everyone in this city.  That all modes of transport; and feet are a mode; are given consideration in planning but also in our day to day.  As city dwellers continue to eschew driving in record numbers, choosing instead to live and work in cores and only rent or car share when needed, we need to encourage drivers to pay more attention as they may soon be outnumbered.

This is a not something we can legislate away.  This is a course of action that must occur at a grassroots level.  We all have to pay more attention to what we do.  But if I can, as a pedestrian, instill this one thing in drivers and before I go off on a tangent to say that I personally feel all vehicular misdemeanors should be tackled by forcing drivers to use the TTC for 90 days and learn how easy they really have it – if you’re in your car – you’re going to get there faster.  So give us pedestrians a break.

If you’re really keen on the deets… http://torontoist.com/2014/01/torontos-bad-year-for-traffic-fatalities/