this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Bicycles
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I don't want pedestrians to have to worry about any type of injury!
You have to look at things in context, because pedestrian safety has a LOT to do with pedestrian behaviour, poor infrastructure, and motor vehicles, not whether a cyclist decides to roll through a stop sign at an empty intersection.
Cyclists and pedestrians can still get into conflicts with each other, but it doesn't happen as often and certainly not as severely as other types of accidents.
But here's some food for thought: the Traffic Injury Research Foundation out of Ottawa put out a fact sheet which showed that in fatally injured pedestrians, nearly 50% had alcohol in their system (the pedestrian, not the driver); 40% had drugs in their system.
In my experience as a driver, pedestrian, and cyclist, many pedestrians aren't aware of their own surroundings, which puts them at risk.
J-walking, walking before they get a "walk" signal, walking with headphones, not walking where they're supposed to be (i.e. wrong side of a multi-use path), not wearing bright clothing at night, etc.
Everyone has to be mindful of their own behaviour to increase the chance of being safe, but that's not to say that poor infrastructure has no fault in this.
But I can't really speak to the city experience, since I don't live in Downtown Toronto. In those cases, I do defer to what stats and studies say about cyclist/pedestrian safety.
I don't disagree, but unfortunately there's only so much one can do to anticipate the stupidity of the average oblivious pedestrian, and while I've had a few encounters with people crossing against the signals/traffic with earbuds in, the gross majority also seem to be members of the growing local transient population who are often fairly inebriated or generally dismissive of societal rules.
I'd say the best one can do is pay attention and follow rules that used to be taught in old safe-driving courses (but also apply to biking). I slow down a bit and am ready to brake at populated intersections even if I have the right-of-way, slow or move farther out when I see rambunctious/unattended kids on the sidewalk, and the same for drunks, transients, or areas where such congregate and are known to spontaneously bolt across the road.
Assuming somebody may demonstrate a spontaneous lack of self-preservation has saved me from running somebody down on more than one occasion, both with motor-vehicles or bikes. I also tend to give more space to BMW's, Audi's, and lifted trucks... because reasons :-)