Pedestrians

This is a case involving a pedestrian, Brian Cairney, and a driver, Kimberly Miller, who met in a crosswalk at the intersection of Vernon and Hall Streets in Nelson. It was a dark, overcast evening with light rain. Street lighting was present along with other pedestrians.

Question: At a 4 way stop, what are the rules for yielding if I am turning left and there are pedestrians about to cross and there is also another car that has stopped to my right at the same time?

Mrs. Wong-Lai and her husband were crossing Prior Street between Gore and Dunlevy in Vancouver to return to their car. They were struck by a car driven by Mr. Ong. The older couple were not able to cross the street quickly, had chosen to cross where there was not a crosswalk on a wide, busy street at night in a heavy rain.

This Dutch Hyundai Velostar advertising video (subtitled in English) could really make you think about which side of the vehicle you exit on. In this case, the Hyundai concept is that you cannot exit on the driver's side because there is no rear passenger door there, forcing passengers to exit on the safe side.

Even though this is a year old, it is still an interesting video. Here is the description provided with it on YouTube:

Marking the back to school term, Preventable together with BCAA Road Safety and the District of West Vancouver have launched an optical illusion geared to making drivers slow down at high-risk intersections.

Leslie Plummer was riding her motorcycle on Rutland Road in the vicinity of an intersection near two schools in Kelowna, B.C. Shaun Walter was walking diagonally across Rutland Road passing the front of a large truck which obscured him from Ms. Plummer's sight. Without looking, Mr. Walter walked into the path of Ms. Plummer's motorcycle and was struck. Both were seriously injured in the mishap.

ICBC is encouraging people to give the wave. I believe that there is another far more important topic that needs to be addressed to the public "Rights of Pedestrians crossing at unmarked intersections".

Right or wrong, the pedestrian is always the loser in a collision with a motor vehicle. Nowhere in British Columbia is that more apparent than in Vancouver. So far this year, the pedestrian death count has already exceeded that of the entire year of 2010.

The case of Stevanovic v Petrovic involves playing chicken by a driver who was certainly old enough to know better. Mr. Petrovic decided to do this with his friend Mr. Stevanovic who was standing in the street waiting to be picked up. The resulting collision caused a serious leg injury.

I was given a ticket for not stopping for pedestrians at a crosswalk. It was a red light in front of me, with cars lined up behind a crosswalk about 10meters from the light on the right lane. I was on the left lane, slowing down before the red with only one car in front of me stopped at the light.

As I was passing the crosswalk, I slowed to make sure there were no pedestrians, and decided to pass.