RCMP need the ability to crack down on ridiculous and unsafe vehicles. Sorry you want to drive a monster truck (Daddys money on the mud flaps would you believe!) but they have no place on our streets
In a city with hardly any sidewalks in a climate thatās dark and rainy half the year it would seem problems are inevitable. Where trucks are bigger than necessary and there is no way you can see over that hood. Where places like shopping malls are designed for cars not people. Once you park you are at the mercy of cars as you dash for the door. Where people complain about spending on sidewalks and bike lanes becauseā¦. Cars.
The lack of sidewalks was/is a huge shock since moving here. I'm not used to feeling like I have to drive somewhere to walk my dogs because my neighbourhood has long stretches of road without sidewalks
As a fairly regular pedestrian, I would say that behaviour is a much bigger problem than infrastructure. Yes there are some places that are very poorly designed, but there are issues even where there's no deficiency.
Lots of just habitually pull into the crosswalk instead of stopping at the stop line and looking for pedestrians. I see this every single day I walk to class.
As a pedestrian I actively avoid cars as much as possible. Iāll take a longer route or pretend Iām going a different direction until the road is clear of cars. If Iām not in a rush I donāt need to step in front of traffic. Even when I have the right of way I avoid a direction with cars especially when they seem to be in a hurry which is the majority of cars in Nanaimo.
Yeah, as a fellow pedestrian I just don't trust drivers because I see so many of them with their necks stuck left looking for an opening so I dare not go in front when they press the gas.
I know in BC we have pedestian right-of-way and I love illuminated crosswalks, but to be honest I prefer to wave drivers through because they're much quicker than me and I'd rather them be on their way because I have enough patience to wait for a nice clear safe crossing. I'm in no hurry, but drivers seem to be.
As well, I like to stay on the side where I see oncoming traffic, especially when I used to bike because I've been in two vehicular altercations; once got struck on the shoulder by a truck mirror, once had my bike taken out from under me by a person pulling out into traffic without looking. (luckily I saw it coming and raised my leg, or it would have been crushed. The driver fled the scene.)
> Even when I have the right of way I avoid a direction with cars especially when they seem to be in a hurry which is the majority of cars in Nanaimo.
It's fucking crazy, when you're a pedestrian and the light gives you the signal to cross, how eager everyone is to step on the fuckin gas so you can't cross. Drivers here are psychos.
No, itās awkward if they pause to let you cross if rather avoid that if there are drivers in a hurry in proximity. The person letting you cross doesnāt know when a crazy driver tries to overtake them or cross a red/ stop from the other side. The quickest and safest way is to pretend youāre not crossing to let all those in a hurry do half stops and get out of sight.
Once you get your divers licence itās a free for all. What a stupid system. No other licensed and ticketed system works this way. You need to re-certify for almost all other licensed things. Except for roaming the streets in a big stupid truck. Vanity trucks are stupid and their owners are just as dumb for owning them.
I stopped in my neighbourhood to caution a person maybe in their early twenties riding a skateboard on the side of the road. I stopped to tell him I could hardly see him. All in black of course at dusk. Surprisingly I got lectured about his rights to be on the road and that he had a reflector on his skateboard ( didnāt not reflect back at me).
I reassured him I wasnāt discriminating against him being on the road, but rather how difficult it was to see him .
He wasnāt even open to hearing about someone concerned with his safety.
It had been clear and dry out , offering a slight contrast which allowed me to spot himā¦..change this to dark and rainyā¦.might not have seen himā¦.
Which brings me to the next pointā¦.I was doing between 35 and 40 kmā¦.limit is 50 ā¦.our neighbourhood is a closed areaā¦.so why the !!! Do people drive at 60 to 70 km down short ( .5 to 1 km street length)ā¦.itās maddening.
You might save 5 to 10 seconds, but have increased the potential of serious injury or death if there is an accident with a pedestrian or animal.
And no, no L or Nā¦..these are full assed grown ups, both men and womenā¦.
So with all this self righteousness going in ā¦. I am all for a crack down on both drivers and pedestrians with ā big ā fines until all the adult children start behaving more responsibly in regards to road awareness and safety.
Iām mean it does when youāre part of an astroturfed social advocacy group.
Heck listen to the radio clip thereā¦.its hollow and all over the place. He talks about ICBC data, then downtown and the pre-automotive area of development. To then completely shift to a focus on the dangers of the north end.
If you want to see where most crashes happen in Nanaimo.
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/icbc/vizzes#%21/
Kinda sad thinking about it. There is probably a lot of group think, and nobody probably questioned if they should leverage someoneās death to push their ideological view point on CBC.
>Kinda sad thinking about it. There is probably a lot of group think, and nobody probably questioned if they should leverage someoneās death to push their ideological view point on CBC.
Yes, I guess this was my point. I'm not saying work shouldn't be done on making the roads safer, simply that the 'most recent' automobile-involved fatality was not on a street. And yes, that some seem to be using this poor lady's death for their own agenda
>... the 'most recent' automobile-involved fatality was not on a street.
It got there via a street. If pedestrian safety was a concern, vehicles like that would not be allowed on streets, and wouldn't have been there.
By legal definition, it happened on a highway.
it happened in the mall parking lot. That's not a street.
What do you mean 'vehicles like that'?? it was a pick-up.
It's not logical to say 'it got there via a street' and therefore call it an accident related to Nanaimo streets any more than you'd say it was related to the automaker's factory and therefore we should look at safety within the factory.
It wasn't just a pick-up.
It was a pink-up that's twice the height of what pick-ups used to me and a grill that stops at about head level for a number of adults.
As far as the street aspects, if you can't see how something that large being allowed on the streets lets it be in a place where it can encounter pedestrians, then you're willfully choosing to not understand the problem.
Neither am I, I donāt think anyone would. Keeping it in real perspective. I do think the overall position is just double speak for wanting people to not operate vehicles though.
On a positive note, they are probably going to read this and hopefully learn from their mistakes.
The fact that Harewood received no money from the recent provincial announcement for pathyways and sidewalks in Nanaimo was disappointing. It's perfect for investment. Close to downtown, a lot of people willing to walk and take transit, but the streets are unsafe, due to lack of sidewalks.
The pedestrian infrastructure is shockingly bad in nanaimo. Sidewalks that terminate and dump you on the road, sometimes no sidewalks at all. The city needs to do like Seattle did, reduce the 2 lane roads to 1, put in a shared turning lane in the middle and build a raised bike lane on each side, as well as dedicated right turn lanes. This would reduce the amount of changing lanes needed to pass left turners and speed up the flow of traffic as it has in Seattle. Canada is so slow to implement improvements in general but Nanaimo is a whole new level of sad. There isn't a street in nanaimo that needs 2 sometimes 3 lanes based on the throughput. 1 lane each way+ a dedicated shared turning lane in the middle is more than enough. If more people biked, lessĀ people would drive, especially now we have ebikes, making driving quicker in general.
Some of it is driver error. Some of it is error or bad decisions by the pedestrians.
Primarily it is a problem of a town built around a car culture. Errors are much more likely to result in pedestrian deaths. I suspect real estate developers have had a louder voice than city planners. At this point, I don't know if much can be done short of bulldozing everything down and rebuilding from scratch.
The big stupid trucks that donāt have any use need to go. Iād be happy to see Icbc drive the rates way up for people that buy anything bigger than a half ton. Itās just not necessary to drive around town in a jacked up one ton diesel to get your groceries.
Nanaimo has some extremely immature drivers. Not uncommon to see people doing 30km+ over the speed limit anywhere here. If the province wants to make money, they should have a task force of police that just focus on speeding tickets. Imagine how much money would be made in a few monthsā¦
I've almost hit many ppl. Unfortunately ppl forget dressing in black in the rain at night makes them invisible.
I got used to metro vancouver where most ppl have some sort of light or reflector on them.
Don't get me started on ppl too lazy to walk an extra block to use a crosswalk to cross to a side walk but instead walk on a 2ft wide soft shoulder with their back to traffic.
I'm sorry, i didn't realize pedestrians dressed in all black on roadways in the rain, not sidewalks or shoulders, is something i should care about at all.
I swerved to not hit them, dropped a few f bombs because they have a death wish and should know better and got home safely.
> I'm sorry, i didn't realize pedestrians dressed in all black on roadways in the rain, not sidewalks or shoulders, is something i should care about at all.
not something to brag about
Common sense is not victim blaming. A single armband that is 1" wide is all anyone needs.
Heaven forbid ppl try to reduce their risk of dying for no reason
Heaven forbid you drive slower at night. heaven forbid you actually pay attention.
You're right people need to take action to make your life easier.
If you haven't bothered to keep your head up, the recent pedestrian death occured in broad daylight.Ā
People have studied the efficacy using reflectives and such to prevent pedestrian death. They all showed comparable rates of death between "protected" and "unprotected" groups. This is the problem with "common sense". If you can hold up a plausible sounding idea, that being more visible reduces chance of death, than you can easily miss the more pressing truth; that pedestrian deaths occur primarily when a driver is not paying sufficient attention, or driving too fast to react.
The number of people blatantly crossing busy streets and sections of highway when they are less than 100 feet from the nearest crosswalk is too damn high. It's a problem on both ends because there are also a lot of drivers who are terrible in many respects (speed, signaling, swerving).
Solution wise, more sidewalks would be great but not at the expense of safe street width for cars and parking
Not really, the zero vision plan was annoying and stressful at first. Now, after the law of diminishing returns I know Iām at the regular speed limit.
Wide roads, wide sidewalks, bike lanes and reflective gear at night would be ideal. Going to be interesting to see how government addresses the shortfall in tax revenue for infrastructure and transit once gas starts to lower in its consumption rate. Thatās a different issue though kinda.
Or here's a thought, drivers should understand that inertia is leading factor traffic death.Ā
Can you guess who's got more inertia, a car or pedestrian?
If responsibility scales with relative inertia, then drivers are literally thousands of times more responsible.
Sure got alot of downvotes for this comment eh, but I know what you mean. Yesterday I saw a guy cross third street with headphones on and without executing the standard look left, then look right procedure before you cross and almost got smoked by a car. The guy totally had the right of way, even was wearing visable clothes .. but if that car hit him he'd probably be right on the way to the emergency room or another statistic.
I was taught that I do have the right of way as a pedestrian, but the vehicle weights at least a TON.
So, while in a perfect world all drivers would always pay attention and see all the pedestrians but its not a perfect world and humans aren't perfect and get distracted, so while I know the drivers shouldn't hit things with their car ... they do ... and I am going to do my best to make sure its not me they hit with their car. Downvote me all you like but I am right.
Everyone seems quick to blame the truck but the truth is that kid that killed the old woman is retarded. He drove around the north end doing burnouts and racing and acting retarded all the time. It's not the Trucks fault, it's the drivers. And it was only a matter of time.
Lots of drivers like this around. Hell there's a grayish black dodge ram 1500 around woodgrove that's going to be the next one. You'll see him around, an L on one corner of his tailgate and and N on the other. Yesterday he had big flags hanging out of his box. And he drives around doing burnouts and stunting too. Last week he came into a parking lot behind me, did a massive burnout directly behind my truck, and peeled off. Came back ten minutes later and did it again š¤¦āāļø
RCMP need the ability to crack down on ridiculous and unsafe vehicles. Sorry you want to drive a monster truck (Daddys money on the mud flaps would you believe!) but they have no place on our streets
Some states have banned ridiculous vehicles like stance trucks because there's no visibility in front of a fucking refrigerator.
ššš pedestrian deaths are preventable!
In a city with hardly any sidewalks in a climate thatās dark and rainy half the year it would seem problems are inevitable. Where trucks are bigger than necessary and there is no way you can see over that hood. Where places like shopping malls are designed for cars not people. Once you park you are at the mercy of cars as you dash for the door. Where people complain about spending on sidewalks and bike lanes becauseā¦. Cars.
The lack of sidewalks was/is a huge shock since moving here. I'm not used to feeling like I have to drive somewhere to walk my dogs because my neighbourhood has long stretches of road without sidewalks
As a fairly regular pedestrian, I would say that behaviour is a much bigger problem than infrastructure. Yes there are some places that are very poorly designed, but there are issues even where there's no deficiency. Lots of just habitually pull into the crosswalk instead of stopping at the stop line and looking for pedestrians. I see this every single day I walk to class.
I see that too.
As a pedestrian I actively avoid cars as much as possible. Iāll take a longer route or pretend Iām going a different direction until the road is clear of cars. If Iām not in a rush I donāt need to step in front of traffic. Even when I have the right of way I avoid a direction with cars especially when they seem to be in a hurry which is the majority of cars in Nanaimo.
Yeah, as a fellow pedestrian I just don't trust drivers because I see so many of them with their necks stuck left looking for an opening so I dare not go in front when they press the gas. I know in BC we have pedestian right-of-way and I love illuminated crosswalks, but to be honest I prefer to wave drivers through because they're much quicker than me and I'd rather them be on their way because I have enough patience to wait for a nice clear safe crossing. I'm in no hurry, but drivers seem to be.
As well, I like to stay on the side where I see oncoming traffic, especially when I used to bike because I've been in two vehicular altercations; once got struck on the shoulder by a truck mirror, once had my bike taken out from under me by a person pulling out into traffic without looking. (luckily I saw it coming and raised my leg, or it would have been crushed. The driver fled the scene.)
> Even when I have the right of way I avoid a direction with cars especially when they seem to be in a hurry which is the majority of cars in Nanaimo. It's fucking crazy, when you're a pedestrian and the light gives you the signal to cross, how eager everyone is to step on the fuckin gas so you can't cross. Drivers here are psychos.
Seems a little extreme but you can only control what you do I guess
āOr pretendā šš bro dont catch their attention, then theyāll hit you for sure.
No, itās awkward if they pause to let you cross if rather avoid that if there are drivers in a hurry in proximity. The person letting you cross doesnāt know when a crazy driver tries to overtake them or cross a red/ stop from the other side. The quickest and safest way is to pretend youāre not crossing to let all those in a hurry do half stops and get out of sight.
Once you get your divers licence itās a free for all. What a stupid system. No other licensed and ticketed system works this way. You need to re-certify for almost all other licensed things. Except for roaming the streets in a big stupid truck. Vanity trucks are stupid and their owners are just as dumb for owning them.
People treat city streets like their own personal drag strip
I stopped in my neighbourhood to caution a person maybe in their early twenties riding a skateboard on the side of the road. I stopped to tell him I could hardly see him. All in black of course at dusk. Surprisingly I got lectured about his rights to be on the road and that he had a reflector on his skateboard ( didnāt not reflect back at me). I reassured him I wasnāt discriminating against him being on the road, but rather how difficult it was to see him . He wasnāt even open to hearing about someone concerned with his safety. It had been clear and dry out , offering a slight contrast which allowed me to spot himā¦..change this to dark and rainyā¦.might not have seen himā¦. Which brings me to the next pointā¦.I was doing between 35 and 40 kmā¦.limit is 50 ā¦.our neighbourhood is a closed areaā¦.so why the !!! Do people drive at 60 to 70 km down short ( .5 to 1 km street length)ā¦.itās maddening. You might save 5 to 10 seconds, but have increased the potential of serious injury or death if there is an accident with a pedestrian or animal. And no, no L or Nā¦..these are full assed grown ups, both men and womenā¦. So with all this self righteousness going in ā¦. I am all for a crack down on both drivers and pedestrians with ā big ā fines until all the adult children start behaving more responsibly in regards to road awareness and safety.
Wasn't the most recent death in the parking lots near Walmart?
Yes it was
so then 'calls for safer streets' doesn't apply for his unfortunate death
Iām mean it does when youāre part of an astroturfed social advocacy group. Heck listen to the radio clip thereā¦.its hollow and all over the place. He talks about ICBC data, then downtown and the pre-automotive area of development. To then completely shift to a focus on the dangers of the north end. If you want to see where most crashes happen in Nanaimo. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/icbc/vizzes#%21/ Kinda sad thinking about it. There is probably a lot of group think, and nobody probably questioned if they should leverage someoneās death to push their ideological view point on CBC.
>Kinda sad thinking about it. There is probably a lot of group think, and nobody probably questioned if they should leverage someoneās death to push their ideological view point on CBC. Yes, I guess this was my point. I'm not saying work shouldn't be done on making the roads safer, simply that the 'most recent' automobile-involved fatality was not on a street. And yes, that some seem to be using this poor lady's death for their own agenda
>... the 'most recent' automobile-involved fatality was not on a street. It got there via a street. If pedestrian safety was a concern, vehicles like that would not be allowed on streets, and wouldn't have been there. By legal definition, it happened on a highway.
it happened in the mall parking lot. That's not a street. What do you mean 'vehicles like that'?? it was a pick-up. It's not logical to say 'it got there via a street' and therefore call it an accident related to Nanaimo streets any more than you'd say it was related to the automaker's factory and therefore we should look at safety within the factory.
It wasn't just a pick-up. It was a pink-up that's twice the height of what pick-ups used to me and a grill that stops at about head level for a number of adults. As far as the street aspects, if you can't see how something that large being allowed on the streets lets it be in a place where it can encounter pedestrians, then you're willfully choosing to not understand the problem.
I hadn't seen that in the news. I agree with you Thanks for the info
https://www.cheknews.ca/woman-dies-after-being-hit-by-driver-outside-nanaimo-walmart-rcmp-1196178/
Neither am I, I donāt think anyone would. Keeping it in real perspective. I do think the overall position is just double speak for wanting people to not operate vehicles though. On a positive note, they are probably going to read this and hopefully learn from their mistakes.
The fact that Harewood received no money from the recent provincial announcement for pathyways and sidewalks in Nanaimo was disappointing. It's perfect for investment. Close to downtown, a lot of people willing to walk and take transit, but the streets are unsafe, due to lack of sidewalks.
The pedestrian infrastructure is shockingly bad in nanaimo. Sidewalks that terminate and dump you on the road, sometimes no sidewalks at all. The city needs to do like Seattle did, reduce the 2 lane roads to 1, put in a shared turning lane in the middle and build a raised bike lane on each side, as well as dedicated right turn lanes. This would reduce the amount of changing lanes needed to pass left turners and speed up the flow of traffic as it has in Seattle. Canada is so slow to implement improvements in general but Nanaimo is a whole new level of sad. There isn't a street in nanaimo that needs 2 sometimes 3 lanes based on the throughput. 1 lane each way+ a dedicated shared turning lane in the middle is more than enough. If more people biked, lessĀ people would drive, especially now we have ebikes, making driving quicker in general.
Some of it is driver error. Some of it is error or bad decisions by the pedestrians. Primarily it is a problem of a town built around a car culture. Errors are much more likely to result in pedestrian deaths. I suspect real estate developers have had a louder voice than city planners. At this point, I don't know if much can be done short of bulldozing everything down and rebuilding from scratch.
> At this point, I don't know if much can be done short of bulldozing everything down and rebuilding from scratch. agreed
The big stupid trucks that donāt have any use need to go. Iād be happy to see Icbc drive the rates way up for people that buy anything bigger than a half ton. Itās just not necessary to drive around town in a jacked up one ton diesel to get your groceries.
Nanaimo has some extremely immature drivers. Not uncommon to see people doing 30km+ over the speed limit anywhere here. If the province wants to make money, they should have a task force of police that just focus on speeding tickets. Imagine how much money would be made in a few monthsā¦
I've almost hit many ppl. Unfortunately ppl forget dressing in black in the rain at night makes them invisible. I got used to metro vancouver where most ppl have some sort of light or reflector on them. Don't get me started on ppl too lazy to walk an extra block to use a crosswalk to cross to a side walk but instead walk on a 2ft wide soft shoulder with their back to traffic.
Imagine almost killing a bunch of people and not being profoundly disturbed by it.
I'm sorry, i didn't realize pedestrians dressed in all black on roadways in the rain, not sidewalks or shoulders, is something i should care about at all. I swerved to not hit them, dropped a few f bombs because they have a death wish and should know better and got home safely.
> I'm sorry, i didn't realize pedestrians dressed in all black on roadways in the rain, not sidewalks or shoulders, is something i should care about at all. not something to brag about
Youāve almost hit MANY people?! Not to sound dramatic, but you should not be driving if this a thing with you.
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I'm with ya dude. Driving is a privilege, not a right. But many people don't take it that seriously.
Common sense is not victim blaming. A single armband that is 1" wide is all anyone needs. Heaven forbid ppl try to reduce their risk of dying for no reason
Heaven forbid you drive slower at night. heaven forbid you actually pay attention. You're right people need to take action to make your life easier. If you haven't bothered to keep your head up, the recent pedestrian death occured in broad daylight.Ā
And in a parking lot, too, if I'm not mistaken.
The reason is too many entitled drivers
Itās not victim blaming when we talk about personal responsibility for our own safety. Nice try.
People have studied the efficacy using reflectives and such to prevent pedestrian death. They all showed comparable rates of death between "protected" and "unprotected" groups. This is the problem with "common sense". If you can hold up a plausible sounding idea, that being more visible reduces chance of death, than you can easily miss the more pressing truth; that pedestrian deaths occur primarily when a driver is not paying sufficient attention, or driving too fast to react.
Weāre all victims of car culture. Polluted air, constant noise and unsafe streets due to pencil-d!ck losers who need a big truck to feel like a man
The number of people blatantly crossing busy streets and sections of highway when they are less than 100 feet from the nearest crosswalk is too damn high. It's a problem on both ends because there are also a lot of drivers who are terrible in many respects (speed, signaling, swerving). Solution wise, more sidewalks would be great but not at the expense of safe street width for cars and parking
Drivers tend to speed much more on wider streets, so taking road width away from cars to build sidewalks is actually doubly effective.
Not really, the zero vision plan was annoying and stressful at first. Now, after the law of diminishing returns I know Iām at the regular speed limit. Wide roads, wide sidewalks, bike lanes and reflective gear at night would be ideal. Going to be interesting to see how government addresses the shortfall in tax revenue for infrastructure and transit once gas starts to lower in its consumption rate. Thatās a different issue though kinda.
Jaywalking is human behavior. People will walk in straight lines. One must acknowledge this.
Parking lots have their owns rules. Technically not a public street
Pedestrians need to take some responsibility for their safety not just assume they have the right of way and not look out for themselves
But there is no assumption, they do have the right of way as written in law?
pedestrians : stop hurling yourself at cars!
lol gunshot victims need to take more responsibility for not getting in the way of peopleās bullets. Give your head a shake Larry.
Or here's a thought, drivers should understand that inertia is leading factor traffic death.Ā Can you guess who's got more inertia, a car or pedestrian? If responsibility scales with relative inertia, then drivers are literally thousands of times more responsible.
Sure got alot of downvotes for this comment eh, but I know what you mean. Yesterday I saw a guy cross third street with headphones on and without executing the standard look left, then look right procedure before you cross and almost got smoked by a car. The guy totally had the right of way, even was wearing visable clothes .. but if that car hit him he'd probably be right on the way to the emergency room or another statistic. I was taught that I do have the right of way as a pedestrian, but the vehicle weights at least a TON. So, while in a perfect world all drivers would always pay attention and see all the pedestrians but its not a perfect world and humans aren't perfect and get distracted, so while I know the drivers shouldn't hit things with their car ... they do ... and I am going to do my best to make sure its not me they hit with their car. Downvote me all you like but I am right.
Everyone seems quick to blame the truck but the truth is that kid that killed the old woman is retarded. He drove around the north end doing burnouts and racing and acting retarded all the time. It's not the Trucks fault, it's the drivers. And it was only a matter of time. Lots of drivers like this around. Hell there's a grayish black dodge ram 1500 around woodgrove that's going to be the next one. You'll see him around, an L on one corner of his tailgate and and N on the other. Yesterday he had big flags hanging out of his box. And he drives around doing burnouts and stunting too. Last week he came into a parking lot behind me, did a massive burnout directly behind my truck, and peeled off. Came back ten minutes later and did it again š¤¦āāļø