It was a tale of one intersection and three pedestrians Tuesday morning.
I was standing in the broadcast studio for CFIS-FM in the Q3 building at the corner of Quebec and Third. It was just before 9. I run the production board while Eric Allen hosts After Nine on Tuesdays, so I was just biding my time and doing some people watching.
I saw three different people come to the intersection on foot, almost simultaneously. One of them crossed Third from the corner by the Intersect Youth Services office to where our studio is located. She walked up onto the sidewalk, turned to face across Quebec, looked both ways, then crossed again.
At virtually the same time, a man started across Quebec from near the Farmers’ Market building. As he got close to the Intersect corner, he cut the corner without actually going onto the sidewalk and continued across Third to the corner with our studio.
The third person, another woman, started from the Farmers’ Market building, and just came straight across the intersection to the Q3 corner.
All I could think of watching her was “I sure hope you checked for traffic before you did that”.
I mean there are some drivers in Prince George who don’t seem to have any concept of what a crosswalk is at the best of times. I can only imagine what they would think of if a pedestrian walked right in front of them, without being anywhere close to a crosswalk.
One evening last week I saw another pedestrian who also had a strange way of doing things.
Actually, he and his dog were just on the sidewalk, apparently taking a bit of a break from their walk. I could see the dog fairly well, since it had a sparkling electric collar of some sort on. It was lucky the dog was dressed for safety, because the owner was dressed totally in dark clothing, with no flashlight or headlamp or anything to show where they were.
I’m assuming before they went for the walk, the dog looked at how the owner was dressed and went and grabbed the special collar, figuring: “They might not see my owner, but I’m going to make it tough to not see me.”
Yes, it is (slowly) staying lighter later, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore simple safety concepts.
Make sure you can be seen – especially if you’re going to cut right across the middle of a downtown intersection.