So I am walking with my boys, aged 5 and 2 (pretty young). We get to Scott. I am teaching my 5 year old how to cross the road. We look right, no car. We look left, a car. We wait. Fortunately the driver on the left sees children and stopped and waives us to go.
We start walking. We are perhaps a quarter way through when an SUV turns into Scott and decides to fly through it. We are about half-way through when I realize that the driver perhaps does not intend to stop. I keep trying to make eye contact with the driver to determine her intentions but she ignores me. Eventually she maintains her speed and drives around us (and “us” includes a 5 year old and a 2 year old).
What’s with people? Are we really in such a hurry that we won’t even stop for children who are already half-way through crossing a road? Another Milton Blogger, Mike Cluett, just complained about aggressive driving. Just last month someone wrote a letter in Milton Canadian Champion urging drivers to slow down when they drive through her community. Would the extra 15 seconds it would have taken for my kids and I to cross the street really so valuable that you figured it was better to risk their lives instead?
It seems to be a never ending story. I’ve blogged about speeding and aggressive driving many times in the past. When I ran for council in 2006, community safety was one of the key parts of my campaign.
Its not enough for more rules and regulations, although its the quickest way to get things done. The better way to solve the problem is to “get” to people and make them realize speeding in a residential area is wrong. Too many people are put at risk because YOU are running behind or even worse, simply careless.
Ive also talked about traffic calming zones that are quite successful in other municipalities being put in place in Milton. As an example, its similar to a speed bump, but more subtle. It still requires the driver to slow down as they go over it, but it can keep the flow of traffic moving.
Many people that I spoke with back then supported an idea like that or simply a reduction in the speed limit in residential areas from 50km/hr to 40km/hr. Its impossible to have the police on every street corner and simply putting up stop signs at everywhere wont solve the problem.
We have to “get” to people…do you “get” it? :)
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