06-08-2016, 01:13 PM
(06-08-2016, 12:22 PM)MidTowner Wrote:(06-08-2016, 11:24 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Arguably running onto a street without looking, and getting hit by a car is a tragic and completely avoidable scenario for which the pedestrian has no excuse.
Residential streets are bound to have lots of pedestrian-vehicle interactions. The onus is on ALL parties to pay attention.
I guess “being a child” is not an excuse, but saying that a ten-year-old girl has “no excuse” for an action that led to her being injured seems a bit callous. I think most people recognize that children, being children, sometimes do things that are less than sensible.
I actually brought this up because I consider it to be a good news story (while really hoping that the little girl experiences no lasting impact from the collision) in that we could have been reading about somebody doing 60 (which is of course routine in a 50kpf zone) and striking and killing a child with his car.
I think it’s safe to assume that the driver was not driving excessively fast along this residential street- at less than 50kpm, an adult stands a good chance of dying when struck, so that she has “non-life-threatening injuries” suggests lower speeds. From the limited information, I assume it would have been very difficult for the driver to see around the construction vehicle to see the girl crossing. Fact is, higher speeds do kill, and it's not particularly unusual for kids to sometimes dart into the road- so slow down.
I was just reusing the words ("no excuse" etc) from the previous poster.
A classmate of my 10-year-old niece (in another country, far far away), was hit by a car while cycling across a crosswalk in a semi-rural setting. He didn't stop or look, and the car that was coming was not able to stop in time. Much the same situation as the one above -- except that he ended up in intensive care, and took a long time to recover.
In the case of children, the onus is really on the parents to explain to them early about the dangers of traffic, and to teach them the safe ways to cross streets. Unless we completely ban cars (and motorcycles, and mopeds, and bicycles, and horses, and ...) there is always danger in traffic. This needs to get drilled into children at an early age.
To repeat my point: everyone has to take care: drivers, cyclists, pedestrians. Assuming that the other person will do so is foolish and dangerous, and potentially deadly.