If you don't like how I drive, stay off the sidewalk
Victoria has to be one least of the least pedestrian friendly cities in Canada. Other locations are poor because of poor weather but Victoria is ideal from that perspective.
I have ranted too much about bicyclists who mow down pedestrians. So I will not do so again here.
Pursing snatching and swarmings are rampant. Some cases are reported to police. If you are brave enough to walk during the off hours, you're taking your life in own hands. One stretch of Lampson Ave has seen over a half-dozen vicious swarmings in the last five years.
A strategic hodge-podge of zoning has led to office, residential and industrial zones nuzzled up to one another. Because commercial vehicles are large, police are less likely to pull them over because of the traffic disruption and the heat they would take for delaying vehicle on its way to doing its business. This is what I found a few years ago when we were returning from Vancouver. We were driving toward the turn off into the Sidney. We hit a red light and stopped. A freight truck off of the ferry did like red lights, so he sounded his horn and blasted right through the middle of the red light. Shocked, we phoned 9-1-1 to report this. 9-1-1 operators passed us from the Sidney RCMP to the Central Saanich RCMP to the Saanich Police. All of them didn't know how to deal with a report of a vehicle running a red light, when furnished with only a description, a license plate number, and a real time account of the vehicle's position. Eventually Saanich Police caught up to the truck. While we were watching, the police cruiser paced the truck then drove away: no pull over. Nothing. When I challenged the cop on the report desk, he said it was hard to tell if this was the vehicle and it appeared to be operating properly. A little over a year later, on the same stretch of highway where Saanich police went to sleep over this speed Mack truck, a very similar truck struck a woman while she was pushing her infant in a stroller.
When was the last time you saw a speeding commercial vehicle? Or when was the last time you saw one breaking the law? How about the last time one was pulled over by police? I can't think of a single time.
This is my message to the police: WAKE UP. There are too many people with camera-equipped cellphones, Youtube and Flickr accounts. If you sleepwalk through your job with a sense of impervinous, your days are numbered. Police will not be embarassed by public displays of their failures, but this material can become fodder for legal battles. Legal battles that could find police liable for their negligence and dereliction of duty.
Yesterday, a Van-Kam freight truck turning the corner from Blanshard to Bay St, climbed the curb and crushed a six year old boy under his back wheels. Police are uncertain if charges will be laid. Defacto permission to drive on the sidewalk and grind children under the wheels of commerce. Literally. If the truck driver is not charged, it will lay bare the police attitude toward commercial vehicles.
I have ranted too much about bicyclists who mow down pedestrians. So I will not do so again here.
Pursing snatching and swarmings are rampant. Some cases are reported to police. If you are brave enough to walk during the off hours, you're taking your life in own hands. One stretch of Lampson Ave has seen over a half-dozen vicious swarmings in the last five years.
A strategic hodge-podge of zoning has led to office, residential and industrial zones nuzzled up to one another. Because commercial vehicles are large, police are less likely to pull them over because of the traffic disruption and the heat they would take for delaying vehicle on its way to doing its business. This is what I found a few years ago when we were returning from Vancouver. We were driving toward the turn off into the Sidney. We hit a red light and stopped. A freight truck off of the ferry did like red lights, so he sounded his horn and blasted right through the middle of the red light. Shocked, we phoned 9-1-1 to report this. 9-1-1 operators passed us from the Sidney RCMP to the Central Saanich RCMP to the Saanich Police. All of them didn't know how to deal with a report of a vehicle running a red light, when furnished with only a description, a license plate number, and a real time account of the vehicle's position. Eventually Saanich Police caught up to the truck. While we were watching, the police cruiser paced the truck then drove away: no pull over. Nothing. When I challenged the cop on the report desk, he said it was hard to tell if this was the vehicle and it appeared to be operating properly. A little over a year later, on the same stretch of highway where Saanich police went to sleep over this speed Mack truck, a very similar truck struck a woman while she was pushing her infant in a stroller.When was the last time you saw a speeding commercial vehicle? Or when was the last time you saw one breaking the law? How about the last time one was pulled over by police? I can't think of a single time.
This is my message to the police: WAKE UP. There are too many people with camera-equipped cellphones, Youtube and Flickr accounts. If you sleepwalk through your job with a sense of impervinous, your days are numbered. Police will not be embarassed by public displays of their failures, but this material can become fodder for legal battles. Legal battles that could find police liable for their negligence and dereliction of duty.
Yesterday, a Van-Kam freight truck turning the corner from Blanshard to Bay St, climbed the curb and crushed a six year old boy under his back wheels. Police are uncertain if charges will be laid. Defacto permission to drive on the sidewalk and grind children under the wheels of commerce. Literally. If the truck driver is not charged, it will lay bare the police attitude toward commercial vehicles.
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