Sparkcycle
Well-known member
Pedestrians should cross the street as if their life depends on it... because IT DOES!
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The Bad Drivers of Ontario Thread
- Thread starter Boots
- Start date
PLau
Well-known member
Some do care, and some don't. The way our pedestrian laws are (not) enforced, pedestrians that don't care will continue to not care.
As drivers/riders, they know that if we were to hit them, chances are that we're at fault. Even if there are other witnesses, it is an uphill battle for the driver.
He might have thought that the bicycle between the two southbound lanes on Jameson was a motorcycle.
Yep, just checked the idiot driver's handbook. Unsignalled, no shoulder/mirror check u-turns from a dead stop while on the phone are totally legit. Barely managed to dodge one of those a few months back. Had to pull over to let the adrenaline shakes subside.
Lane blockers like those shown in Matt Rain's video are a daily occurrence for me. The drivers simply jut out into traffic, despite no space to enter the flow of traffic. Even an oncoming gravel truck (or police cruiser) is no deterrent. People are really that thick.
Here's a new one (I think), courtesy of the suburbs. Turkeys driving well over the speed limit in the median for hundreds of meters. That was this morning on the way to gas up. Watch those mirrors ladies and gents.
Every day in that left turn example I posted earlier. Everyone is in a freakin rush!
Sent from a Samsung Galaxy far, far away using Tapatalk
I like to get into the right turn lane early, it makes you more predictable.
You seemed to be a little late, and may have even gotten the solid line.
If someone had pulled in quickly, you'd have cut them off.
The thing is that they could lay thousands of charges per day in the GTA, and it still wouldn't seem enforced.
Not only that, but they'd get complaints about ticket quotas, and this bogus cash grab.
"Why aren't they out catching real criminals?" etc. etc.
It's a sketchy stretch of road, this. That turn lane is fed directly from the Gardiner off-ramp:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.6329167,-79.4319165,279m/data=!3m1!1e3
For those of us traveling westbound on Lakeshore, there is very little space and time to move into the turning lane. I believe that a rider died there recently. Dangerous design.
PLau
Well-known member
Yup, but they don't make the laws - just enforce it. They're just doing their job.
Now where does the cop draw the line of which laws they choose to enforce? People ***** and complain about 'bogus laws' such as our wonderful stunting law, or even going 15km/h over the speed limit, with a "thats ********" response.
In the case of public safety, jaywalking seems way more dangerous to drivers on the road AND pedestrians.
Cops don't seem to care if they're being blamed for trying to reach a quota or making money for the municipality regardless, so why not ticket pedestrians?
I hear you. There's all kinds of people that will move into that lane and then go straight through for the Gardiner ramp as well.
I was almost hit a couple of times near there coming East on Lakeshore and making the Left turn onto British Columbia. People would roar up in the leftmost through lane, slam on the brakes and try and cut in, assuming that everyone on the left turn lane was getting onto the Gardiner, which was not the case.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/30/traffic-officers-upset-with-quotas-in-torontos-31-division
According to the Star and their freedom of information act data, there were over 9,000 charges laid in 18 months up to June 6, 2013. There are people here who will claim that motorcyclists' only offer injury to themselves, when misbehaving in traffic, that has to be even more the case with pedestrians. Oh, and above is a link to a memo that some cops complained about. Something about quotas.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/09/05/data_shows_torontonians_love_to_jaywalk_and_sometimes_pay_the_price.html
PLau
Well-known member
I'd be interested in seeing the stats for 2015 as a quick search only shows data for 2013 and earlier.
Last week I saw a pedestrian jaywalk in front of a cop car causing the cop to slam on their brakes in the middle of the street but was just given 'the wtf are you doing?' hand and proceeded (maybe answering to another call?).
Don't get me wrong, in terms of jaywalking, there is a time and place to be doing it (ie. no traffic, not close to intersections where a car can pull out from the next street). The fact that many jaywalkers I see now literally walk right in front of moving traffic on the roadway not looking up to see if the way is clear before proceeding is mind boggling - or even worse, when they're walking through stopped traffic and don't stop to look around the corner when the next lane appears to be clear.
A cop could stand 50 feet north of Yonge and Front, and burn through a whole ticket book in less than an hour.
You wouldn't believe the number of people walking north on Bay, who've nonchalantly stepped out in front of me as I was making a left turn on a red light at Bay and Richmond.
On my way home tonight, at Victoria and Dundas, I had a woman Walk out into the street exactly as her light went red, which put her dead in front of my car when the light went green. I honked at her, which earned my a sniff and continued feigned ignorance to my presence. I really wanted to just run her down.
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