Raise the Hammer

I don't mean to be an ass, but...I took the energy to compare your list of bad stretches to the list of accidents on the OGDI posted yesterday. Results below:

The police advise pedestrians to cross only at crosswalks but do not advise our traffic engineers to install more crosswalks. Consider that on Main Street East, there are no signalized crossings:

Between Walnut and Wellington, a distance of 350 metres;

One accident

Between Tisdale and Wentworth, a distance of 350 metres;

Zero accidents

Between Sanford and Fairleigh, a distance of 300 metres;

Zero accidents

Between Fairleigh and Sherman, a distance of 350 metres;

Zero accidents

Between Sherman and Springer, a distance of 350 metres;

Zero accidents

Between Springer and Gage, a distance of 500 metres - that's half a kilometre;

Zero accidents

Between Gage and King, a distance of 500 metres (another half kilometre) - but there is a highway-style on-ramp from Main eastbound onto King heading southeast.

Zero accidents

A quick purview of the data shows, in fact, that the majority of the accidents occur at signalized intersections. Of course, the biggest thing missing from this data is dates; I've no idea what kind of date range we're looking at there. The other caveat being the mis-reporting of location. If someone asks me where I live in Hamilton, I'll name the nearest major intersection, as the likelyhood of their knowing my little street is rather slim. I would imagine accident reporting is similar.

(On a side note...have you ever considered implementing bbcode as the method of formatting text? It's a well-known formatting language, and for those unfamiliary with it, rich-text-style editors for it abound...)

Comment edited by jonathan on 2011-04-07 20:31:51