Comment 88634

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted May 11, 2013 at 11:40:58 in reply to Comment 88628

Of the total collisions, only 7.5% involved pedestrians. So the figure you quote for total collisions only shows that Hamilton is relatively safe for motorists.

This article concerns making the streets safer, more convenient and more comfortable for pedestrians.

Hamilton has a very low rate of walking overall compared to Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver and this is largely a result of a transportation policy geared towards high speed convenient roads for motorists.

This includes narrow sidewalks (leaving more space for motorist lanes), no buffers (trees etc.), very few pedestrian crossings (often several blocks with no safe crossing point on major and minor arterials), and wide turning radii (encouraging high speed turns). The pedestrian unfriendliness of one-way streets has been documented extensively here and elsewhere.

Since improving conditions for pedestrians also lowers collisions for motorists, the City could achieve even better safety for motorists by becoming more pedestrian friendly.

Like Sweden, we should be aiming for zero collisions and injuries. Even the relatively low injury rate is unacceptable (each resident has a 1% chance of being injured each year). This means that a 65 year old has a 50% chance of having suffered an injury in a traffic accident ... not negligible at all (actually the chance is much higher because the accident rate has been dropping).

p.s. if you are upset about being downvoted you could start by using a more respectful screen name...instead of one that screams 'I am a troll'. You could also register ...

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