One, two, three cars whiz by in a video of nine-year-old Marshall Simmons standing at an unmarked crosswalk on Acadia Drive S.E. in Calgary as he waits to cross on his way to school.
The boy’s father, Keith Simmons, posted the video to Twitter on Wednesday morning in hopes of reminding drivers to slow down and keep an eye out for pedestrians on residential streets.
Simmons says each day his son walks to Acadia School, just a couple of blocks away, for an 8 a.m. start. At this time of year, he’s walking when the sun isn’t quite up.
Taken from the front door of the family home, he called his son’s experience captured on video a “relatively typical interaction with the street” — which is a T-intersection at Acadia Drive and 5 Street.
Earlier this year, an elderly woman was killed when she and her granddaughter were struck in a crosswalk a short distance away from the Simmons’ home. Her granddaughter was seriously injured.
WATCH: A Calgary father is raising safety concerns after capturing footage of his son trying to cross the street at an unmarked crosswalk. Adam Vicar explains.
Simmons said he and his wife have been trying to teach their son the importance of safely crossing the street, as they’ve been letting him walk to school alone as he gets older.
“He said to me a day or two ago, ‘Hey dad, guess what? Eight cars didn’t stop for me today,'” Simmons said Wednesday.
“I figured… I’ll go out and put the video on him and see if people are waiting to behave well and low and behold, they show their true colours.”
Simmons said as part of teaching their son about crosswalk safety, he and his wife told Marshall to make sure he’s seen and that vehicles are stopped before walking into the roadway.
“My instruction has been, ‘Go out as far as you can so that you can be seen, make sure that you have an escape route if somebody should happen to get way too close to you and make sure that that traffic stops,'” Simmons said.
Simmons said he appreciates the conversation around making eye contact with a driver before crossing, but suggested that’s not always possible, especially if it’s dark like it is in the video.
He added he’s taught his son about sticking his hand out to get attention, and is sympathetic to arguments about pedestrians wearing bright clothing, but believes safety shouldn’t only be the priority of those on foot.
“If you were a troller, for instance, you’d watch that video and go, ‘How come that kid’s not wearing a reflective vest? How come he’s wearing a black hoodie? And, he should be wearing flashing disco lights,'” Simmons said.
“Drivers are the ones with the operator’s licences and they’re the ones who have 3,500-pound missile.”
Responsibility is 50/50
According to the City of Calgary website, “Pedestrians do have the right of way at marked and unmarked crosswalks.”
However the city warns pedestrians to “be careful” as “some drivers might not know that rule or always follow it. Being right won’t keep you from being hit.”
Police say it’s 50/50 when it comes to responsibility at crosswalks — pedestrians need to make themselves seen and drivers also need to be on the lookout.
“Generally, throughout Calgary… pedestrians are allowed to just cross the walk,” Const. Les Mills said. “They have priority over vehicles, but parents need to be teaching children that they have some responsibility, as well.
“There are things in place that they’ll teach at the schools at the moment where the child will stand at the side of the road, make eye contact with the vehicles as they come toward them, make sure there’s a definite change in speed, i.e. the vehicle is slowing down, put their arm straight out. That gives a clear indication that the child isn’t just standing at the side of the road.”
Simmons is also a supporter of the proposal to change Calgary’s residential speed limits to 30 kilometres per hour.
City Councillor Druh Farrell, who introduced the motion for the speed limit change, said Simmons’ video shows a scenario that’s played out in thousands of crosswalks across the city each day. She’s a strong advocate for changing the city’s streets to make them more pedestrian friendly.
“What I saw in that video was a child doing the right thing, trying to cross, looking both ways, and the driver simply wasn’t stopping,” Farrell said.
“We’ve built a city — in many ways and in many areas — that’s very difficult to navigate for a pedestrian.”
Farrell said the issue isn’t just around unmarked crosswalks, noting people don’t always comply with the marked ones either.
“We have an issue of driver behaviour and we have an issue of design,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is change that behaviour.”
Farrell is hosting a pedestrian and traffic safety forum in Ward 7 on Thursday at 7:30 p.m at the Capitol Hill Community Association.
Comments