Yeah, and that's why the 30 km/hr 'slow zones' get enlarged to not just in front of schools but for a good chunk on either side of them, like our neighborhood.
Edmonton dropped to 40 km/hr in regular residential, and it's not that crazy when you think about it. There really isn't much time if a kid darts out like that
I disagree with moving to 40kph in regular residential. Can we agree that modern vehicles stop quicker, handle better, and have safety systems to make them safer like auto braking. So what has changed with humans?
What has changed is that we are finally realizing that for the past ~80 years we have been prioritizing the car over every other method of personal transportation and that has resulted in making streets much more dangerous than they need to be. All the things we do that allow cars to go faster – wider lanes, high radius street corners, removing trees beside streets, etc. – make things dangerous not only for pedestrians and cyclists but also for drivers and passengers.
We can try to put the onus on pedestrians as much as we want but it doesn't change a very fundamental truth: When a pedestrian makes a mistake and gets hit by a car (as nearly happened in GBA's video), the chance of death or serious injury is extremely high. When a driver makes a similar mistake and hits a pedestrian, the chance of injury or death is nearly zero. And even if as a pedestrian you follow all the rules, so many drivers who are low skilled to begin with are further enabled to drive faster and remain ignorant of their surroundings thanks to poor street design, that being a pedestrian is still inherently much more dangerous than it should be.
I think that lowering limits to 40 or even 30 in residential areas is good. The problem is that it isn't good enough. If a street is designed for higher speeds, people will drive faster. It needs to be in combination with actual design changes like bump outs at intersections, raised crosswalks, street trees, expanding on street parking, narrower lanes, etc.
This. So much This.
Even just walking the dog around the neighbourhood, I'll notice drivers slow down for a stop sign then run it, even though I'm standing there waiting to cross.
My Daughter rides her bike to school most days, and sometimes at lunch or after school, her and a friend will ride their bikes to McDonalds to get an ice cream or a small snack. She's 11, and for us parents that sort of thing is an important part of her developing some self-reliance and learning how to interact in the world without her parents to guide her through it.
She has to cross a regional street to get to McDonalds from our neighbourhood. There is a crosswalk (unsignaled, just a sign and some lines on the ground) that she needs to use to cross that street. I've lost count of the number of times that people driving completely miss or willfully ignore that there is somebody waiting to cross at the crosswalk, and a line of cars just keeps driving through until eventually there is a break in traffic, or SOMEBODY stops to let the pedestrian cross. We've taught my daughter to be VERY cognizant of the fact that drivers just don't or won't see her, so to be extra cautious when crossing at that location.
A few years ago in Grade six she was a crossing guard at her school. She had the yellow vest and flag - the whole kit. She was still in the crosswalk flagging someone across when some douchebag in a work truck just drove right through and came within inches of hitting her.
I think that Johnny Mac's argument of blaming pedestrians holds very little water. I think the onus is much more on terrible drivers. Or poor street design. Our streets are designed to allow cars go faster than they should be going, especially in residential neighbourhoods, or high pedestrian areas.
