Video of a young woman being struck by a car that ran a red light in Victoria on Thursday morning provoked shock and rage from many who watched the widely shared clip.
People took to social media to share their anger that the driver didn’t stop after tossing the woman onto her head, and noted the driver hadn’t bothered to clear snow from side and back windows.
But to many who walk and ride often, the incident, while difficult to watch, wasn’t that surprising. It was another in a long list of frightening experiences on Greater Victoria roads, reminding some of the time they had been hit or the near misses they’ve had.
“I think these things happen a lot more than you’re ever going to see on the news,” said Thomas Guerrero, who runs a blog called Sidewalking Victoria where he shares a “very pedestrian point of view” on the city.
Guerrero said many times he has had to jump back to avoid being struck by a vehicle or stop before crossing despite having the right of way.
“I even had one incident over near my work where somebody kind of grabbed the back of my jacket, because I didn’t look and somebody had run a red,” he said.
Most people are unlikely to report an incident to police in which a car nearly hit them, but a new crowd-sourcing tool that maps barriers to walking and rolling allows people to share these near misses.
In the few months since WalkRollMap.org launched, at least a dozen incidents have been logged in Greater Victoria, from a driver in North Park that didn’t stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk “gesturing frantically” to a left-turning motorist on Admirals Road hitting the brakes “within inches” of someone in a crosswalk.
“Trying to cross at Linden and Fairfield a giant truck went to turn right and myself and my daughter had to jump in the curb to avoid being crushed,” one person reported in June. “The driver did not see us or look and was focused on speeding traffic along Fairfield.”
Seven pedestrians are killed by drivers on average each year on Vancouver Island, according to ICBC crash statistics. Rallies for improvements to road safety in Saanich were held after 16-year-old Kaydence Bourque was killed in a crosswalk on Dec. 6 while walking home after working a shift at Market on Yates.
Many more are injured each year. The young woman struck Thursday joins the more than 300 pedestrians who are injured annually on Island roads.
“They may not have died, but they have lifelong injuries — physical and mental. And you know, we as a society have to ask how many people do we want to injure permanently? Or do we want to maybe not do that? And let’s go out and figure out how we don’t do that,” said Corey Burger, policy and infrastructure chair at Capital Bike.
There are infrastructure and engineering solutions possible, such as adding more intersection safety cameras that capture and automatically ticket drivers running red lights, but there’s no “magic bullet” to improving road safety, Burger said.
It will take commitment from all levels of government, which each hold different responsibilities: the federal government mandates how cars are designed, the province controls road rules and local governments decide what streets look like, he said.
“One of the key things we don’t do is we don’t really go out there and get a really good picture of safety at that comprehensive level. And part of the challenge is we don’t really have a single agency that does safety at the regional level,” Burger said.
Tracking near misses is a crucial part of understanding road safety, helping to predict how many crashes are going to occur in a given location, he said.
Individual drivers have a role to play, as well, and Burger suggests people who primarily drive for transportation get out from behind their windshield and go for a walk or bike ride, if they can, to experience the roads from the perspective of a vulnerable road user.
“Experience the idea that, hey, this could be me. It’s something I’m reminded of every time I get behind the wheel,” Burger said. “We sometimes call it windshield perspective, and it’s easy to fall into that, where because you see the world through your windshield, things like people walking across the road suddenly become things that are challenges as opposed to ‘Oh, that’s also a person out there getting somewhere.’ ”
Victoria police seized a vehicle Friday that closely resembles the car involved in Thursday morning’s hit and run. The young woman was taken to hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and is at home recovering.
VicPD continue to investigate and ask anyone who has video of or information about the incident who has not yet spoken to police to call 250-995-7654, extension 1 or report anonymously to Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
