Editor:
Mid-morning on Tuesday, July 29, I witnessed a near miss.
A pedestrian walking up Trail Avenue paused and checked before crossing at the Ebbtide corner. A white half-ton truck travelling in the same direction and signalling to turn right onto Ebbtide slowed to allow her to cross.
She had taken four or five steps, when the driver hit the gas and started into his turn immediately behind her. At that moment a black van roared across the intersection from Ebbtide right in front of her. For a moment she was caught between two moving vehicles both bound for the same driving lane immediately beside her.
Luckily no one was hurt this time.
Most every pedestrian has a near-miss story: stories of having just cleared a vehicle’s bumper by centimetres when it roars past behind them, stories of vehicles cutting them off in a marked crosswalk. Are these drivers that pressed for time, do they think the rules don’t apply to them, or is it a simple mistake?
Yes, some pedestrians are oblivious to the world as they wander across the street. Annoying as that may be, drivers still don’t get to “hurry them up.”
Carol Oslie, Sechelt
