Two serious pedestrian incidents in two days raise questions
Two serious crashes in two days are reported to have resulted in significant injury to pedestrians, one a child aged 14, the second a senior aged 72. Overall, 22% of fatal and injury crash victims in the HRM are vulnerable road users, despite being involved in only 4% of overall crashes (page 14). This means that pedestrians, including children, people with disabilities and seniors, face multiple times the level of danger and harm experienced by vehicle occupants in the HRM.
Various Motions, Key Deliverables and Action Plans have been developed by Council, all intended to address the disproportionate danger and harm experienced by pedestrians in the HRM. Some were never developed at all, some did not identify key issues, others did not set out how to adequately address systemic harm at particularly dangerous locations, such as wider intersections.
Our current Road Safety Strategy identifies the vulnerable road user safety crisis, but does not set out how the systemic harm will be reduced, and when appropriate actions will be taken.
We call on Councillors to propose the development of a comprehensive vulnerable road user action safety plan to address this long standing crisis. This plan should identify key causes of harm, and how to address them using Vision Zero methodology and a systemic approach to road safety. Harm prevention is critical, action is needed now!
