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By kevlahan (registered) | Posted August 22, 2013 at 15:06:07 in reply to Comment 91248
As far as I can tell, the law (i.e. the Highway Traffic Act) is clear. However, traffic engineers have simply decided to ignore that part of the law and adapt to actual driver behaviour.
Adding to the complication is that the police (throughout North America) almost never charge motorists for killing or injuring pedestrians even when they are legally crossing at a fully signalized intersection. This seems to be because it is very difficult to prove to a judge that the driver was actually negligent, as one of the two witnesses is dead and there are usually some sort of extenuating circumstances. There is also the feeling that "accidents" are a regrettable, but unavoidable, part of driving and that pursuing serious charges would be cruel and unfair as "it could happen to anyone" (see the book Car Jacked for more details on how society minimizes and ignores the costs of driving, and exaggerates the benefits). As I pointed out in an earlier comment, the standard penalty for killing a pedestrian in a (signalized) crosswalk is $500 http://raisethehammer.org/article/1809/k...
Under these circumstances it seems that the law regarding the duty of motorists to yield to pedestrians is simply not enforced and so municipal traffic engineers in Ontario have taken the point of view that it is pointless to consider pedestrians have any right of way since this would give them a "false sense of security", as Mr Solomon told me years ago.
In brief, we seem to have uncovered an example of an unenforced law: the Act is clear but it no longer seems to have any effect in practice.
Comment edited by kevlahan on 2013-08-22 15:12:14
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