Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

Even marks on the side of the car doesn't mean anything, the lanes are wide, I could take 3 strides into a road and still hit the side of a car.

In any case, you're welcome to believe that the police here are correct, but I find it extremely dubious, and am unwilling to accept that right now. Unless the pedestrian was literally suicidal (which frankly, should have been in the police report), the story as presented is not acceptable, and amounts to incompetence by police and media.

Which...frankly, it par for the course in the region.

My money is on the pedestrian walking through a crossing, a driver, distracted, or even just not that focused, speeding around the circle, hitting them on the exit, telling the police "the pedestrian jumped out of nowhere", and the police charging the pedestrian regardless of what the pedestrian stated, if they even were asked.

I remember back in 2019 when that woman (a care taker) and child were hit by a train. It's not like pedestrians are infallible. They do stupid things.

A scenario where a pedestrian crosses properly, oncoming vehicles had properly stopped. Pedestrian then does a 180º and heads back onto the crossing and vehicles were already accelerating. Or, if a pedestrians back is facing the crossing, a driver would reasonable conclude that the crossing is clear of a pedestrian, only to have the person turn around and go onto the crossing.

While I 100% agree with you that the WRPS has a lot of crooked cops, I doubt there was anything nefarious here. Only thing I can think of is the potential the the driver of the vehicle was family/friends of the cop. That would be sorted out in the courthouse, as judges generally do not like police (AKA: fake lawyers).

Yes, peds do occasionally do stupid things, and occasionally do suicidal things. But far less often than they are believed to, if you look at the stats, even if we count every illegal (not necessarily stupid or suicidal thing) peds do, they're still only at fault in a small minority of collisions. Most of those are peds doing risky things that are basically common place.

People complain that peds constantly walk blindly into traffic on Ring Rd. I can assure you they don't, most people look up before crossing, because most people don't want to die. Evidence: If they didn't, people would die constantly.

So yeah, it's possible that a ped did something stupid, but my money is on the safer bet that they didn't.

Now I'm not suggesting anything nefarious by the police, although, it's entirely possible--I absolutely know of an instance where someone I know was charged by police when they were not in the wrong, and the other driver involved was a close friend of a police officer--but the much more likely scenario is officers simply not really understanding the law and/or taking a drivers testimony as more reliable than a pedestrian's. I don't think the officer who ticketed a person for not riding on the sidewalk was nefarious, I think they were just part of a system which is designed to shift blame as much as possible away from drivers.

Remember, police are part of a system. It's the system which is broken.