For most students the arrival of a new school year came way too soon, especially since it started in August a couple of days shy of the first day of September.
While the calendar was not favourable to a post-Labour Day start to the new year, students should be grateful Alberta Eduction doesn’t require them to make up the snow days that hampered school districts last year.
If that were the case school should have started mid-August.
Back to school means kids of all ages will be back on our local roadways, sidewalks and parks.
Drivers who have had a two-month break from school zones need to be extra diligent in and around our local schools as students often forget they are no match for vehicles.
Crosswalks don’t seem to be getting the same respect they once did in our communities.
Too many motorists seem to forget the rules of the road especially when they approach a crosswalk with a pedestrian waiting to safely cross the street. Even the change to a more strict clearance rule for crosswalks has done little to insure pedestrian safety.
Unless motorists want to see every street sliced up with pedestrian crossing lights, which generally slow traffic to a halt, they had better do a better job of observing crosswalks.
The rules of the road state a pedestrian must completely clear the street, not just one lane, before motorists can continue through an intersection.
This means curb to curb. Too many motorists are taking chances with lives by proceeding through intersections the moment a pedestrian has cleared the front of the vehicle.
Given the increasingly larger size of trucks and SUVs on the roads the safety zone for pedestrians is on the decline.
Even if a pedestrian clears the first driving lane, they are in danger of being clipped by drivers coming up behind a stopped vehicle who can’t see the crosswalk clearly enough to determine there is no one using it.
The few seconds longer it takes for a vehicle to wait until the crosswalk is cleared, from curb to curb, can’t be so long that drivers would risk a life to gain a second or two.
Unfortunately too many drivers are taking the risk. It is surprising more pedestrians are not run over in our communities given the number of drivers who either ignore crosswalks altogether or play chicken with pedestrians waiting to cross, knowing a majority of pedestrians will simply wait until there is no traffic in order to ensure they can cross safely.