Pedestrian injuries: Advocate says Halifax goals for safety unmet after walker killed
Global News
Halifax safety advocates are calling for government action to reduce the number of pedestrians injured or killed by cars, after the death of a senior.
Halifax safety advocates are calling for government action to reduce the number of pedestrians injured or killed by cars, after the death of a senior who was hit while walking on a marked crosswalk earlier this week.
The city set a goal in 2018 to cut the number of pedestrians killed or injured in collisions by 20 per cent over five years, but data show that target wasn’t reached. As well, police are distributing significantly fewer tickets in recent years for speeding or distracted driving, the data show.
“Basically, we aren’t achieving the goals … with respect to pedestrian injuries,” Norm Collins, who founded the Crosswalk Safety Society of Nova Scotia eight years ago, said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
On Monday, a 72-year-old man died in hospital after he was struck on a pedestrian crossing equipped with flashing amber lights shortly after 7 a.m. Police issued a summary offence ticket to a 30-year-old driver for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The investigation is ongoing, they said.
About one or two pedestrians have been killed by vehicles each year in Halifax since 2020, police records show, and the number of pedestrians injured in collisions has remained stable, rising to 149 in 2024 from 146 in 2018.
Collins says the data show the city is failing to meet its 2018 goal of reducing injuries or deaths by 20 per cent over five years. He’s calling for improvements in traffic enforcement and engineering, with tougher treatment of speeders at the top of his list.
Provincial data he’s obtained show that policing agencies in Halifax issued about 12,000 tickets in 2012, compared with about 1,900 in 2023. Those statistics show a sharp drop over 10 years in the number of fines given by police for using a smartphone while driving, with figures falling from about 10,000 tickets in 2012 to about 1,300 in 2023.
“When you speed in a car, you’re less likely to react in a timely manner to a pedestrian crosswalk,” said Collins. “And if you do hit a pedestrian, it’s more likely to cause serious injury.”
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