Page 769 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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marked pedestrian foot crossing knows that it is highly likely that there may be pedestrians crossing or about to cross.
Where we have a mile or half a mile of road or whatever and say, "You can cross anywhere along that; you have an island in the middle of the road that is going to keep you safe, so you can cross to the centre and then look at the traffic coming the other way and cross from the centre to the other side", I think we create a false sense of safety for children.
So let us have a look at what may be a more workable situation. Firstly, the correct principle would be to educate children. If there is some thought that children have difficulty in judging distances - in other words, telling how far away a car is and at what speed it is travelling, and perhaps doing that in two directions at the one time - I would suggest an education program within the schools that actually, if you like, gives the kids some practice by taking them around streets and letting them get used to a practical understanding of how to cross roads; not just on television and so on.
There is another problem - and I mention Dixon Drive particularly in this regard - and that is that there are very, very few children crossing in that area. You might get a half a dozen crossing, I am told, to the school in the morning or when coming home of an afternoon. While the major reason for the lines being put there was concern about vehicles travelling too fast, it would appear that you do not really get that problem so much during the day; it is after 5 o'clock of a night. I think it would make sense to us that it is after work that people are going to drive faster; it is not during the day in these areas.
I would advocate a marked pedestrian foot crossing, well sign-posted in both directions, together with, if there is a reasonable proportion of children crossing at any one time, flags which could be either attended or unattended. It seems that the volunteer system of people going along to these school crossings and attending the flags is a fairly popular idea. It does give people an opportunity to help out now and again on a regular basis; it is not a major imposition. I think that is something that could be well encouraged.
I believe that if these things remain as they are it will not be long before there is an accident. I think it really creates the wrong idea. I know that children have already been riding up and down these things, in the centre of the road as well. They think, "Great, we have a little cycle island that we can ride along". Someone told me this morning that she saw a case near her place of a child coming tearing off her driveway onto the road - and she said he did not look - straight across onto the centre island, up the road a bit, back on the footpath, off the footpath again over to the island, along the island and so
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