But we only wanted to run the pedestrian down if it was Mark Parton!

switch said :

shirty_bear said :

ahhh, Queanbeyan … the Paris of the south-west slopes. What shocks me is that this comparison isn’t made more often.

That’s because the comparison is so blindingly obvious.

I see what you did there! LOL

shirty_bear said :

ahhh, Queanbeyan … the Paris of the south-west slopes. What shocks me is that this comparison isn’t made more often.

That’s because the comparison is so blindingly obvious.

Kiron2222 said :

Question, is jay walking a crime in Canberra?

In Sydney me and my friends jay walked across what seemed to be an empty suburban street and out of nowhere cops jumped out of a parked car, threw us to the ground and threatened to arrest us.

Here in Canberra I see Cops “jay walk” on a regular basis and I have never been tackled by police for it here, so I’m assuming not a crime?

This is not made up, entirely true: About 7-8 years ago when living in melbourne, I jaywalked against the lights going red across Collins street in Melbourne while giong north up Swanston street, and as I got to the far side I was pulled up by an Officer, who proceeded to lecture me about jaywalking across his street. I was bit confused at first until I noticed his badge said Constable Collins (not kidding) and had to stand there for about 10 minutes listening to him as I discovered not only does he not like jaywalking but apparently feels very strongly about the street bearing his name as well. If it didn’t happen to me I would think it was just a good joke someone told but I swear by everything holy that this actually happened to me.

Mordd said :

shauno said :

If you spend any time in France you soon get a habit of giving way to cars on pedestrian crossings as you find out very quickly that white stripes across the road don’t tend to mean much to mad French drivers. Not just France either!

Actually one just has to spent some time in Queanbeyan to experience this.

ahhh, Queanbeyan … the Paris of the south-west slopes. What shocks me is that this comparison isn’t made more often.

Kiron2222 said :

In Sydney me and my friends jay walked across what seemed to be an empty suburban street and out of nowhere cops jumped out of a parked car, threw us to the ground and threatened to arrest us.

sound like there is more to the story than that.

shauno said :

If you spend any time in France you soon get a habit of giving way to cars on pedestrian crossings as you find out very quickly that white stripes across the road don’t tend to mean much to mad French drivers. Not just France either!

Actually one just has to spent some time in Queanbeyan to experience this. The pedestrian crossing next to the Mall that leads across to the pedestrian walkway on the bridge over the river is notorious for this, I learnt very early on when I lived across the border to always approach this very carefully as cars would come flying around the corner at 50km/h+ when the crossing is only 5m around the corner, or coming down the main road and turning left at the mall cars never slow down for the crossing, often doing the same 60+ they were doing on the main road as they fly across the crossing and then hoon it around the corner at the bottom of the hill. I tried complaining to both police and council about this when I lived up there but no-one was ever interested in enforcing the law for this crossing.

I got nothing. The stupidity has destroyed my brain.

If you spend any time in France you soon get a habit of giving way to cars on pedestrian crossings as you find out very quickly that white stripes across the road don’t tend to mean much to mad French drivers. Not just France either!

Think of it this way, imagine some people started driving tanks around town, and those tanks started running over cars. Whose fault is it if a tank runs you over? The tanks are bigger and heavier and more dangerous, so they have responsibility for not running cars over. Its the same with cars and pedestrians, if you run over a pedestrian, it is not their fault, they could be jaywalking or jump in front of you, it doesn’t matter, they’re dead because you drive a tank. It is the car driver’s force that kills pedestrians, every time.

If a pedestrian runs into a car, its an accident. If a car runs into a pedestrian, its a tragedy. Cars are not safe, they are metal death traps that kill millions of people a year. If you take the wheel of an automobile, you assume responsibility for its capabilities, which includes its capacity for killing humans. Pedestrians are doing us a favour by letting us navigate such deadly contraptions so close to them, as drivers we have a responsibility to not kill them.