Look both ways before you cross the street!

One of the first rules you learn as a child is how to safely cross a street. Look both ways! How many times do we hear this as children? And yet, as adults, we often forget to do this. Last week I spoke to a cyclist who had been involved in a collision with a salad toting pedestrian (that red line in the photo is the salad trail). According to the cyclist and another passerby, the pedestrian just entered the bike lane without looking. I hope that had they made it safely through the bike lane that they may have looked both ways before crossing the avenue. Perhaps not though. The cyclist involved in this collision said he had a number of close calls with other pedestrians. It seems they are ignoring this simple rule that they learned as children. For myself, if I am not making eye contact with a pedestrian near the bike lane I am going to assume they are not going to look. A good place for the bell as well. The Laurier segregated bike lanes are only a month old. The police and paramedics were called to this scene but it seemed precautionary rather than necessary. According to the City of Ottawa there have been no major incidents along the SBL. Let's hope it stays that way.



Looking east down the Laurier segregated bike lane.