Pedestrian

One of the things that we’ve found since we’ve been here in Canada is a vastly different attitude towards pedestrians than what we’re used to back home. Its hard to really describe my experiences back home because when I think of being a pedestrian there, I tend to think of that as normal.

Of course, if I didn’t, perhaps I wouldn’t think of this as odd. However, thinking on it a little further, I’ve lived in Singapore and traveled through Europe and in most of those places, my experiences weren’t that different from Australia and this probably adds to my perception that that is normal behaviour. There’s probably a host of things that get associated with this, like the amount of traffic on the road for one. I’ve seen movies and so on from overseas and there’s some pretty chaotic places to cross the road … places where you’d be taking your life into your hands if you were to merely contemplate stepping away from the refuge of the gutter.

So what’s the big difference over here?

Cars stop for pedestrians. And I don’t just mean that when the lights go red, the cars wait respectfully for pedestrians to cross the road, they stop all over the place! If you’re walking along with the kids and it looks like they want to cross the road, cars stop! You don’t even have to be at a crossing. They’ll do it on the main road (not the highway, though I haven’t actually tested this). Its quite bizarre.

The worst part of it with the kids is probably when we go bike riding. We’ve educated the two bigger kids to wait at corners so that we all catch up and Caroline and I can be sure that we’re crossing the intersection safely. But over here, two boys waiting at the corner looking like they’re about to cross the road means that the cars stop! Which is embarrassing when you’re trying to get the others to catch up and you end up with three cars all waiting for you to cross the road.

And if you try and wave a car through, most of the time, they still just sit there, waiting patiently for you. Its certainly quite safe for the kids.

Of course, this has some down sides as well. Pedestrians EXPECT that level of respect here and so its not unknown for them to just casually stroll out in front of the traffic and expect you to stop. And the other one is that when you do start to expect that level of respect and step out onto a pedestrian crossing and someone DOESN’T display that typical and now expected behaviour, it can quickly turn into an underwear changing moment (UCM).