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Drivers in Hockey Land seem to actually fear bipeds.

Here's my snapshot from Friday, June 1 in a trendy Halifax, Nova Scotia neighborhood not unlike Uptown in Minneapolis.

You place your foot into the street and the vehicles come to a stop.

Drivers in Minnesota are supposed to do that as well.  However my experience and that of Gordy Pehrson, traffic safety specialist at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, is Twin Cities drivers are still adjusting to the concept of pedestrians and crosswalks.

My observations about Canadian driving habits are blissfully superficial, the very best kind.  They were gathered during seven days in rural and urban Nova Scotia, a beautiful and welcoming Canadian maritime province north of Maine.

There's mostly good news to report about overall traffic safety in the USA.  Traffic volumes have increased sharply over the decades and traffic fatalities are down.  Pehrson says generally the trend is the same for pedestrian fatalities in Minnesota but not as sharp a decline.

Here are the state's pedestrian crash facts from the Department of Public Safety's 2011 report:

There are plenty of qualifications: More than a fourth of those dead pedestrians were "jaywalking" - crossing where there was no signal or crosswalk.

The state's numbers show that in nearly a third of the cases, drivers failed to yield the right of way, and nearly a fourth of the fatalities were caused by the driver not paying attention or being distracted.

By the way, there are rules and regulations in Minnesota regarding pedestrians and drivers - Minnesota statutes 169.21 and 22.  Here they are:

Minnesota News

The Cities Blog

Dan Olson

Author

Twin Cities drivers are still adjusting to the concept of pedestrians and crosswalks.

What is it with Canadian drivers and pedestrians?

Go Deeper.

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