The BC Coroners Service is urging pedestrian safety throughout the province.
Barb McLintock, with the BC Coroners, says although a pedestrian killed in Quesnel in November, does not fit the pattern of recent deaths of five pedestrians in the Lower Mainland and Okanagan, she stresses the need for both motorists and pedestrians to take extra care.
“She was a bit younger, she was 59 as opposed to over 70 and she wasn’t at an intersection, she was crossing the road at mid-block.”
“You may not have the major intersections with a lot of traffic in some of the smaller communities, but what you do have is people having to walk along the sides of the highways because there are no sidewalks in some areas, you have less street lightning especially after dark, you have maybe intersections that may not be as controlled with say street-lights.”
“There’s still tons of risk factors.”
The need for extra care increases in the winter months when longer hours of darkness and frequent poor road and weather conditions lead to an increased number of pedestrian incidents, McLintock adds.
Five elderly pedestrians between the ages of 73 to 87 have been killed during the past 12 days.