pedestrians

            I know that title has nothing to do with programming or working but it’s the major thing that occupies my thoughts at this moment so I need to get it out.  In my city there have been about 4 or 5 deaths caused by pedestrian car collisions, I’ll leave it up to you to decide who died in these scenarios.  That’s a ratio of about 1 in every 60000 people had a chance to get hit.  A funny way of putting it because of what I witnessed this past Friday night.  My wife and I were driving to a dinner party and on a four lane road this woman starts walking across the road.  It was 6:30 pm and already dark and she was wearing black.  I saw her in time but it scared the crap out of me.  It wasn’t a crosswalk, it wasn’t at an intersection (although there was one 20 meters away) and it just blew me away.  I can never imagine a time where I was so busy or in a hurry that I would risk crossing an arterial road during the night.  The issues I have with this is to some degree that if I hit that person they would likely be dead and that is always sad but to a larger degree here in Canada the basic rule of thumb is that the driver must prove they were not at fault in a pedestrian/car collision.  Do the people that cross streets in such a manner think about that?  Do they think ‘They won’t hit me because it’s their fault.’  My thinking would be ‘Holy !*%$ if they hit me I’m toast!”  I don’t understand it at all.