Scratch a pedestrian safety group, and you will find an anti-automobile activist underneath every time. The latest group has labelled itself “Coalition to Reduce Auto Size Hazards,” and hasn’t even bothered to build itself a website. But they did catch the attention of legacy media outlets when they highlighted a recent study that profoundly concluded that pedestrians have a higher chance of fatality when hit by larger vehicles rather than smaller ones. Being hit by a train is more likely to kill you than being hit by a scooter as well, but that’s hardly news. It’s physics.With this astonishing conclusion in hand, though, the group issued a press release demanding Alberta’s chief medical examiner review the issue to ensure that items of heavier mass do indeed cause more damage if they collide with lighter ones. The group then hopes the chief medical examiner will recommend that the government impose legislation forcing modifications on larger vehicles to presumably make them safer for pedestrians. Such legislation would shoot costs for vehicles through the roof and reduce the available selection of them. That, of course, is the intention of the group because they aren’t really safety advocates. They are environmental extremists.Pedestrian fatalities are indeed on the rise, but the size of vehicles has little to do with it. Poor driving habits are indeed a part of the problem, and enforcement of speeding in congested areas, distracted driving, running red lights, and impaired driving could help with this. Poor pedestrian habits are part of the issue as well, though.Driving has become an obstacle course in urban areas as one is forced to dodge oblivious fools stepping into roadways with their eyes plastered upon their phones as they walk. Whether the pedestrian has the right of way or not, the laws of physics will not favour the pedestrian in a conflict. The old adage of “look both ways before you cross the street” has been forgotten. Further, urban areas are now congested with addicts who meander onto the streets and have little interest in obeying traffic signals. Many of the victims in these crashes have been from the homeless population. They tend to be the folks who are walking in front of trains too..If the coalition was truly interested in protecting pedestrians, it would mention those issues. Instead, they target large vehicles. When legacy media outlets dutifully responded to the release, they predictably interviewed bicycle lane activists who, of course, applauded the brilliant work of the coalition.Bike lanes have become a contentious issue in every Canadian city. Woke city administrations insist on ruining important roadways to place dedicated bicycle tracks in place despite a terrible lack of demand. Parking is lost, ground-level businesses lose trade, traffic becomes snarled, and urban zones lose vibrancy. Despite the clear failure of bicycle lanes to inspire people to commute to work on two wheels, the activists still insist on these lanes. The reason is much like that of the ostensible safety activists. The lanes aren’t pro-bicycle any more than the other group is pro-safety. They are anti-automobile.The activists feel if they can just harass personal vehicle owners enough, it will encourage them to give up their automobiles. Through choking traffic, reducing parking, and making driving as expensive as possible, the intention is to shoehorn people into high-density living and using public transit.The environmental movement sees oil as the greatest evil of our time, and they want to target the greatest consumers of it. Those consumers are personal automobile owners. They understand that citizens have no interest in giving up the empowerment that comes with personal transportation. That’s why they pursue their agenda through subterfuge within civic governments and advocacy groups with cloaked agendas..There is a strong streak of authoritarianism among these activists as well. The term “watermelon” has often been applied to environmentalists because they are green on the outside, but red in the middle. They can’t sell socialism in a democratic society, but they can attack free enterprise and movement through environmentalism. Automobiles offer freedom to individuals. People and their families may travel where they please, when they please. A wide array of employment opportunities present themselves to those who could commute with their own vehicles, which leads to the competition for labour and services that socialists despise. In high-density urban situations where local government controls the transit options, though, the mobility of citizens can be kept in check.So why does a group with no formal organized presence command the headlines for a day with a study stating the obvious? Scratch the surface. There is much more to be seen underneath.
