Editorial: Caution is always the best policy

Most parents experience that moment when their hearts leap into their mouths when one of their small children climbs out of the car and dashes off on to a road. As you lunge for them you just pray that they have not run into the path of a car. You instantly expect the worst and, for those of us lucky enough not to have witnessed a child being run over, there is the flood of relief when they are okay. This is invariably replaced by anger at them and the child is normally subjected to a dressing down and privileges being taken away.

The fact of the matter is that when you put people up against moving vehicles, the vehicles always win. And it does not matter if you are a child or an adult - nine times out of 10, the pedestrian will be injured in some way.

Hawke's Bay has had a bad week of accidents involving pedestrians. Two happened on Anzac Day and the first two days earlier.

On Monday an 87-year-old Napier pensioner was injured when she stepped out in front of a ute on Taradale Rd after crossing the road's median strip. On Wednesday an 84-year-old woman received head injuries and pelvic fractures after being hit on a pedestrian crossing in Tamatea. Later that day an 18-year-old Havelock North male pedestrian received moderate injuries when he was involved in an accident outside his parents' home on Havelock Rd.

The facts of what happened in these cases still have to be determined, but it should be enough to make us all pause and think about our actions - both as drivers and pedestrians.

As a motorist it only takes a split second of taking your eye off the road for an accident to occur. It always unnerves me when I see groups of children on the side of a road, because you never know when they are going to dash on to the road. The best policy is to slow down when you pass them.

Even pedestrian crossings can be dangerous - as one of the above accidents showed. The rules of the road are simple - motorists should stop if someone is crossing at a pedestrian crossing and should remain stationary until the person has crossed.

Fair enough, but it does constantly amaze me how some pedestrians believe this gives them the right to just start walking without checking what the traffic is doing. It is all very well having the law (in theory) on your side, but it will not stop you being knocked to the ground and potentially injured when a motorist ignores the pedestrian crossing. Cars are bigger than humans and they hurt us more than we can hurt them. Caution is always the best policy.

One lapse of concentration can be fatal.