Commercial Drive Accident Stories, Please
I saw a pedestrian being stretchered off in an ambulance at Charles and Commercial today. She (i think) had stepped out onto the road outside Elizabeth's bakery and got hit by an SUV. Don't know how bad.
It made me wonder how bad Commercial Drive is for pedestrians and cyclists, especially as I've now got a kid and I'm turning into my dad and started worrying more about these things. It's also because many accidents are neither reported and the statistics are unreliable.
I've been hit on my bike by an oncoming car at 1st and Commercial which was turning down 1st and also had a close call at Woodlands and Commercial where I swerved to avoid a car going through the red light at Woodlands, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car only to hit a cyclist in the oncoming lane. We both ended up sprawled on the road. The original car took off.
In retrospect, I should have reported these to the cops but then in the heat of the moment, adrenalin flooding through, you pick yourself up and think yourself lucky that it wasn't worse.
I've seen a car that's gone through a shop window on the East side of Commercial just above Cafe Deux Soleils. The car went up on the kerb and took out a couple of trees, and landed in the shop window.
I saw another car that had gone through the Grandview Baptist church, at 1st and a block East of Commercial.
Is this the norm for Commercial Drive? Every now and again a car flies through a building and a pedestrian or two is taken out? What are you seeing out there?
I actually feel as though Commercial is less dangerous than most streets in Van. People constantly cross Commercial at non-intersections and I think the neighborhood has a reputation for this and, as such, cars are wary of peds and give them space.