On Monday evening, a road incident involving a pedestrian occurred on Niepodległości Street in Lubin. Police officers who arrived at the scene immediately established during their investigation that the 90-year-old woman had decided to cross a four-lane, two-way road at a place that was clearly not designated for doing so.

Unfortunately, as a consequence of her poor decision, the senior was hit by a woman driving a Nissan passenger car. As officers determined, due to limited visibility caused by the time of day and light from nearby street lamps reflecting off the wet road surface, the 60-year-old driver did not notice the pedestrian, who had decided moments earlier to cross to the other side of the road “by taking a shortcut”.

Fortunately, the speed at which the Nissan driver was traveling was not high. Nevertheless, as a result of the incident, the 90-year-old pedestrian suffered a lower-limb injury, which made it necessary to send medical personnel to the scene. During further action at the scene, the 90-year-old woman was transported to hospital to receive qualified medical assistance.

It is worth noting here that when crossing the road, pedestrians are required to exercise particular caution, use pedestrian crossings and obey traffic signals. Crossing the road at a place other than a designated crossing is permitted if the distance to a pedestrian crossing exceeds 100 metres, or if an intersection is less than 100 metres from a designated crossing. In that case, crossing is also permitted at that intersection.

A pedestrian entering or already on a pedestrian crossing has priority over a moving vehicle. However, it should be remembered that despite the changes to the regulations some time ago, stepping onto the road immediately in front of an approaching vehicle—even at a pedestrian crossing—is not permitted.

Pedestrians must also observe several other prohibitions

The following are prohibited:

  • entering the road from behind a vehicle or another obstacle that restricts visibility of the road,
  • crossing the road at a place where visibility of the road is restricted,
  • slowing down or stopping without a justified reason while crossing a road or tram tracks,
  • running across the road,
  • walking on tram tracks,
  • entering tram tracks when barriers or half-barriers are lowered or their lowering has begun,
  • crossing the road at a place where a safety device or obstacle separates the pedestrian path or sidewalk from the road, regardless of which side of the road it is located on.

In addition to the regulations, common sense and mutual respect between drivers and pedestrians are also important. All these principles should help us avoid road accidents.