Social media users in Vancouver are up in arms over a Twitter video showing five consecutive vehicles disobeying a stop sign in a school zone on the city’s West Side.
Vancouver lawyer Paul Doroshenko captured the footage at the intersection of West 27th Avenue and Crown Street and posted it Thursday evening. Only the last vehicle in the video, a white pickup truck, comes to a complete stop before turning right.
“I see a culture shift on the West Side. Stop signs are now considered optional,” Doroshenko wrote in the post. “I made this video in a school zone. I dream of the day (Vancouver Police Department) puts some effort into stop sign enforcement.”
Doroshenko called the incident a “regular occurrence” in the area.
“I walk by there every day that I drop my kids off at school,” he told CTV News on Friday. “At that particular location, there’s been occasion in the past where I’ve had to grab my kids by the hand and yank them out of the way of the vehicle blowing through the stop sign.”
Other residents in the area reported witnessing similar carelessness.
“I think because it’s a very quiet neighbourhood, so there’s not a lot of traffic,” said Yuli Chen. “I think people take it for granted that there’ll be no traffic. People sort of zip through.”
Several social media users also expressed their outrage in comments responding to Doroshenko’s tweet.
I've become "that lady" who stands on the corner yelling "there's a stop sign" & pointing at the stop sign.
— Jen Stewart (@fixbced) November 10, 2017
Nothing terrifies me more than seeing people roll through a stop sign when I’m doing 50 going down Oak or Granville. Can’t tell if they’re going to stop or try to turn out in front of you.
— Justin Fung | 馮凱威 (@jhwfung) November 10, 2017
They are the true danger on our roads and absolutely warrant a dedicated resource.
— Martyn Schmoll (@martynschmoll) November 10, 2017
The lawyer is now calling on the VPD to invest more resources into traffic enforcement.
“We’ve got a problem of enforcement in this city,” he said. “I know that the police department have a dedicated team of traffic officers…they’re good officers and a lot of them will privately tell me they just don’t have enough resources.”
Const. Jason Doucette said police are doing what they can with their team of 42 dedicated traffic enforcement officers, adding that he wants to hear from residents who think they’ve identified areas of particular concern when it comes to traffic violations.
Ultimately, he added, traffic safety is a “shared responsibility” and it’s up to drivers to obey the rules even when officers aren’t watching.
“These signs aren’t put there just willy-nilly. We put these signs in place with careful consideration. It’s for safety,” Doucette said. “We all have to follow the rules of the road.”
When coming up to a stop sign, provincial law requires drivers to come to a complete stop at or behind the marked line.
According to ICBC, failure to do so can result in a $167 fine and three-point penalty.
At a four-way stop, the first vehicle to arrive at the intersection should go first.
If two vehicles arrive at the same, the one on the right should go first. In this scenario, if the two vehicles are facing each other, the one making a left turn should yield to the one going straight through the intersection.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Ben Miljure
