Pedestrians

The road users most at risk are the ones with nothing around them: pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and anyone leading or riding an animal. A motor vehicle is the most lethal thing on the road, so its driver carries a special responsibility towards the people who are not protected by one.

Drive slowly and carefully:

• in crowded shopping streets and residential areas
• as you pass a bus or a kombi at a stop, because people step out from in front of it where you cannot see them
• alongside parked vehicles, where someone can appear in the gap between two cars
• when reversing into a side road, looking all round the vehicle first and giving way to anyone crossing
• when turning at a junction, giving way to people already crossing the road you are turning into
• on a narrow road with no pavement, where people walk on the surface itself. Slow down, give them plenty of room and be ready to stop.

Some pedestrians need more from you than others. Children misjudge speed and distance and can step off the kerb without warning, and a small child may be hidden by a parked vehicle altogether. Older people need longer to get across, so let them take their time instead of revving the engine or edging forward at them. Someone with a hearing impairment will not hear you coming. Someone who is blind or partially sighted, often carrying a white cane or working with a guide dog, cannot see you at all. A person on crutches, on a stick or in a wheelchair needs both more time and more space.

Never set the vehicle in motion until you have looked around it and under it. Children and small animals sit exactly where the mirrors do not reach.