A pedestrian safety event where seniors were outfitted with fluorescent arm bands to protect them from being hit by cars has sparked criticism from safe-streets advocates, who say it’s victim blaming. But the councillor who helped police hand out the arm bands insists road safety is everyone’s responsibility.Hundreds attended the event at Woodside Square Mall in Scarborough, Saturday, where officers also shared safety tips, said Scarborough North Councillor Cynthia Lai. The idea came out of a Chinese community liaison meeting with police, as a way to help protect vulnerable people in an area where many pedestrians have been killed, Lai said. “They loved it,” she said of the crowd, “it’s one way to prevent them from getting hurt.”She added it was about being “proactive,” and she’d “do it again in a heartbeat.” Pedestrians were also told “you need to have eye contact with the drivers,” according to Lai. Drivers need to be more careful, and the city needs to do its part, she said. But “everybody has the responsibility” and should “try their best” to “act in their own best interest.”Footage of bands being strapped on seniors drew harsh words from road safety advocates on social media. Advocate Jessica Spieker called it “textbook victim blaming” that contributes to “misinformation” that pedestrians somehow contribute to their on deaths, when the “vast majority” of the time drivers and infrastructure are at fault. “We can wear what we want and the colour is irrelevant,” she told the Star.“To distribute arm bands to seniors flagrantly flies in the face of all of the evidence about road safety,” added Spieker, a spokesperson for advocacy groups Friends and Families for Safe Streets.“Why the police would be wasting their time and resources doing something that their own evidence shows the ...
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