Calgary Police are asking both drivers and pedestrians to put safety first, and be a little more patient when travelling around the city after a third pedestrian fatality in as many days.
At 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 16, an 80-year-old woman was struck and killed by a 20-year-old driver at Woodpark Blvd and 117 Avenue SW. Police said speed is being investigated as factor.
It followed a 7:30 p.m. fatality of a woman in her 70s, who was struck by a driver in his 20s at Riverbend Drive SE, and before that, a fatal pedestian collison on Oct. 15 at 9:20 p.m., where a man in his 50s driving a van struck a 47-year-old man who was crossing 17 Avenue SE and 38 Street contrary to pedestrian signals.
To date in Calgary, there have been 11 pedestrian deaths and 30 total fatal collisions for 2025.
Staff Sgt. Andy Woodward of the Calgary Police Service Traffic Unit said that the three deaths in such a short period of time should serve as a wake up call for Calgarians.
“I’d like to think it is a wake up call, but unfortunately, we know that there are some people out there that feel that this will never happen to them, and they will continue to drive or to walk within traffic, as they’ve always done,” he said.
“From a policing agency, we cannot be on every street corner. We’d love to be, but we can’t be. So we do have to have a buy in from the road users and the pedestrians.”
He said that both pedestrians and drivers need to take responsibility, and that there was a need for patience on the roads.
Woodward said that meant pedestrians not darting out in front of vehicles attempting to cross the road as quickly as possible and also taking reasonable precautions like not wearing dark clothing at night.
“If you’re on your phone or you’re texting, stop texting. Concentrate on the road that you want to cross. If you’re going to be in an unmarked crosswalk, just be aware of any other vehicles that are around you, because those vehicles travelling up, they might be new to that area and they don’t know it’s an unmarked crosswalk,” he said.
For drivers, the number one cause of collisions is speed.
“So drive to the speed limit or under the speed limit. If you’re in a built up area, a residential area, make sure that you actually bring your speeds down so you are able to stop in the distance you can see clear. If you see a pedestrian on the side of the road, anticipate that that person is likely to step out. If they don’t, then that’s fine, but anticipate so you are prepared to stop your vehicle at any time,” said SSgt. Woodward.
He said that the Calgary Police Service was having discussions with the City of Calgary, hoping to address issues with unmarked crosswalks as well as continuing to work towards the reintroduction of automated traffic enforcement to reduce collisions.
Having traffic calming and greater enforcement would absolutely lead to less deaths and less collisions he said.
“Traffic circles do slow people down for sure, and obviously the issue that we’ve had where cameras have been removed, we are slowly getting those back into this area of Calgary. So hopefully, fingers crossed if we can get those, but the calming measures and traffic circles just take such a long time to actually get into place.”
