By CASEY NEILL
A PAKENHAM mum is calling for better pedestrian safety at the Cardinia Road – Princes Highway intersection.
Nicole Cornelius said she has narrowly avoided being hit by cars that failed to stop at the zebra crossing from the Arena Shopping Centre corner to the traffic lights.
“It’s three times that I’ve nearly been hit, so I’m sure others have been as well,” she said.
“I just wanted to let people know about the intersection.
“It’s not very well lit there so sometimes it’s not entirely the driver’s fault but they still have to be aware of pedestrians.”
Ms Cornelius said each incident had happened in the past six months.
“I don’t walk that way a lot,” she said.
“It’s probably a very high percentage of the time that I use the crossing that I’ve almost been hit.
“I’m sure others have.
“The school’s just nearby and I know a lot of school kids walk down to the shops.”
Ms Cornelius said that in the first instance she was walking her dog and a car was travelling toward the intersection about 30 kilometres an hour.
“He hadn’t slowed down very much for the intersection,” she said.
“They’re looking down to Princes Highway.
“If he’d looked to the left he would have seen me.
“If I child was crossing they’d think they’d had right of way and cross.”
She was with her 13-year-old son on the second occasion.
“He got off his bike to walk across the crossing and he had to pull it back to stop himself from being hit,” she said.
“I went right off at this driver. When your children are nearly hurt you see red.
“It was very lucky that he saw this car wasn’t going to stop.”
Ms Cornelius was walking alone when the third incident occurred.
“I was close enough to him, I slapped the back of his car with my hand just to let him know I was there,” she said.
“I don’t think he even saw me. He stopped up the road a little bit, I think he thought he’d hit something.”
She would like to see more lighting at the crossing.
“And even at the pedestrian crossing, the flashing orange lights just to alert people that it is a pedestrian crossing,” she said.
The Gazette contacted VicRoads but did not receive a response before deadline.
