Now I can be safe

Tim Bousquet, news editor at local weekly The Coast, points out the shortcomings of crosswalk safety public service announcements in his "Reality Bites" column this week:

Global TV is airing a pair of public service ads that purport to educate people on how to increase crosswalk safety. The ads, which are lame even by community PSA standards, tell us that there are two “teams” in the game of crossing the street---motorists and pedestrians. But both ads are aimed at only the pedestrian team, which is told to stay between the white lines and for some inexplicable reason to stick their hands out in front of them while crossing the street.

Our Halifax tax dollars have helped produce lots of other crosswalk safety videos, "produced by HRM Traffic and Right-of-Way Services [who knew?] and Global Television."

You can watch them here.

Unfortunately, the two PSAs Tim refers to are not on the page. And you can't embed the videos either (or I would, believe me). Also, confusingly, some are MPEGs and others are WMVs. All are equally inept and unintentionally funny.

But they did get me thinking about weighty topics. For instance, why is a video on why cyclists should wear their helmets considered a crosswalk safety announcement?