P erhaps Toronto police should heed their own advice and look both ways before they talk.

Well-intentioned though the force's Pedestrian Safety Blitz may be, it is a misguided and paternalistic exercise doomed to failure. The program, launched Wednesday after a rash of pedestrian deaths across the GTA, is flawed in its understanding of how people actually make their way through the city.

Despite what the police would have us believe, we are all jaywalkers. We have no choice; to negotiate the city on foot requires endless street crossing without benefit of traffic light, crosswalk or corner.

The police are now stopping jaywalkers and other pedestrians whose behaviour they don't like to hand out tickets and deliver a lecture on street safety. It's for our own good, of course. Pedestrians are naughty children who must be protected from themselves.

And sometimes we do need to be protected from ourselves. Anyone who saunters into the path of an oncoming streetcar while engrossed in a cellphone conversation is asking for trouble.

But the reality of jaywalking is quite the opposite. In fact, jaywalking can be much safer than crossing at a green light, corner or crosswalk.

That might sound counterintuitive, but the reason is simple: Jaywalkers assume nothing; those crossing legally assume everything.

Pedestrians at a green light take it for granted that vehicles will come to a stop, that drivers turning right or left will see them, and that their right-of-way will be respected. As we know, it's not.

By contrast, jaywalkers look both ways, wait for a break in the traffic and often make eye contact with drivers before proceeding.

The concept of "naked streets," or as the Dutch call them, woonerfs, is based on the same principle. Because street signs have been removed, drivers and pedestrians are forced to pay close attention to each other. Fewer accidents result.

No one should hold their breath waiting for naked streets to appear in Toronto; that's never going to happen. On the other hand, it would be worth employing a bit more subtlety and intelligence than the police have managed. Imposing fines and wagging fingers will accomplish nothing. Deaths will continue.

And let's not forget that the majority of the 14 pedestrians killed by drivers in the last few weeks were doing exactly what the law stipulated. They weren't jaywalking, though they might have been better off had that been the case.

The police response, which is to blame the victim, misses the point and reinforces tired old prejudices against pedestrians.

In recent days, officers have been telling Toronto pedestrians that it doesn't matter if they are in the right; cars are bigger and go faster. But, they remind us, it's pedestrians who get killed, not drivers.

That may be true, but one wonders whether the argument would hold if, for example, we were talking about domestic violence. Husbands tend to be bigger and stronger, so if you're a woman, just stay out of their way. Highly unlikely.

Not all pedestrian deaths are the drivers' fault, but that's not the point. The issue is that we don't share the roads. Simply banning pedestrians from the streets, as the police would like, might please drivers, but even they must occasionally climb out from behind the wheel.

We have learned not to expect too much from the police, but their handling of the pedestrian deaths has revealed a force well behind the times.

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"Be smart and be safe," Elmer the Safety Elephant used to say. So far, we have achieved neither.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca