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Seven Deaths in 19 days... Where is the Outrage? |
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Cycling in the Peterborough Region is growing in popularity for a variety of reasons. These reasons might include health as people battle our blossoming obesity and diabetes problems, saving money and the environment as they choose to commute to work by bike instead of car and the pure fun of riding a bicycle.
With this increased popularity, there seems to be a clash of ideals out on our roads. I have personally witnessed and been subjected to motorists who are not aware of the fact that bicycles have a right to safe passage on our roads. They have expressed this by swerving, throwing things or just yelling profanities at well mannered and legally riding cyclists. On the other hand I have also seen cyclistsiding the wrong way on one way streets and disregarding normal traffic acts. Neither of these are excusable.
I think we need some PR from the Police or our Minister of Transportation expressing the cyclists rights and duties so motorists and cyclists are better educated.
There is an article attached about cyclists being killed across the province this spring.
To contact your local MPP: Jeff Leal, 236 King Street, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7L8 (705) 742-3777 Fax: (705) 742-1822
Email: jleal.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
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7 Cyclist Killed So Far This Spring
From The Record-Waterloo
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Seven deaths in 19 days - where is the outrage?
Saturday June 23, 2007
BILL BEAN
RECORD STAFF
Why is there so little regard paid by motorists to the cyclists on Canada's roads?
Margaret Kirk would like to know. Her husband, John Taylor, was one of seven Ontario cyclists killed in a 19-day period this spring.
I've been tracking cycling fatalities as a part of my blog, Take the Lane.
Among the cyclists lost in those awful 19 days were a 47-year-old mother of five and a 10-year-old girl. And there was John Taylor, a 59-year-old high-school history and law teacher from Toronto who had retired to Picton; on the day of his death, he was cycling home after paying for new bicycles for his wife and daughter.
It appears that Taylor was doing everything right when a car driven by an 85-year-old man plowed into him from behind, killing him.
Kirk can't believe that the driver was charged with a Highway Traffic Act offence -- "failing to turn out to the left to avoid a collision with the vehicle . . . overtaken." (Section 148.5) It's an offence punishable by a fine of $110, but a convicted driver can keep his licence.
"I'm absolutely outraged that causing someone's death with your motor vehicle can result in a traffic offence," Kirk told me, suggesting that a Criminal Code charge might be more appropriate. "I was slack-jawed that this individual pays a fine. . . . It's such a paltry fine for such an egregious event."
Taylor was not a cycling activist, but he was a cycling enthusiast. He had four bicycles. He had a workshop where he was learning about bicycle repair. He supported cycling and cyclists. As a teacher of history and law, he knew that the cyclist has rights, including the right to a fair share of the roadway.
He'd told his wife about people who had opened their doors as he passed, or yelled at him, or once flung him off his bike by forcing him off the road. Kirk said that both of them were surprised by "the tremendous lack of information about the laws of the road, and the general disrespect for cyclists from drivers."
Both of them understood how important it is for drivers to be generous with those who are sharing the road -- and who are not protected by a tonne of metal.
Kirk says this is an opportunity for politicians to get involved in raising the level of awareness about cyclists across the entire motoring population.
"Where are our politicians on this?" she asked. "If this was another issue (involving such a high death rate), they'd be all over it."
"There are all kinds of public-service announcements about drinking and driving, but I don't see any public service announcements saying that motorists should move over because cyclists have rights, too.
"Someone has to come forward and advocate for the rights of cyclists on the road."
As a motorist and a cyclist myself, I witness every day that many motorists drive faster than the posted limits and pass too closely to cyclists.
Passing too closely could be linked to speeding (harder to make minor course corrections). It could be some strange response to passing a cyclist.
I've watched motorists slow down and give a wide berth to a tractor, a dead skunk or a green garbage bag. Cars will change a lane to avoid a bit of rubber tire the size of a pizza box.
But regularly I have felt the displaced air raise the hairs on my arm as cars roar past me at 85 kilometres per hour (in a 70 km/h zone).
Even if I have occupied nearly half of the lane myself, motorists will scrape past me as closely as possible, to not enter the next lane.
Why do they do that? They are required by law (Highway Traffic Act, Section 148.5) to give me "one-half of the roadway." So why don't they? Is it ignorance? Is it latent aggression toward cyclists? Why do motorists switch off their common courtesy and sense of safety?
I think that motorists are the big brothers of the road, who must look out for their little brothers on bicycles. Since, in a motorist-cyclist collision, the motorist never loses, the onus is on the motorist to be the gracious and generous member of the roadway community.
I, too, agree that politicians are letting slip away the opportunity to show leadership.
In 1995, it took only two deaths from runaway truck tires to prompt an inquest and a Ministry of Transportation safety crackdown. This spring, there have been seven deaths of cyclists.
I have looked into each case, and it is clear that in at least six, driver inattention and the failure to go around a cyclist ahead of them contributed to the deaths.
If the inattention had been due to, say, distraction from using a cellphone while driving, this would be a major political event.
Yet only a few charges were laid, and there hasn't been a peep from an elected member or from the Ontario Transportation Ministry.
I asked Margaret Kirk what her husband would want to say to us about his accident.
She was firm in her conclusion: "If John had heard of this happening to someone else, he would find it very scary, because as a cyclist, you are so vulnerable. And he would agree that it was outrageous. He would be outraged."
We should be outraged for him.
Bill Bean writes for etc. every Saturday. You can contact him at 519-894-2231, ext. 2618, or e-mail him at bbean@therecord.com.
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