60 percent of them are killed by drivers of trucks. This is only going to get worse.
In Toronto where I live, the police are doing a safety campaign where they are going after people who start to cross the street when the pedestrian counter has started. What seems to be their concern is that pedestrians are not getting out of the way fast enough.
Meanwhile, eight people who walk in Toronto have been killed by people who drive so far this year and the police are not doing very much about that.
Including the man killed after being struck in a restaurant drive-thru, eight pedestrians have been killed on Toronto streets. https://t.co/aLhj0w5fel
— TorontoStar (@TorontoStar) March 13, 2019
The latest victim was a 90-year-old, hit by a driver in a Ford pickup truck in a McDonald’s parking lot.
Now, whenever I write about people who walk getting killed by people who drive, we get complaints like, “In the treehugger world it is never the pedestrians fault it is always vehicles fault and especially trucks fault!” Or “I see a lot of younger people now crossing the road outside a crosswalk in dark clothing at night, sometimes on phones.”
The victims’ average age is 65.2.
But 90-year-olds are not usually on their phones, and he was killed at 9:40 in the morning. Nor was he an aberration; if you look at the ages of the people killed in Alexandra Jones’ article in the Star, they are listed as 60, 69, 58, 40, 75, and “in his 60s”, which I will take as 65. One victim’s age was not listed, but the average age of the others is 65.2.
The majority of the victims are killed by trucks.
Then one should have a look at the vehicles being driven into pedestrians. Jones doesn’t note all eight, but the ones listed are a pickup truck, a dump truck, an Infiniti, a garbage truck, a transport truck. Another article lists a Mazda as the vehicle, but we have four out of the six listed vehicles being trucks.
Toronto roads. This is Dupont/Christie this morning, after 9am. Truck speeds through stale yellow light; pickup truck speeds through red. @g_meslin @m_layton @TPSOperations #topoli #VisionZero pic.twitter.com/YhxZ54SiBM
— Alex Bozikovic (@alexbozikovic) June 20, 2018
It does make one wonder why the Toronto Police are blitzing pedestrians going through countdown timers when, as Alex Bozikovic notes, they do not seem to care at all about drivers going through yellow lights, the equivalent warning for vehicles, and where the highway traffic act says you are supposed to stop if you can. Yellow lights are the law, unlike the countdown timers which are not even mentioned in the Act; they are just making up the rules there.
Rise to new heights.
Photo Credit: Adam P. #RamHeavyDuty pic.twitter.com/zrHmGSajr3
— RamTrucks (@RamTrucks) March 14, 2019
We have a serious problem in our roads, and it is getting worse as the population gets older and the trucks get taller. There are no plans to make trucks safer as they are doing in London, or to make speed limits lower as they are doing in Montreal.
But let’s all worry about countdown timers.
Hey pedestrians—when countdown clock numbers start flashing you need to stop & NOT go dashing!!
Police reminding peds that countdown is for drivers—to alert them to how much time they have to clear intersection. Peds technically subject to $65 fine for crossing during countdown pic.twitter.com/rZdgxrUXuQ
— carl hanstke (@carl680) March 13, 2019
Instead, they blitz pedestrian countdown jumpers, because according to Toronto police Sgt. Alex Cruz, pedestrians are supposed to clear out of the intersection. “It allows cars making a left-hand or right-hand turn to clear the intersection to prevent gridlock.” That is all that matters here, the convenience of drivers.
In this city, that matters a lot more than the lives of a few old people.