IN THE DARK: City fails to track cases of cyclists hitting pedestrians
Torontosun.com
Sept. 6, 2019
Graeme Gordon
As Toronto marches forward with cyclist-friendly plans, City Hall is in the dark about how many serious cyclist-pedestrian collisions are occurring on the city’s congested streets.
“A collision between a cyclist and pedestrian is an incident report. It does not meet Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation definition of a collision,” said Toronto Police Sgt. Brett Moore.
“In most cases, I would suspect these are not reported frequently by the involved people because injuries are low or people take off. If it was reported, it would get reported as an incident report.”
Incident reports do not get recorded statistically in the same manner as collisions by Toronto Police Services and aren’t looked at by the City of Toronto when municipal politicians create plans like the 10 Year Cycling Network Plan and Vision Zero 2.0 road safety plan.
A New York Post report concluded that in the Big Apple “bicyclists have injured more than 2,250 pedestrians -- including at least seven who died…” since 2011, according to NYC’s Department of Transportation.
In 2016, an 86-year-old woman was killed in Toronto when a cyclist struck her and fled the scene.
“Well I definitely think we should be keeping track of any of (the cyclist-pedestrian collisions) … The technical term doesn’t matter to me as does getting the information, and I think that is very important,” said Councillor Michael Ford.
“I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t be doing that for cyclists and pedestrians.”
Even cyclist-pedestrian collisions involving serious injury or death do not get recorded as a collision but an incident report, according to Moore.
Walk Toronto’s Dylan Reid says his advocacy group focuses on vehicle-pedestrian collisions, but says cyclists are a danger to pedestrians, too.
“A lot of pedestrians are very intimidated by cyclists on the sidewalk. It’s a complaint we hear a lot,” he added.
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Vincent Genova, a Toronto-based personal injury lawyer with Rochon Genova LLP, says he has represented pedestrians who were seriously injured by cyclists.
“I don’t know the magnitude of the problem, but I know it’s a growing issue because of the higher number of people riding bikes to and from work.”
Mayor John Tory’s office didn’t directly address questions regarding the absence of stats on pedestrian-cyclist collisions.
“The mayor is focused on making the roads safer for both pedestrians and cyclists through the introduction and implementation of Vision Zero 2.0,” said Tory’s spokesman, Don Peat.
The Vision Zero 2.0 road safety plan is a set of recommendations aimed at eliminating deaths and serious injuries on Toronto’s roads. It mainly targets motorists driving badly. It doesn’t call for any increased enforcement of cyclists.
The Sun reported last month TPS only issued 292 tickets to cyclists last year.
“That’s very surprising, it’s less than one a day,” Ford said. “I probably see at least ten to 15 infractions by cyclists (each day on my commute). Without them getting ticketed, there is no deterrence,” said Genova.
