Raise the Hammer

I wonder how police would describe the crash if it was an officer who 'walked into the path of a car'?

This city gets it wrong on every single level possible when it comes to streets: from engineering to enforcement. I think back to all the dead-end discussions with staff months and years before they rebuilt the Queen Street Hill with suggestions from the community to narrow the traffic lanes, add a multi-use path on the north shoulder, don't have wide space beside or in between the lanes because it encourages speeding etc....

Instead they do exactly the opposite of what every other leading city is doing today and now, a year after re-opening the hill are painting stuff on the road, adding bollards on the sidewalk, putting up speed indicator signs all in an effort to try to get people to slow down. People are speeding because THE CITY designed a road that encourages speeding.

And then on the enforcement/reporting side, this same blame-game continues despite our so called 'pedestrian charter' and other empty words from city hall pretending to care about pedestrians.

This case on York is very simple. Pedestrian walking westbound. Driver exiting a parking lot only looked westbound and didn't look both ways for anyone on the sidewalk. They drove into the pedestrian. 150% the drivers fault, every time. On Monday the initial police report said 'with the sun setting early, people need to take more care'. Today the Spec is saying this crash happened at 4pm. A full hour before the sun goes down. The victim blaming attempts from police were already being attempted mere hours after the crash. The mayor needs to make a strong statement about this, or just toss our pedestrian charter in the trash next to the laughable 'Putting People First' document from 10+ years ago that has also found a nice home in the trash.

Comment edited by JasonL on 2015-11-25 10:00:07