In the Fall of 2016 there was some  nasty positioning happening in the City of Toronto between advocates of motordom having full advantage of Toronto streets and the rights for vulnerable road users to also have a somewhat equitable share of the street. Toronto has demonstrated a  weak approach to vulnerable street user policy instead of steadfastly championing the right of citizens to be safe on the streets. Thirty-eight pedestrians and cyclists have died in Toronto this year. Shockingly eight have died this month. That is two people a week dying on Toronto streets in October.

The fatalities are largely people over 65 years of age who are hit by a larger vehicle. They are usually walking across an arterial road in the suburbs, and usually at a location without a crosswalk or traffic signal. You can also think of this as one vulnerable road user dying per 68,421 people. (A quick note, Vancouver is worse, with one pedestrian dying per 54,727 people).

The City’s response, instead of universally lowering speed (which is proven to reduce mortality and injury) or  re-examining road design or  regulating driver behaviour has been to focus on the visibility of pedestrians. And that reports the Globe and Mail has a lot of people really upset.

“Enough is enough, we have to end fatalities and serious injuries on our roads,” said David Stark, whose wife was killed when a vehicle mounted the east-end sidewalk where she was standing.The group – Friends & Families for Safe Streets – officially launched Tuesday at City Hall. It is spearheaded by people such as Mr. Stark, all of whom have lost a family member or close friend in a road collision.

In the early days of motordom, car crashes were termed “road violence” – a term that echoes protests from the early decades of motoring, when fatal collisions sparked outrage against “death drivers.”  “The gravity of the harm calls for actions,” said Yu Li, whose close friend was killed while cycling. “And the term of road violence will have that effect of bringing this to the conscience of everybody, that these are not accidents. These are preventable and these are tragedies with grave consequences.”

The group is calling for the city to go beyond the road safety plan announced this summer. That plan was slammed for its timidity when unveiled and was later beefed up. But critics say it continues to focus too much on small fixes and not enough on cultural change. A drop to the default speed limit – a key tactic in some cities – was not among the measures included.

I’ve been back four times to Ontario this year and the behaviour of vehicle drivers to vulnerable road users is markedly different. In Vancouver, most motorists yield to pedestrians and cyclists. That is just not the case in Ontario’s major city.

Being visible whether you are a pedestrian or a bicyclist is so important, and can be so challenging. The most dangerous time for pedestrians is in the autumn and winter, with Ontario statistics showing that over 40 per cent of serious injuries and 42 per cent of pedestrian fatalities occur at that time. (2010, Ontario Road Safety Annual Report). But wearing reflective clothing is a personal choice that a pedestrian or cyclist makes to be visible to vehicles. It does not condone speed, driver behaviour, or bad road design.

In Finland, every child going to school must wear three pieces of reflective items on their clothes and their backpack.  The safety reflector was developed in Finland in 1960, and it is the law that pedestrians wear reflective clothing and reflectors in the dark.   Indeed, wearing reflectors and reflective clothing is completely accepted as daily wear in Scandinavia. That part of the world also has the lowest incidence of pedestrian accidents.

A similar program in Great Britain reduced pedestrian deaths with children by 51 per cent. Studies show that wearing a reflector increases the visibility of pedestrians from 25-30 meters to 140 meters, increasing the reaction time from two seconds to ten seconds  for a car being driven at posted  municipal speeds of 50 kilometers an hour. That is eight seconds more for a  driver to react, and for a pedestrian to survive.

Sure reflectivity of pedestrians will enable vehicle users to see vulnerable road users. But reflectivity is not the sole response. A vigorous and truthful campaign to slow speeds, address problem streets and intersections, address driver behaviour and regulate is key. Toronto needs to step up to the 21st century. These tragic deaths on Toronto streets should be the tipping point. But will it be enough to change policy and attitude?

As reported in the British Telegraph, Motordom’s last gasp is alive and well with a science reporter letting us know that removing speed bumps (called speed humps in Britain)  on the road will lessen pollution and save lives. I am not making this stuff up.

“In a report looking at how to make air cleaner, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), said that measures which help motorists stay at a constant speed, rather than accelerating and decelerating, were preferable to humps. It follows a study earlier this year by Imperial College which found that forcing drivers to slow down and speed up again produces significant harmful emissions”

But that is not really what the NICE link says when you click on it. It says if you slow down and drive smoothly, you will reduce pollution. The Imperial College report goes on more of a tangent, stating “road humps should be removed from streets close to schools and playgrounds because they increase the amount of pollution from cars, experts have said. Scientists have found that by forcing drivers to slow down before speeding up again, road humps cause vehicles to produce a greater amount of harmful emissions” And yes, they have made the link that speed humps impact air quality where “large numbers of children gather, such as outside schools or play areas”. There is no discussion that the speed humps are placed outside schools and play areas to slow vehicles and protect children.

What of the lives saved and reduced injuries from speed hump slower speeds? We know that a child or adult being hit by a vehicle at 50 km/h has a 10 per cent of survival. That increases to a 90 per cent survival rate if the vehicular speed is reduced to 30 km/h. Speed humps or bumps reduce vehicular speeds and increase the likelihood of pedestrian survival in crashes. At the C40 Cities Summit in Mexico City incoming chair Mayor of Paris Anne Hildalgo has just announced that  the use of diesel vehicles will be prohibited  in four major C40 cities by 2025. Emissions can be reduced by the use of electric vehicles.

It is hard to believe in the 21st century that this vitriol for motordom supremacy is still being published by newspapers. There is a national movement started in Toronto to start calling crippling and deadly vehicular/pedestrian crashes “road violence”, a term that was first used in the early 20th century. Slower speeds save lives. Speed humps or bumps slow cars. Until we have better driver behaviour and streets designed for slower speeds, we need humps.