Fifteen pedestrians hit over course of one day

Toronto police blame lightning and bad weather as factors

Fifteen pedestrians were struck by vehicles in Toronto on Tuesday, almost three times the city’s daily average.

The collisions included one in North York that left a woman dead.

Lighting and bad weather played a role in the tally, said Toronto police Const. Clint Stibbe.

The daily average is 5.2 pedestrians struck by vehicles per day, Stibbe said.

An earlier estimate had the number of pedestrians struck Tuesday at 22. Stibbe said the confusion came from multiple reports of the same collisions.

“Quite often, there are calls from different locations for the same event,” he said.

“What happens is we will get multiple calls for the same event. People will report from different intersections and they will be referring to the same incident,” Stibbe said.

There were 42 collisions overall on Tuesday, including one involving a cyclist.

At least 16 of the accidents police responded to on Tuesday came within two hours, starting at around 6 p.m., during a “crappy” and wet night in the city, Const. Craig Brister said.

Earlier in the day, an 87-year-old woman died after being struck by a vehicle near Sheppard Ave. W. and Bathurst St. in North York around 7:30 a.m.

At around 6:30 p.m., police responded to another serious collision involving two pedestrians in the Queen St. E. and Dalhousie St. area. Both were transported to the hospital, one with serious injuries.

At the same time, police said, an 84-year-old man trying to cross King St. W. at Dufferin St. was struck by a 20-yearold man driving a Smart car. The senior suffered life-threatening injuries and was taken to hospital.

In the majority of Tuesday’s accidents, the pedestrians suffered only minor injuries, according to police and Toronto paramedics.

The last time police saw a similar surge in pedestrian accidents was between Nov. 2and Nov. 3, when14 pedestrians were hit between sunset and the next morning.

Police are advising drivers, pedestrians and cyclists to be extra cautious while driving as the roads become more slippery. With files from Sophie Van Bastelaer and Fakiha Baig