Police preach pedestrian safety after three deaths
More people walking the streets amid warm winter weather
In mid-afternoon on Jan. 5, a 76-year-old man began crossing Honoré-Beaugrand St. near Ontario St. E. A few steps in he was hit by a delivery truck. The driver continued on his way, and the man died at the scene.
Two days later, a 62-year-old woman was jogging across the pedestrian crossing on Parc Ave. when she was struck by a car. Police are investigating exactly what happened, but witnesses said the car drove through a red light. The woman died from her injuries six days later.
Two weekends ago, a 70-yearold man was crossing Villeray’s Christophe-Colomb Ave. on foot in-between two intersections. He made it across two lanes, when an oncoming car stopped to let him walk across the third. A car driving the speed limit in the fourth lane didn’t see him. The man died a few hours later in the hospital.
Amid a recent cluster of pedestrian deaths in Montreal, police officers were out reminding people about safety on Tuesday.
Officers flanked all four corners of the busy Côte-des-Neiges Rd. and Jean-Brillant St. intersection, where hundreds of pedestrians tried to manoeuvre their way across the street.
“Did you know three people have already died this year?” one officer said to an older woman who crossed after the traffic signal had counted down to zero.
“Let me explain to you how this works,” said another to a young boy who had been egged on by his friends sitting across the street to cross on a yellow light and see what would happen.
Police handed out pamphlets reminding people how pedestrian signals work and that they have the right of way on green lights if there aren’t any.
The annual police campaign usually happens later in the year, but this winter’s warm weather has brought out more pedestrians, said André Durocher, a Montreal police inspector with the road-safety division.
“Instead of waiting until it gets worse, we want to reinforce the message and remind pedestrians that they have to be careful,” Durocher said.
“Road safety is like a food chain, and pedestrians are at the bottom of the food chain.”
Driver distraction is still the primary cause of traffic accidents, according to Montreal police, but 61 per cent of pedestrian fatalities come from people crossing the street at the wrong place or time.
Ten pedestrians were killed in road accidents in the city last year, 180 were seriously injured — meaning they had to be brought to a hospital — and more than 1,000 were slightly injured.
“But for pedestrians,” Durocher said, “the difference between slightly injured and deceased is very small.”
Last week, a small group of people gathered on Parc Ave. where the 62-year-old jogger was killed. They hung white sneakers and flowers on a post to commemorate her and held hands for 20 seconds across the street to raise awareness for pedestrian safety. Laurent Deslauriers helped organize the event.
“Everyone is a pedestrian at one point,” Deslauriers said on Tuesday. “Everyone walks. Yet pedestrians have no official voice representing them in front of elected officials.
“We live in a city where there’s a true diversity of ways that people get around, and each one needs to keep the other in mind,” he said. “Whether you’re driving, cycling or walking.”
Félix Gravel, a spokesperson for Piétons Québec, a pedestrian advocacy group launched last fall, said pedestrian safety is often overlooked.
“Pedestrians are everyone and no one at the same time,” he said. “They should factor into how the city makes decisions, whether they be about engineering, transportation, or urbanism.”
Gravel believes the city should implement changes — either to the intersections themselves or to the severity of penalties — to ensure fewer collisions.
“It’s not normal that it’s as dangerous as it is to get around, not normal that there’s this much tension between different people sharing the road,” he said. “We can, and need, to collaborate.”
What I won’t do is try to pretend I am okay when I know I am not. What I won’t do is think I am alone — no one is alone, not me, not you.