First pedestrian fatality of 2019 echoes grimly familiar story
Twenty-two days into 2019 and the grim tally began anew.
Montreal registered its first pedestrian death of the year, Tuesday. A 79-year-old woman was hit by a garbage truck turning on to Parc Ave. in Mile End.
According to police and witness reports, she was walking on the sidewalk.
The driver was exiting an alley. There was a collision. She died on the scene.
We shall see how this terrible incident plays out, but pedestrian and cycling fatalities in Montreal tend to follow an all-too-familiar script.
First there is a search for some misstep, some reason to blame the victim. Was the person crossing against a light or in the blind spot of some behemoth? Was it dark? Was it too sunny, causing a glare?
If not, then the blame gets implied. The deceased was a senior? The person must have been moving very slowly. They were young? They must have been distracted by their smartphone. They were a cyclist? Enough said: probably reckless.
The opposite is true when it comes to the driver. There’s a tendency to make excuses even when the person behind the wheel was clearly at fault. These aren’t just reflex reactions, either, they’re often the official conclusions after police and coroners investigate.
When Jessica Holman-Price was crushed to death under the wheels of a snow-removal truck while standing near the Westmount YMCA in 2005, it was because the driver didn’t see her (or the clutch of other pedestrians) waiting to cross the street. When Concepción Cortacans was killed while jogging in 2016, the driver ran a red light at a busy crosswalk because he was looking at his GPS, had never driven on Parc Ave. before and a bus stopped beside him. When elite cyclist Clément Ouimet slammed into an SUV making an illegal U-turn into his path on Camillien-Houde Way in 2017, it was because the driver didn’t see him descending the steep incline.
No charges were laid in any of these cases. There were tickets and fines and lost demerit points. Perhaps, we might hope, there were pangs of guilt for having taken a life. But when no one is held accountable, no one learns, and nothing changes.
Coroners rule these deaths avoidable, but generally deem them accidents. To the walking and cycling public, they seem more like accidents waiting to happen.
If Holman-Price’s death was a wake-up call about the dangers of turning trucks, even to people waiting patiently for a green light, the deaths of three pedestrians run over by snow trucks on a single day in 2009 ought to have sent alarm bells pealing. The dead included a couple in their 70s trying to cross the street to a hospital. They had the right of way. The licence of the driver who killed them had expired.
A coroner’s inquest into those latter fatalities yielded little more than bromides: drivers rush to fulfil Montrealers expectations of prompt snow-clearing; big trucks have big blind spots; pedestrians should be sensitized to the dangers of large vehicles; there should be more spot checks to ensure truck drivers have taken mandatory rests.
Perhaps writing off pedestrian and cycling deaths as accidents is easier than making changes to infrastructure, equipment and attitudes.
Holman-Price’s mother has led a nearly 14-year fight for all snow-clearing trucks to be outfitted with sideguards that would prevent pedestrians and cyclists from being swept under them. City trucks now have them, but the rules are still being phased in for contractors who object to the requirement.
Other groups want trucks with poor visibility to be banned from city streets, as they are in London.
Montreal has adopted the Vision Zero strategy, and is pledging to overhaul the design of its roadway to promote a better sharing of the public domain between users. But ripping up asphalt and building wider sidewalks is a slow process.
When a pedestrian was killed by a dump truck crossing Atwater St. in December, it was left to a bereaved friend to point out how short the time is for people to cross the busy intersection — and one close to a major construction site where large trucks are constantly turning.
The circumstances of the latest tragedy make it especially hard to accept. The woman should have been safe strolling down the sidewalk on a brisk, sunny, winter morning. The garbage truck should have taken extra care that the coast was clear.
Why wasn’t she?
Why didn’t he?
Even if we find an answer, this year’s death toll is sure to keep rising regardless.