Braking and my near brush with death

In my life, I have only been close to death a couple of times — and not really all that close.

For instance, when I was a kid in northern Ontario, I used to hop from one rock to another to get to an island in the middle of the Kapuskasing River. The big guys did it — so I did it. When you’re 6, you want to be a big guy and you don’t think of the consequences.

The problem was that I couldn’t swim. In the spring, when the runoff was roaring and we were still wearing parkas, I would have been a goner if I’d lost my balance and fallen in. Three score years and 12 later, my hands still sweat when I think about that.

Another time (I mean, there are always close calls but some are closer than others), I was very nearly the victim of a driver who thought she was applying the brake but was really flooring the gas pedal. If it hadn’t been for a metal pole she’d run into, my friend Ralph Luciw and I could have been killed. Now, that one was serious. It was in March or April of 2000. Ralph and I had business in a plaza at the southwest corner of Bayview Ave. and York Mills Rd. and were walking in front of a Shoppers Drug Mart that faces Bayview. Although the plaza has undergone renovations since, the drugstore in those days had an overhanging roof that was held up by a series of metal poles about 10 feet apart. Lucky for us they were there.

We were chatting about something and all of a sudden a car that had pulled into a parking spot didn’t stop and smashed full tilt into one of those poles. If that pole hadn’t been there, the car would have run right into us. We were startled and didn’t realize what was happening — as appeared to be the case with the driver. We didn’t comprehend the seriousness of the situation; instead of running out of the way, we stood there and watched, our mouths open. The driver was trying to stop but kept making the matter worse.

The car bounced backward away from the post and then was just

launched forward, smashing into it again. This happened two or three times until the car’s engine stalled.

In the end, no one was hurt but the pole was bent and the front of the car was all smashed in. A woman sat in the front seat of the car looking dazed and distraught.

I went into the Shoppers to ask them to call the police but they had already done that. Ralph and I hung around, in case we were needed as witnesses. That didn’t happen, however, because the officer who arrived concluded pretty quickly what had happened after the woman told him that she kept pushing on the brake but the car wouldn’t stop.

This happens — when a driver thinks they are braking when, in fact, they are accelerating — with alarming regularity. Motor vehicle accidents, particularly those that happen in parking lots, are frequently caused by confusion brought about by the brain thinking the right foot is on the brake when it is on the gas instead.

My uncle, the late Stan Geddes, a copy editor at the old Toronto Telegram, was an early proponent of left-foot braking and he convinced me about its merits.

He hated driving standard cars; he loved it when the automatics came along. We were out for a drive one day when I noticed he was gassing the car with his right foot and using his left foot to apply the brake. I asked him about it.

“I have two pedals,” he said, “and I have two feet. Why in the world would I use one foot to do both jobs?”

My sentiments, entirely.