Topic: Somebody tell me why the Volvo owner/driver was not guilty of causing death?

[Wolverine]

"you can't not pay attention when you're on a bike..." someone must keep an eye on this writers, ehehhheh.

Back on topic, that's why I always look on the mirror before opening the door. It could be a bike, but it could also be a car coming...

[ArticSteve]

It is a tragic accident that could of prevented. I can't see how the Volvo driver can be charged, prosecuted and convicted for the death of the cyclist. The police can issue the driver a traffic ticket in this case, and to actually have him/her convicted in the courts will be rather difficult and a very long process just to go thru it.

No doubt the driver does have a share of the blame for this accident, but to dragged this person and his family thru the court process is rather crude, IMO.

I can't see how the Volvo driver can be charged, prosecuted and convicted for the death of the cyclist.

 

That would require the Crown to prove criminal intent and that would be impossible particularly in view that someone else actually did the deed.

No doubt the driver does have a share of the blame for this accident

Yes.  Improper opening of a vehicle door  2 demerit points in Ontario.

The Volvo driver will be sued as well as the dude that ran over him providing if the cyclist was "worth" anything; as sad as that sounds. 

[quadzilla]

quad, i am not sure where you live, but it is a different world down here.  people on both sides seem completely out of touch with the dangers of the roads.

Your post backs up what I was saying that everybody need to pay more attention to what is around them. But that seems to be the problem...people think everybody should get out of their way for what ever reason. Ever walk down a sidewalk with two people pushing two double wide baby buggies beside each other leaving you no room to walk and they won't move over? (just one of my pet peeves)

My daily commute starts in the Beaches going through Harbourfront and then up to Richmond/Spadina . I'm lucky that most of my ride is away from traffic but the small portion that is on the road, I have to be on full alert all the time. I loved it last year when the closed off Harbourfront and made a real bike path with flowers along the side....it was amazing!

I'm not perfect either and have made mistakes to which I apologize right away and I accept that other people can make mistakes but you can tell most of the people that are just plain dumb and ignorant.

Driving in the bike lane, letting your kids sit down and draw on a bike path, walking your dog on one side of the path and you on the other, runners that need to run right in the middle, cyclist that talk/drink/cut.....and the list goes on and on.

I remember when I was on vacation in Seattle and did some biking. There was one part where the bike path comes to a cross road where the bike has to stop. The car's road was on a hill of good steepness (average for Seattle though). Cars would come down the hill and stop for bikes even though they didn't have to. It really threw me off when I saw it because that was something I'm not use to.

It will take a lot of education on everybody's part for things to change. Sadly I don't really see it happening until gas its $5/ltr and forces more people on bikes. 

[UmroAyyar]

i live downtown.  i am also an avid cyclist and a daily downtown driver.  having said that, driving in this city seems to be an all out war at times.  toronto must rank as one of the worst places to drive in the world.   downtown taxis are all over the road as are cyclist.  taxis race from red light to red light weaving in and out of the main traffic.  many of the downtown cyclist have this superiority complex feeling the rules of the roads are only for motorized vehicles.  they ride on the sidewalks, up one way streets the wrong way, without lights at night, on the phone, ignoring stop signs and lights, passing right signaling cars on the right at intersections.  this all goes on a daily basis.   i have had cyclist organizations here in the city tell me that riding the wrong way up a one way street is akin the traffic calming.     on the other side of the coin, it seems downtown drivers are completely clueless.   i see people swing their doors open in front of streetcars and buses on a daily basis as well.   i guess they figure that its other vehicles responsibility to avoid them.    unfortunately, the losers will always be the most vulnerable, the cyclists and pedestrians.  only two weeks ago this same situation happened to me.  i checked my mirror, glanced over at my wife for at most a second and started to get out of my car.  at the last moment i saw a cyclist out of the corner of my eye and stopped.  he weaved and avoided my half open door and started to swear at me.  i apologized profusely completely dumbfounded as to where he came from.  a pedestrian later told me he was riding down the sidewalk at full speed and jumped his bike onto the street from behind my car.   was i at fault?  partially, maybe yes but what was the rider thinking?  quad, i am not sure where you live, but it is a different world down here.  people on both sides seem completely out of touch with the dangers of the roads.

  downtown crowd is crazy, cyclists and drivers. I have witnessed all of the above.


Bicycle lanes desperately needed. I see more kids walking their bicycles through crosswalks than adults.

[tpl]

I used to live in downtown TO until fairly recently and I quite agree with Quad and Kevlar.

I would never give way to cyclists on the sidewalk, I just carried on walking, if one had ever hit me I would have had no hesitation on pushing them of their bicycle. The baby carriage thing has happened to me. I just stopped and stood until they moved aside.

I understand why cyclists in TO ride the way they do and I wish that all drivers could be made to be cyclists for a while until they realize how vulnerable cyclists are. OTOH cyclists should obey the vehicle rules as they should and  the damn police should enforce the rules on cyclists. All the parties are guilty imo.
I have spent many hours watching cyclists and cars interact in Paris and even tho' it is a much busier city than TO will ever be  I suspect that it is much safer to ride a bicycle there.

[dorin]

1)  The Volvo drivers should be charged with improperly opening her door at a minimum.  I do agree that it would be hard to prove the intent to warrant a murder charge, but if there is another charge that applies then she ought to be charged with that as well.  At the very least she should have to go to court over the incident instead of being given a free pass by the police.

2)  Any driver who does not always check his/her mirror before opening the door when parked on the side of the street is automatically negligent.  PERIOD.

3)  For all those people saying that the cyclist was riding too close to the parked cars - sadly car drivers make it so that there is no other way to ride on busy downtown streets.  In downtown Ottawa, riding far enough from cars to be out of the way means riding in the next lane over and that's when a large number of car drivers will make a point to run you down, either by following too closely or passing with no room to spare.

4)  Yes, some cyclists do misbehave on the roads but generally that is a reaction to the way car drivers endanger them on a regular basis.  Sometimes it becomes safer to go through a red light when there's no crossing traffic in order to avoid being sideswiped by the cars.  There's also the frustration factor where you just feel like a chump for sticking to the rules when it's clear that the law provides no protection for you.

[barrie1]

The car driver should definitely be charged as its obvious that they never used their mirror 1st as I doubt this accident would have not occured at all if they had of. To me its more like Manslaughter then we all know they didn't do it on purpose but did do it period. 

[dorin]

but cyclist need to take more care since they are the ones that will ultimately pay the price.   

Now that is the kind of statement that shows how far drivers here have their heads up their own asses.   

I keep hoping that our society has evolved past blaming the victim, but apparently not.

[quadzilla]

I can't wait until Dorin has children.

Now now kiddies.....just press the button at the crosswalk and start walking. Don't worry, the cars will stop.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Sounds like vehicular homicide or manslaughter to me.

The law states that the onus is on the driver when opening his door on the traffic side, period, no excuses. The actions of the cyclist are irrelevant.

The driver's  actions directly led to the death of the cyclist, and for that he should be held accountable.

[ktm525]

but cyclist need to take more care since they are the ones that will ultimately pay the price.   

Now that is the kind of statement that shows how far drivers here have their heads up their own asses.   

I keep hoping that our society has evolved past blaming the victim, but apparently not.

Today cycling into downtown I observed that most cyclists are wearing Ipods. Rush hour traffic, auto drivers on Blackberries (saw a cyclist texting on one this morning too, no hands in traffic. ) and cyclists with tunes in their ears. Disaster waiting to happen. The difference is that if an auto driver is inattentive he is looking at a couple thousand of autobody work. With a cyclist it could be life.

My biggest beef with my fellow cyclists is that they can't decide whether they are pedestrians or vehicles. A lot of riders just pick and choose the rules that suit them the best. Their casual disregard for their own personal safety is shocking. Whether a cyclist is right or wrong in a certain situation is almost meaningless when their own personal safety is what is at stake.

Keep your eyes open, mind on the road,  and the music off, and asume that every car driver is a moron waiting to hiot you and be safe out there.



Anytime I am riding on the road (ie. not a bike path) I have the Ipod off and the earbuds out.  

[safristi]

30 Plus years of pedal biking (since 5...in Bike pathed RHODESIA...how backward were we??? ) and cobbled and hilly and wet Edinburgh,year round....and Toronto. et al...with NO SCARS to SHOW...and 20 years of MotorBiking...shows I VALUE MY ARSE...........
              LOOK OUT FOR THE OTHER GUY.....Cyclists in Canada (95% of them) deserve to suck the BIG ONE........as ye Ride so shall ye SOW............

[Leviathan]

Cyclists or parallel parkers - I always check before opening my door. Are there no bike lanes in TO? My bike ride to/from work is either bike lane, bike path or dedicated bike route so I can stay away from regular traffic (and smog) as much as possible.

[quadzilla]

Bike lanes in T.O.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=162519

467 kilometres Bike lanes the city promised to build by 2012

69 kilometres Bike lanes built so far

75 kilometres What the city would have to add each year for the next five years to meet its target

2.7 kilometres Bike lanes actually added to the network last year

$66.8 million Amount committed over 10 years to building the bike network

5.5 kilometres Length of pathways that can be constructed with funding so far allocated over the next four years

$12.5 million Amount promised Bike Plan infrastructure funding has been shortchanged over the last five years

$400,000 Amount in the 2008 budget for bikeway network expansion

$280,000 Amount the city spent on bike promotion, safety and education programs in 2007 – half of the $560,000 activists says is needed

$200,000 Amount cut in 2007 from the parks bikeway expansion budget

$20,000 Estimated cost to build 1 kilometre of bike lane when the Bike Plan was adopted in 2001

$4.86 million Amount budgeted over the next five years for park trail upgrades and repairs

9 Number of the 90 proposed trails in the bikeway network that can be upgraded with money budgeted over the next five years

$1 billion Amount a 30 per cent reduction in vehicle emissions will save in health care costs per year

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Jeeze, Fredericton has 80kms of bike/walking trails serving 50k people!

[quadzilla]

I was looking for how much each city has and found conflicting number for TO.

Toronto has an ambitious plan to criss-cross the city with a 1,100 kilometres of bicycle lanes, which are separate lanes painted on the streets giving cars and bikes each its own place to travel.

So far the city has 378 kilometres of bike lanes. But over the past few years the bike-lane project has pretty much ground to a halt. The Mayor said yesterday that, even when council approved the money in its budget, local councillors found a way to kill each bike lane project at community council, or at least send it back endlessly for further reports.

http://www.canada.com/cityguides/story.html?id=f86724ba-3102-4043-9162-a181154d4b32

378km seems high to me though.

Which I could find the story that had how many kms of bike lanes in each of the major cities.

[safristi]

Jeeze, Fredericton has 80kms of bike/walking trails serving 50k people!

....$50K people............kinda exclusive....don't ya have a YACHT CLUB...

[barrie1]

Yes I do agree with you Kevlar as everybody involved in the trajic occurence is at fault to some degree but to me the person who started the whole thing rolling was the Volvo driver who opened their door. The rest of the events came from that action in my mind. I have noticed all cyclists seem to ride as close to the curb lane as they can which is normal I believe as I still have a Mountain Bike myself and will be going back to riding it again when I have a Hip replacement done . Should be good theraphy and exercise plue save some fuel on occasion as well. Riding this close to the curb is safer as well as too many drivers do not give proper space for Cyclists to ride by at all. They cut them off and we all know who gets hurt everytime. 

[quadzilla]

   Saw another guy almost get a door prize this morning. The guy that got out of the Jeep was a huge swerver about it where he didn't even think he did anything wrong.

   Family walking on the bike path taking up the whole lane. Plus they had their 5 yo kid in front kicking a huge beach ball. Ten feet to their right is a beautiful board walk.


  I had to pass a slower cyclist and the car behind me recognized this giving me the ok to move forward.

[UmroAyyar]

  Saw another guy almost get a door prize this morning. The guy that got out of the Jeep was a huge swerver about it where he didn't even think he did anything wrong.

  Family walking on the bike path taking up the whole lane. Plus they had their 5 yo kid in front kicking a huge beach ball. Ten feet to their right is a beautiful board walk.


  I had to pass a slower cyclist and the car behind me recognized this giving me the ok to move forward.

I believe that is on the lakefront area. Huge PITA in that area around Beaches and Humber. bicycles and skaters on the boardwalk and people walking on bicycle path.

My son surprised me when we were trying to cross the road infront of the school on a crosswalk/stop sign. A steaming bicycle blasted infront of us on the road and my 4 yr old son yelled 'you are 'posed to stop' amidst blaring horn from a turning car missing the bicycle.