“For some reason, we’ve come to accept this road violence against pedestrians as part of the wallpaper of urban living – even as “walkable cities” are the holy grail of city planning everywhere.”
Peter Ladner in his latest editorial in Business in Vancouver calls it for what it is: we have an epidemic of Road Violence in Vancouver. Peter states in his editorial: “Never mind calling back Mayor Gregor Robertson from Mexico to clear our icy sidewalks. We should be asking him to stay home in January and protect seniors from being killed by cars. Vancouver is the pedestrian death capital of Canada, and January is peak month for pedestrian deaths in B.C. – expect more than seven.
Based on five-year averages, 61% of those killed will be 50 or older. Our pedestrian death rate is twice that of Toronto, where one pedestrian is injured every four hours, and 44 pedestrians were killed in 2016. In last October alone, 10 pedestrians died in five Lower Mainland municipalities. There were as many pedestrians slaughtered by cars in the city of Vancouver (11) last year as there were murder victims.
My son was walking to work across a marked intersection at Pender and Jervis, on a green light, at 7:30 on an October morning two years ago when a car knocked him to the ground. He is still suffering from the concussion he incurred. The driver stopped and leaned out the window to ask if he was all right, then drove off. It turns out his situation is typical: according to a BC Coroners Service report, 40% of pedestrians killed in Greater Vancouver were struck at intersections and in crosswalks and two-thirds were crossing while the light was green. It might also be the case that many of the pedestrians who got hit were, like him, wearing dark clothing. In some Nordic countries the widespread use of reflective clothing has greatly reduced road violence.
But it’s too simple to blame pedestrians. I remember the first time I saw the 30 km/h zone painted boldly on Hastings Street around Main – the most dangerous pedestrian intersection in the Lower Mainland. My first reaction was: “Why should I slow down because impaired people choose to lurch into oncoming cars?” Then I sobered up and reframed the question: “Why should saving a few seconds of driving be more important than killing someone?”
Peter notes that when some European countries adopted laws where vulnerable road users, not road drivers were assumed to be innocent, injury and fatality rates dropped by 70 per cent. HUB cycling recommends a 30 km/h speed limit on non arterial streets-the survival of a pedestrian crashed into at 30 km/h is 90 per cent at that speed, and only 15 to 20 per cent at 50 km/h.
Peter points out that it is the Province-Minister of Transportation Todd Stone-who could implement this and who “is not interested. Nor is he interested in photo radar and red-light cameras. Research in Europe found there were 42% fewer serious injuries and fatalities where photo radar and cameras were installed.” Minister Stone dismissed this as a “tax grab”. Peter suggests this is the same as saying “Seniors are expendable if it gets me votes from car drivers who want the freedom to kill them by breaking the law and letting ICBC pick up the bills.”
Getting to zero pedestrian fatalities needs ” lower speed limits, safer intersection design, better pedestrian signals, tougher enforcement to stop speeding and distracted driving (none of us should be taking calls from people while we’re driving), more reflective clothing, cyclists using lights and more. But mostly it means getting serious about this ongoing car violence against mostly seniors, in every neighbourhood, especially in January. “
The assertion that ” when some European countries adopted laws where vulnerable road users, not road drivers were assumed to be innocent, injury and fatality rates dropped by 70 per cent” deserves some substantiation. May you present it?
I will offer that In France, this has been the case since at least 1934 (and it is not because the country adopted a law, but it is a case law ruled as such by one of the highest court in the country)…and I think that is also what happened in most of the European countries, around the same time…
In short, this 70% figure, which supposes that driver were deliberately reckless, because the law allowed them to be, is most probably pure fantasy…
…Then, how can we trust the rest of the numbers?
PS: the link to the article is broken
Fair comment Voony.
It wasn’t just the liability laws. It’s hard to fit everything into 650 words!
Here’s the full quote, cited in Pricetags, originally from the Lancet http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30066-6/fulltext
In several countries (eg, Germany, France, The Netherlands, and Sweden), injury and fatality rates for active transport users have been reduced by more than 70% (from 1975 to 2001).42, 43 These countries have implemented new laws of strict liability, where vulnerable road users (not drivers) are assumed to be innocent. These countries have also lowered speed limits in towns and cities to 30 km/h; introduced high-quality transport systems; introduced demand management strategies, including reduced car parking; devised protective road designs that reduce conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers; and improved traffic signals.44, 45 These practices could be trialled elsewhere to reduce the global burden of road injury while also increasing the demand for active travel and reducing NCD risks.
Here is the link to the article:
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/1/time-curb-urban-car-violence-and-pedestrian-death-/
and here is a link to the corinor’s report::
http://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/public-safety-and-emergency-services/death-investigation/statistical/mvi-pedestrian.pdf
I suggest that Mr. Ladner is being a bit harsh on CoV and Mayor Robertson. I further suggest that CoV is a leader in addressing the road violence inflicted upon vulnerable road users. Taking the numbers from the 7 municipalities with the highest number of pedestrian deaths, I calculeted the number of deaths per 100,000 population and got this result:
Pedestrian Fatalities
fatalities Population per 100k
Vancouver 64 603502 10.6
Surrey 50 468251 10.7
Richmond 22 190473 11.6
Burnaby 21 223218 9.4
Kelowna 14 117312 11.9
Nanaimo 11 146572 7.5
Oops , here is rest of my comment:
Pedestrian Fatalities
fatalities Population per 100k
Vancouver 64 603502 10.6
Surrey 50 468251 10.7
Richmond 22 190473 11.6
Burnaby 21 223218 9.4
Kelowna 14 117312 11.9
Nanaimo 11 146572 7.5
This shows that Surrey, Richmond and Kelowna are all higher. Furthermore, Vancouver’s numbers must swell dramatically during weekdays, while that of neighbouring munis must shrink. From Statistics Canada we have:
” In the Vancouver CMA, 36.1% of commuters who lived in Burnaby and 13.1% in Surrey commuted to work in the municipality of Vancouver.”
Therefore Vancouver’s risk to pedestrians must be lower than I show in the chart. My guess is that the risk of death for pedestrians in Vancouver is among the lowest in BC.
We should encourage all municipalities to step up to the plate but we should give kudos to CoV for taking a lead. For example, as Mr. Ladner mentioned, Vancouver did reduce the speed limit on the most dangerous section of Hastings St. They have taken the lead on numerous occasions to encourage UBCM and the province to allow munis to set a default speed limit lower than 50 k/h. They have set 30 k/h speed limits on all the local street greenways and bikeways in Vancouver. CoV has created the first fully protected intersection in Canada – namely Burrard/Cornwall – where ped and cycle movements are separated from motor vehicle movements by light phasing. Also, intersections on Hornby and elsewhere have partial protection. CoV has probably done more than any city in Canada to make cycling safer and we are all reaping the benefits that this provides. CoV is one of the few cities in Canada which has a target of zero deaths due to road violence. (BC also has a vision zero but implementation plan is lacking).
From the coroner’s report, the Vancouver Coastal health region has the second lowest pedestrian death rate of the 5 health regions in BC at 1.2/100,000 population while the northern and interior regions are the worst at 1.4/100,000.
Of course, CoV should do more, but they should be lauded for the strong leadership they have taken to address the issue of road violence toward vulnerable road users.
One thing Vancouver and other cities could do is make the speed limit on all local neighbourhood streets 30km/h. It seems crazy that vehicles travelling 50km/h and more are in the same space as kids playing. Try driving 50km/h down a local street lined with parked cars and see if it feels safe.
Unfortunately, they cannot do this without signing every block on every street, like they did for local street greenways and bikeways, since the province has consistently refused to allow municipalities to do this.
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Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
Driving my son today to VGH – came alongside a frequent lane-changing twit in a Chrysler 300 – had a cigarette in her left hand and a coffee in her right. She was peeking down at her phone while her dog bounced around in the passenger’s seat. If she kills someone who could call it an accident?