Toronto – Premier Dalton McGuinty has got more Ontarians cycling than ever before, but is not doing enough to ensure they ride safely.
The Liberal premier has removed the province’s sales tax from bicycles costing up to $1,000 and urged residents to cycle to exercise and cut gas consumption and pollution and stores say they are having record sales.
But cyclists still have a lot to worry about. A woman here killed a cyclist recently when she opened her car door in his path and knocked him in front of a van, an accident cyclists call the "door prize" and fear, which has killed many over years.
Police at first said it was unlikely they would charge the driver, because the cyclist may have been hidden by some blind spot, but after an outcry charged her with improperly opening the door, which carries a maximum $110 fine.
The motorist could have been charged with operating a vehicle dangerously and faced more severe penalties. What is a cyclist’s life worth?
This writer, who cycles to and from the legislature, which may reveal a bias, has been a recipient of the door prize and knocked to the ground, but luckily when traveling slowly. Every cyclist passes parked cars worries a door will suddenly open.
Cyclists’ other concerns include vehicles passing at up to 40 kilometres an hour within a foot or two of them, when the province advises they should leave at least 3 ft. space.
Cars race past cyclists to make a right turn and cut them off. Some pull out of side streets and laneways a few feet in front of cyclists, which they would never risk in front of another vehicle, knowing cyclists have no alternative but to brake sharply and, in a collision, only the cyclist will be hurt.
Some cities, including Toronto, have so-called bicycle lanes for cyclists, but too few, and cars are allowed to park in many, forcing cyclists into traffic. Cars officially are not allowed to park in others, but park every day without being ticketed.
The offenders include police, because for six months three of their cars have totally blocked the bike lane outside the Chinese consulate on this rider’s route, monitoring an average of two sad-looking demonstrators and forcing cyclists into traffic, while legal parking spaces across the narrow street remain unoccupied. If police cannot observe the law, why should others?
Motorists need to cease these dangerous practices without qualification, but cyclists should contribute by ending practices that are dangerous to them and cost the respect of motorists.
These include weaving in and out of traffic. This writer’s unscientific estimate is about 70 per cent totally ignore stop signs, except where traffic forces them to stop, 29 per cent slow and only one per cent come to a full stop. The last time this happened this writer felt moved to catch up with the unusual cyclist and congratulate him.
At least 80 per cent of cyclists ride without lights after dark and sometimes almost as much on sidewalks as streets, harassing pedestrians essential to their cause.
The province needs to toughen laws and make sure they are enforced. McGuinty’s strong suit has been protecting citizens, so he sometimes is accused of creating a nanny state.
In transportation he has required safeguards including more efficient car seats for children and safer driving around school buses, but not done much to protect cyclists.
What the legislature needs is more MPPs who cycle to work, as did Kelso Roberts, a Conservative so senior he led on the first ballot for leader and premier in the 1960s and arrived at his office on an ancient bone-shaker than looked as if it should have been in a museum, and New Democrat Marilyn Churley, who put strong men to shame by cycling to her office only recently.
But ministers come to Queen’s Park insulated from traffic in their limousines – none of them knows the problems of sweaty, apprehensive cyclists first-hand.
Eric Dowd is a veteren member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
