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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Traffic deaths, injuries an ‘unnecessary epidemic’

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High number of accidents involving pedestrians prompts call for more enforcement

Pedestrians critically injured on city streets over the weekend have one injury researcher suggesting a law-and-order solution: make traffic enforcement a top priority.

“The greatest epidemic before us sure wasn’t H1N1, it was injuries,” said Louis Francescutti, an Edmonton emergency medicine physician and director emeritus of the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research. “Traffic deaths are an unnecessary epidemic.”

So far this year, 12 pedestrians have died in traffic accidents in greater Toronto. And a 35-year-old man was in hospital in critical but stable condition with head injuries yesterday after being hit by a streetcar as he tried to cross Queen Street East mid-block while talking on his cellphone, putting him among the more than 2,000 pedestrians harmed each year in Toronto traffic collisions.

And yesterday at about 5:40 p.m., a woman in her 40s was hit by a car in the crosswalk at Carlingview and Dixon roads. Police told CTV the woman was taken to Sunnybrook Hospital with serious head injuries.

“What we’re seeing across Canada is a worsening of the injury problem because we’re really not paying attention,” said Dr. Francescutti, who has studied the issue for more than two decades.

Some pedestrians need a healthier respect for the road and to be aware of the dangers of walking while talking on a cellphone. And drivers – those who speed, are impaired, talk on cellphones or fail to obey signs – need to face law enforcement. Records show motorists are at fault roughly half of the time when there is a pedestrian fatality.

Increased traffic enforcement alone, said Dr. Francescutti, would spell a 50-per-cent reduction in such fatalities and a 20-per-cent reduction in crime, based on previous studies done in the United States. Educating pedestrians is also important, particularly about the little-known dangers of walking and chatting on a cell.

“They walk into signs; they get lacerations on their heads. They walk into intersections and get into pedestrian collisions. They fall off curbs, they fall into holes,” Dr. Francescutti said in a telephone interview from Edmonton. “It’s as if they are blinded because of the distraction.”

Canada’s pedestrian traffic injury rate is far higher than other countries, particularly compared with the European Union. Sweden in particular has low injury rates, in part due to beefed-up driver education and stringent enforcement, which includes pulling over motorists.

Drivers must also have their sight checked every decade with the renewal of their driver’s license.

“We are really not making the progress we should be making; other countries are taking this problem seriously,” he said. “ā€¦The will is not there. I have not come across one community in Canada where I am looking over my shoulder; there’s no enforcement anywhere in this country.”

Jan Kasperski, chief executive officer of the Ontario College of Family Physicians, said she believes cities like Toronto were built with cars in mind.

“Toronto is heading in the right direction with the number of condominiums, but it hasn’t paid enough attention to how we move people and cars and bikes safely,” Ms. Kasperski said yesterday. “It’s a little bit more risky to be out there on your feet and very risky to be out there on bicycles.”

Montreal faced a similar problem in 2006, when 27 pedestrians were killed and 183 seriously injured. It responded with police safety programs that target pedestrians in spring and fall. The result was a steep drop in deaths: In 2009, pedestrian fatalities were down to 19 and this year there have been no pedestrian deaths. Injuries were down, too, with 77 serious injuries in 2008, the latest figures available.

In Toronto the most recent figures for pedestrian injuries were for 2007, when 2,132 were injured. Whatever the number, it is always too high, as these deaths and injuries are seen as preventable.

“It really does pain the health industry when we see clusters [of pedestrian deaths and injuries] like this,” said Ms. Kasperski. “It’s really quite frightening.”

CTVglobemedia Publishing, Inc

Ā© CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.

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