Are Drivers Bad in T.O.?
We were talking after Christmas about story ideas for Toronto Metroblog, and the question came up: is it safe to drive in Toronto? I had a ready answer to that question — No! — but at the time was still obedient to my muzzle and said nothing. Then about a week and a half ago, I had a wake-up call, and no more will I remain silent, not about what happened to me nor about what happens every day because of the culpability of the government, the shenanigans of the automobile insurance industry, and the sheer destructiveness of our so-called legal system, all of whom allow bad drivers continue to be bad drivers.
I knew Toronto drivers were bad the day that woman careened through a red light at Dufferin and St. Clair, mounted the occupied streetcar stop, killed, and got a $300 fine (if memory serves right) for running a red light. She only received the fine due to the public outcry and therefore pled guilty. If not for that, I highly doubt anything would’ve happened. The poor government claimed its hands were tied because one just could not charge a sober driver, who had had the bad fortune to run a red light (bad fortune? are you kidding me?!), with assault with a weapon, bodily harm, manslaughter, or anything nasty like that. She was, you see, just driving a car. She was not drunk. And she was so sorry.
As the law stands and is applied now, it encourages bad driving. It begins with the tacit idea, in the government’s eyes, that a car is not and never can be a weapon, and although everyone must pass a written test and a practical one to get a license, driving is not seen as a privilege but a necessary right, no matter how much thinking people assert the opposite. Cars in North America are seen as necessary for normal daily functioning, including being able to earn a living, thus no government will willingly remove anyone’s ability to drive a car nor will they treat the car, in law, as a potential weapon. The only time they are moved to do so is when the driver is drunk or the driver has fled the scene (and that’s only after years of sustained public outcry, resulting in the law being changed for the special circumstance of DUI). The latter is truly idiotic because as anyone who has been involved in a car crash knows, is if a hit-run driver is sober and remains at the scene, they’re unlikely to be charged with anything, and even if charged, even more unlikely to be convicted, and if convicted, may get some paltry fine or a few demerit points. They won’t get jail.
While the government does little to punish bad drivers, it also does little to prevent bad driving. Drivers speed, tailgate, change lanes unsafely, butt in, race, use left-turn lanes improperly as straight-through lanes, run red lights, speed up at amber lights, talk on the cell, read maps, watch DVDs, type on their crackberries, steer with their knees, eat, groom, and sleep in microbursts. And what does the government do? Except for a short stint at photo radar, some lines painted here and there in bad intersections, and a small number of pilot project red light cameras, not much. They put a few more police on the highways, but just from observation, there are far fewer traffic cops on Toronto’s roads than 20 or 30 years ago, and I’ve often seen a police car sitting behind someone who’s clearly violating a traffic law, like not belting a child in, and the police doing nada. Why should they? The government culture is one of allowing bad driving to flourish, as long as you know what you’re doing.
What do the insurance companies do, the ones who have to pay for repairing cars and human beings? They punish the victims. More on that another day though.
In the end, if you’re sober and know perfectly well what you’re doing and the ramifications of your choices, you can injure and kill with impunity. You do not need to worry about fines, demerit points, and certainly not jail. The only recourse some of your poor victims have is the civil legal system, and that’s when things really become fun.
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Personally, I’ve been (almost) hit twice. The last time I gently tapped (smashed) my umbrella on the car’s hood. Both times it was drivers turning right, not looking for pedestrians nor paying attention to the red light that’s right infront of them.
So my answer to the question is a (very loud) YES.
Next Christmas, I’m asking Santa for a new Criminal Code. And if I don’t get it, I’ll hit him with a car. Accidentally.
I’ve often fantasized about having a can of fluorescent pink paint in hand to spritz the cars that almost mow me down on crosswalks. I find a really large red umbrella works better than those lights in notifying the dweebs that Hey! There’s a pedestrian crossing!!! Good on you for using that umbrella!
LOL to the Santa request! Maybe we can start the new MADD, except we’ll call it PAST — People Against Sober Twits. OK, twits is too nice, I wonder what other T-word would work….???
We have dedicated parking enforcement teams and we all know how efficient they are! Why not dedicated traffic police as regular police are apparently too busy to deal with traffic violations. Fines will cover all costs and the roads will be safer and more comfortable for all who use them.
Metro Toronto Police used to have a traffic division, and I believe they still do, but I heard that years ago they cut it back, probably at the same time as when they stopped attending the scenes of car crashes and set up those Collision Reporting Centres. Now that was big neon sign saying we don’t take crashes — and all their immediate and long-term destructive forces — seriously and don’t give a rat’s patootie about the victims.
Fines only work if the bloody courts actually convict. I witnessed a red light run (the person just flew into the side of a truck) a while ago. The only reason the driver got fined was cause I showed up. No witness, no conviction, and the person in the truck that got hit would not have been considered a witness.