Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

That doesn’t mean no charges. If I operate my table saw carelessly and injure or kill someone I could be charged even though there is no vehicle in sight.

I'm quite prepared to believe you might face criminal charges for killing or injuring someone with a table saw. However, drivers are rarely criminally charged for collisions with pedestrians even on public roads, and the bar is so high it usually only happens when they're impaired or grossly negligent.

There are many situations on private property where a driver would otherwise be charged under the HTA but gets off with no penalty. Think of that incident at the Mill Courtland Community Centre where someone just drove right over a man sitting on a raised curb area with his belongings in a completely empty parking lot. WRPS straight up said there was nothing they could charge the driver with because the HTA didn't apply and it didn't meet the threshold for criminal charges.

Yeah, exactly this.

I recall a crash in Toronto where a driver, in the middle of a left turn, stopped looking at the road and started looking for a water bottle under their seat, of course, since they are in the middle of a turn, they ended up jumping the curb and maiming several pedestrians. They were charged with dangerous operation, and the judge ruled against the crown stating "this driving does not significantly deviate from the accepted standard of driving"...

If the acceptable standard of driving is look away from the road during crucial seconds of a high risk maneuver, resulting in multiple live changing industries, then I don't want to participate in this society.

Leaving aside the road design issues, and car culture, this acceptance of what I believe is criminal negligence causing serious injury and death is utterly insane.

[ijmorlan]

That doesn’t mean no charges. If I operate my table saw carelessly and injure or kill someone I could be charged even though there is no vehicle in sight.

I'm quite prepared to believe you might face criminal charges for killing or injuring someone with a table saw. However, drivers are rarely criminally charged for collisions with pedestrians even on public roads, and the bar is so high it usually only happens when they're impaired or grossly negligent.

There are many situations on private property where a driver would otherwise be charged under the HTA but gets off with no penalty. Think of that incident at the Mill Courtland Community Centre where someone just drove right over a man sitting on a raised curb area with his belongings in a completely empty parking lot. WRPS straight up said there was nothing they could charge the driver with because the HTA didn't apply and it didn't meet the threshold for criminal charges.

Sadly, you are right. Although I find it hard to believe that WRPS was correct in that last example. Really, a prosecution against a person operating a vehicle in a grossly negligent fashion would fail? Even if they are correct, they should have charged the person specifically to bring the issue into the news: police should be concerned if they are prevented from policing properly by factors outside of their control. Of course, police also should not be political actors trying to criminalize things they don’t like … so it’s a bit of a balancing act.

[tomh009]

The trick is in proving "grossly negligent" beyond a reasonable doubt.

[ijmorlan]

The trick is in proving "grossly negligent" beyond a reasonable doubt.

Driving right up the curb without even noticing one has hit someone is grossly negligent, unless the reason for doing so is that one has just had an unexpected heart attack or seizure. Anybody who disagrees has no business being a police officer, prosecutor, judge, or lawyer of any kind. We need our justice system to operate in the real world, not in some fantasy world where we need absolute proof of mental state before we can impose consequences for anything.

If people don’t like this, they shouldn’t be driving.

As some economists like to say, “incentives matter”.

[tomh009]

I don't know any of the details of this particular case. But the burden of proof is higher than for an HTA offence, regardless.

[Rainrider22]

It isn't as difficult as you might think. It does require a lot of investigative work though. You would also be surprised at the conviction rate on these charges for which a commencement of proceedings are initiated.

[tomh009]

It isn't as difficult as you might think. It does require a lot of investigative work though.  You would also be surprised at the conviction rate on these charges for which a commencement of proceedings are initiated.

The won't lay the charges if they are not reasonably confident of being able to secure a conviction, though.

Honestly, I don't know this case. And I don't have any stats on criminal code cases for incidents in parking lots. All I said is that the standard of proof required makes it more difficult. If you think it's no more difficult or even easier than HTA convictions, then I'm not really adding any value to this conversation.

[Rainrider22]

Not disagreeing with you..As a participant in judicial proceedings, I can advise that the crown has a good record on these cases. A lot of work goes into the investigations songs a result, defense will often work a plea to hear offence.

[ac3r]

Well this explains why I had to take a bus rather than the LRT home on Sunday. A drunk woman hit a 65 year old man and severely injured him. Can't imagine being so drunk at 2:30PM on a Sunday afternoon that you crash your car into an elderly man: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/pedestrian-...-1.5817672

Chances are she doesn't face anything more than a fine and some demerit points...

[danbrotherston]

Well this explains why I had to take a bus rather than the LRT home on Sunday. A drunk woman hit a 65 year old man and severely injured him. Can't imagine being so drunk at 2:30PM on a Sunday afternoon that you crash your car into an elderly man: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/pedestrian-...-1.5817672

Chances are she doesn't face anything more than a fine and some demerit points...

DUI is one of the few driving infractions that often does lead to serious charges (and it should).

But that one hits close to home...I worked at Communitech (when we were in offices) for years, and before that I worked at Google when they were located in that office, I cannot tell you how many times I have waited on that corner, probably thousands.

[dtkvictim]

Every single Victoria St intersection is a nightmare at the best of times, when people are only under the influence of their phones, and not drugs...

I'm curious if there are any statistics on whether or not safe road design has a significant impact on the severity of DUI accident outcomes.

[danbrotherston]

Every single Victoria St intersection is a nightmare at the best of times, when people are only under the influence of their phones, and not drugs...

I'm curious if there are any statistics on whether or not safe road design has a significant impact on the severity of DUI accident outcomes.

I suspect there are studies somewhere, but you can also infer it, places with safer roads still have drunk drivers, and yet they still have fewer or no deaths.

That being said, I think the BIGGER impact on drunk driving is walkability. Most people who choose to drive drunk would probably prefer not to drive drunk, but often, they have limited other transportation options--especially late at night (which this was not). The fact that bars have parking minimums is by far the most insane thing about our transportation planning policy.  In fact, I think bars should have no parking, like, parking maximums of 0, I don't care about employees, they can get to the bar the same way the patrons should HAVE to get there.

[cherrypark]

This very intersection came up at the 30 Francis public information session asking about even more traffic and its poor design. Not looking forward to when the Region does nothing to improve this area after the transit hub goes up. As said above, the whole Victoria St corridor is a mess and every intersection so dangerous.

[danbrotherston]

This very intersection came up at the 30 Francis public information session asking about even more traffic and its poor design. Not looking forward to when the Region does nothing to improve this area after the transit hub goes up. As said above, the whole Victoria St corridor is a mess and every intersection so dangerous.

They've literally reconstructed King, Weber, and Charles, and all were made worse in the reconstruction.

Basically, I don't want the region to build anything new till they figure out how to do it at least as well as it was before.

[jeffster]

Went out for a drive today with my daughter (driving helps her anxiety) so we did our normal drive, which is taking the expressway and getting off at Baden (or New Hamburg) then normally we'd take the road that becomes Ottawa back to Kitchener.

Anyway, fog was real bad this morning, so I played safe -- which was doing about 92 in that 90 zone. Yes, I had bumper huggers and people zipping by me at 130, which is typical. Expensive gas and fog can't slow people down.

Not sure why, but people in Honda's, Volkswagen's, Mercedes and Audi's all drive like jerks all the time. Just an observation. Truck drivers in general are all crappy drivers.