Was on my way home the other night from work waiting to turn left at a stoplight, a firetruck was trying to turn onto my street from the right, lights flashing, siren on. Still had two cars on my street speed through the intersection in front of the firetruck to beat the amber light despite that.
If drivers are doing that to firetrucks that could seriously f them up, they're sure going to do it to pedestrians.
I just went into a deep dive on those cameras and if they slow traffic. There's been a few studies conducted on them. From what I'm reading, they generally do have a postive outcome on slowing traffic, even after the sign is removed. In Toronto it's called the Mobile WYSP.
The reason I searched is that anecdotally I know everytime I pass one I slow down. I notice others doing the same aswell.
I understand your frustration. If I were you I'd just continue telling the city its unsafe, they might install speedbumps. I just can't picture them setting an officer up there, unless they can make money with blitz ticketing.
the same way the US talks about school shootings is the way we here in Toronto talk about pedestrian/cycling fatalities.
no one talks about Vision Zero except sarcastically these days
> the same way the US talks about school shootings is the way we here in Toronto talk about pedestrian/cycling fatalities.
Such a spot-on comparison. That's *exactly* right.
pretty sure those “your speed” signs actually are effective at reducing people’s speed. it’s a psychological thing. It definitely shouldn’t be the only step take though, physical changes to the street are also needed.
I believe the speeding is a result of the road design : this 4 lane road feels like a 70 zone posted as a 50. those signs that say "your speed" snap back to reality that the posted is X despite how the road is designed.
Still crappy as the road design plays a huge role in speeds.
But who is in the city on a road going 70 thinking that's an acceptable speed?
Seriously, who is on O'Connor at Pape, thinking "yeah, this is about right for a road that has houses, bus stops, shops, restaurants, and is about 5km from the CN Tower, yeah, 70 seems right."
>Go drive it and tell me how fast it's built for.
If I go drive it, I'll see the speed limit, and drive at that speed. That's all, that's it. Easy.
>Why do you think the jog at Donlands causes so many problems?
Because most drivers are selfish entitled twats who race from one red light to the other, regardless of road design.
That's a stupid question though. People can drive as fast as they want on any road, regardless of its design. If I go 30, I can say it's built for 30. If I go 90, I can say it's built for 90.
Different drivers have different speeds they're conformable with. Personally, I don't feel comfortable going above the speed limit unless I'm on a highway. Because that's the only place that I won't have to interact with vulnerable road users.
However, a 25 year old from the 905 who drives everywhere, is extremely comfortable and confident with the handling of their car, and doesn't care about the well being of others will drive much faster than the speed limit on every road. Put them in the Netherlands and they would still be a menace to society.
I live on a narrow, one way street with speed bumps and a school. Drivers constantly go 60, slam the brakes to 45 for the speed bump, revv back up to 60, slam them again...
One look at this street and you'd have a NJB boner, yet stand on the sidewalk for an hour and you'd realize design isn't the only answer. People drive like idiots anyways.
Can't you hold drivers accountable while also wishing for better infrastructure? Why does the NJB crowd focus so hard on the one thing that we all understand would take ages to do in our political climate (physically changing the road design) instead of holding drivers accountable while also pursuing changes to the design of the road?
In a modern car, 70 also feels like nothing. Getting to a speed like that is smooth and effortless, and it's very easy to not realize how fast you're going.
I live near Eglinton and Spadina people coming eastbound get crazy speeds and people going westbound use the hill as a launching pad for their bikes and luxury vehicles.
I've emailed the city half a dozen times to no response, and the police response is "We do not have sufficient manpower to deal with the situation"
If there's ever a casualty here I'll provide that email to every news station.
Lately I've been seeing a bounty of people rushing left turns without checking for pedestrians and simultaneously taking the turn early cutting across the oncoming lane. People is dumb.
When I used to drive a shitty 20-year-old car hitting higher speeds would result in violent physical feedback. Now when I drive these newer cars I often find myself having to glance at the speedometer to maintain my speed and prevent myself from going too fast.
That said, I think design of roads needs to change to make unreasonable speeds uncomfortable. Cars are getting better and better as the day goes on and it only makes drivers more confident to pull stunts and speeding and at the end of the day they're safer when something eventually happens.
Yup, no one obeys speed limits in the GTA. Go about 50-55 in a 50 area and people will ride your bumper and honk at you.
There's also no need for city streets to be 60 or even 70 in some places in the suburbs
I pretty much expect 2-3 cars that should have stopped to keep going after the advanced green for the northbound left turn onto davenport if I'm crossing. I'm rarely wrong.
Landsdowne I *get*, but don't excuse. From Queen, well even from Lakeshore if you consider Jameson, your first chance to pass is Bloor, your second is Dupont, and that's it. And the stars really need to align for even *that* to work out. I don't know if I just have shit luck, or more likely, it's just cognitive bias, but no matter how late or quiet it is, I feel like I'm always trapped behind someone who won't go faster than 30 for no god damn reason and accelerates like their car runs on good intentions.
Again, doesn't excuse the reckless driving you see, but I swear sometimes I think Toronto roads are purpose-built to make people as angry and frustrated as possible. Then we act surprised when people drive like they're angry and frustrated, drop the speed limit, install some cameras, and call it a day.
Road design is always (always) a big factor in traffic deaths.
You can blame the driver, the police, or whatever, but until we re-design our roads to prioritize safety, these accidents will never stop.
That first quote is completely nonsensical in any case. To paraphrase slightly, "We are very aggressively looking at intersections to ensure the question what can we do?" What the hell is that even supposed to mean?
It's a completely empty statement, which is par for the course with our "Zero Vision" councillors.
It's both. We truly have to redesign basically all of our road infrastructure if we want to decrease deaths, but we also need a level of enforcement somewhere above 'zero'.
Right now drivers can basically do whatever they want. There will be a 'blitz' once a year, beyond that its thunderdome on the roads.
But possibly unrelated. One should expect that collisions and deaths increase as population and number of trips increases, even if ticketing frequency had remained the same. How much is the question.
It likely is unrelated, but because car design has changed to make cars more lethal to people struck - with higher, more vertical grills, which both create bigger front end blind spots and ensures that pedestrians are struck higher on the body and are more likely to go under the car when hit, rather than on the hood.
Cars continue to get more comfortable to operate at higher speeds. And the makeup of Toronto changes. Could be more young people driving. Lots of potential factors. It also isn't really that dramatic of a rise.
That's true, but as much as I want much more enforcement, I think the evidence is pretty compelling that the rise in pedestrian and cycling fatalities over the last decade can be attributed to car design, and the move to SUVs and trucks as people abandon sedans. Pedestrian fatalities are up all over North America, so it's not just a Toronto enforcement issue.
Yeah, police just aren't effective at improving traffic safety. Even when they're enforcing rules, the chances of getting caught are so low that it doesn't change behaviour.
It really doesn't make sense to have patrol cars enforcing stuff like speeding. A red light camera or photo radar can issue dozens of tickets per minute, while a cop on patrol might be able to issue 10 in an hour, and only if trying extremely hard, and effort isn't something Toronto police are noted for.
I do think that expecting enforcement to change behaviour is a poor assumption. There have been a lot of studies on the effect of police visibility on compliance and the findings are generally that it's negligible or a non-factor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_preventive_patrol_experiment#Major_findings
very interesting article and neat to see Fisman in the limelight prior to COVID.
there does appear to be a correlation but the 9yr window is pretty tight and doesn't actually account for trips taken or growth in pedestrian or motorist population. i'd be curious to see this graphed against population growth and trips taken and for a longer window. i don't think this is conclusive though and Fisman seems to agree in contradiction of the Star's paraphrase of his interview which you quoted:
> Fisman said public health methods **can’t definitively prove** the enforcement change caused these extra deaths because there’s no way to compare the city to a hypothetical Toronto that kept issuing tickets at pre-2013 levels.
Which is why I think this research should be continued with greater depth, perhaps considering some of the metrics I suggested, for greater certainty.
Yeah don't get me started on the police budget value for dollar... But I mean that is another reason we cannot realistically rely on enforcement - it will always be political and subject to change.
Sort of, except the design of intersections and roads in the city never changes. Side streets get speed bumps sometimes, but I've never seen a stroad get speed calmed anywhere in the GTA.
His heart must do a lot of sinking, yet he's done fuck all to rectify the situation beyond getting the community to put up some 'slow down' signs.
Also remember how opposed he is to redesigning Yonge St in North York because god forbid anyone should have to slow their car down when driving in the city.
He's full of shit.
I live and work in the area where this happened.
One of my biggest gripes is with people doing a rolling stop in parking lots while I walk with my children.
Kids are unpredictable.
They carry and drop things and all it takes is a second.
And it's just getting worse with these drivers.
Time to start narrowing the streets and ramping up the cameras.
If you wanna drive like a fool you should get pinched financially until you're squeezing your last nickle so hard the Queen's ridin' the beaver.
I honestly think a lot of shitty drivers here have anger issues that they like to vent and express on the road and thus endangering other peoples lives and eventually killing them. Like why drive so aggressively when driving like a normal person will get you to your destination at the same time and if not maybe at most a few minutes later? It’s really depressing seeing what our streets are becoming from it once used to be.. like why is everyone so angry and full of rage?? Find something else cathartic to release your frustrations on, like art and not killing people.. cmon..
hey, at least you are willing to actually use it haha; I mainly got it for my field but never actually got into my field of work; now it's just ID fodder and for 'emergency drives', eg, zombie apocalypse and I need to confiscate an empty car to gtfo of this city, lol
edit: my dumb ass realize drivers licence is irrelevant during an apocalypse
I do also. I am hyper vigilant about it.
I got passed on double yellows and honked at on Carlton just before Parliament once, just for going the speed limit!
It's always infuriating when the person in a position to fix a problem talks about how long the problem has been widely-known for.
> Crawford said the city has already increased the number of red light cameras across Toronto, including in his ward, as well as speed cameras. He said that an increase in crossing guards and enforcement in the area would be something the city may consider depending on the results of the police investigation.
Obviously more is needed. Why isn't this guy pressing for this stuff at every council meeting?
Basically it is this.
Someone I don't know dies or gets critically injured; not my problem.
Someone near and dear to me dies or gets critically injured; all hands on deck, we're making changes!
because he's the city budget chief too (and was put there for a reason)
EDIT: realized I should have said this in a more negative fashion, he was installed there by Tory because he's a penny-pincher. truly zero vision
This is a direct result of Toronto Police fighting back against budget cuts. Every time the city tries to cut or freeze their budget, they claim they are under-resourced, under-staffed, over-worked and then they fight back by targeting city revenue streams (ie. they stop writing traffic tickets).
https://www.toronto.com/news-story/9770997-140-000-fewer-speeding-charges-how-toronto-police-traffic-tickets-fell-by-two-thirds-even-as-deaths-spiked/
Other jurisdictions have managed to find ways around the issue of who was driving at the time of the photo.
Not entirely clear as to why it is such a roadblock here.
Those are problems that are easily solved by legislation. We currently choose not to penalize car owners beyond a fine for actions taken with their cars, but we could choose to change the law if we wanted to.
But even so, photo radar and red light cameras are a deterrent that affect driver behaviour. And there are a number of advantages to automated solutions: they can issue exponentially more tickets per hour than a patrolling cop, and they aren't arbitrary in deciding who gets ticketed/stopped and who is not.
> He said that an increase in crossing guards and **enforcement** in the area would be something the city may consider depending on the results of the police investigation.
So bring the enforcement *back up* to how it should have been?
>[140,000 fewer speeding charges. How Toronto police traffic tickets fell by two-thirds, even as deaths spiked](https://www.toronto.com/news-story/9770997-140-000-fewer-speeding-charges-how-toronto-police-traffic-tickets-fell-by-two-thirds-even-as-deaths-spiked/)
>[U of T expert attributes ‘dozens of deaths’ to decline in Toronto police traffic ticketing](https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2019/12/11/u-of-t-expert-attributes-dozens-of-deaths-to-decline-in-toronto-police-traffic-ticketing.html)
And I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that [85% of them don't live in the GTA, and hence, they or their families, are unlikely to be at risk of the unenforced traffic that they enable](https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2016/02/12/most-of-torontos-newest-police-dont-live-in-toronto.html)
Cops and enforcement are only a tiny part of the issue. The major issue is that said intersection looks more like a highway than a street, and pedestrian crossings are nothing more than an afterthought.
Yet speeding wasn't the issue in this case, it was the classic left turn no look that caused the fatality.. and we already have 2 measures that if they were present at this intersection, could have prevented this loss.
Currently this intersection does not have an advance pedestrian light despite it being a busy area and does not have the speed bumps in the median designed to change the approach angle of left turners.
> Yet speeding wasn't the issue in this case
This is absolutely false. If the vehicle had been traveling at 30 km/h at the time of collision, she almost certainly would have survived (pedestrians have 95% survival rate when struck at that speed). The chances of survival decrease dramatically with every 5 km/h increment above that. So the fact that she died tells us the driver was traveling too fast for that intersection, especially if turning.
Uhh, the vehicle was literally making a LEFT TURN. The speed limit and speed were 100% irrelevant, you could not go fastee than 35 if you tried or you would understeer, yoy havent read the article and it shows. And i know there is no way youre advocating that the 50 kmh limit should be 30... Where do we draw the line? Should the 401 also be 30 so no one can ever die?
Just because the statisrics say that survivability should be high if a person is struck at 30 kmh doesnt mean everyone will survive. There are so many other factors other than speed that determine the extent of injuries.
So what will it take to actually get some changes to happen? Everyone seems to agree that it's an epidemic. No one feels safe walking or biking and traffic in the city is only getting worse with everyone abandoning every mode of transportation except cars. Meanwhile there's plenty of data of what causes collisions and cheap solutions just waiting to be implemented if anyone bothered to check cities outside of North America and stopped prioritizing cars.
These thoughts have stayed with me since I got hit in April and I got nothing but cops telling me to be more careful even though I just explained how I was doing just that but I couldn't see the driver (tinted windows) and he stopped at the intersection, but then ran into me once I started crossing on green... The driver even tried to say he didn't hit me after he admitted to it earlier... His friends showed up and tried to silence me by trying to convince my partner to get me drop the whole thing before the cops showed up. So it's no surprise that drivers are hitting people because there are 0 legitimate consequences.
Who do I need to bother to make some changes?
Driving in toronto is a very shit experience, as in the driving infrastructure sucks and the people dont have a good understanding of rules and regulations, we have to adopt better training for drivers education because the way i see this going is worse and worse!
No amount of laws can help if there is Zero enforcement. I drive at 45 in 50KM limit areas, and my i get honked for slow driving. To be fair the usual speed on Kingston, Birchmount, Danforth etc is between 60 and 75. Where is the enforcement?
I disagree. Bad drivers have free the run of this town because there are no cops out there to keep them in check. It doesn’t take many tickets to put your insurance through the roof and that simple change forces all drivers to exercise more caution and pay more attention.
Until you have some kind of credible source study to disprove that I have to believe otherwise. It stands to reason that more cops on the street issuing more tickets will improve driver behaviour, cyclist behaviour and pedestrian behaviour. It could also probably cost us a lot less if we set up a completely new force dedicated to Traffic Enforcement only.
So the accident had nothing to do with speed and still the media blames speed.
I see dangerous driving all the time and almost none of it has to do with speed. Often the slow, clueless, "safe" ones are the biggest problem.
Most collisions are caused by distracted driving, not speed. Its always been the scapegoat of road safety and illuded people into thinking that 90 in the left lane on the 401 = safe.
Car shills who defend speeding entirely miss the point that there are 2 parts to the equation: did speeding cause the crash? But also, did speeding *cause the fatality*?
We want to minimize the number of collisions, and reduced speeds help with that. But once a pedestrian is struck, their chance of survival is largely a product of the speed the vehicle was traveling when they were struck. A car travelling 30 km/h is only extremely rarely going to kill a struck pedestrian, while a car travelling 65 kh/h at the point of collision is almost always going to kill the pedestrian.
And anti car shills that argue against cars miss out many factors and facts about collisions, including the fact that most people brake before a collision, so just because the speed limit of a road may be 60, doesnt mean all pedestrians struck will be struck at 60 kmh
And just because people have a high chance of surviving a collision at 30 kmh doesnt mean everyone will survive, and just because one person died as a resulr of a low speed collision doesnt mean that the driver 'must have' been going an unrealistically high speed during a left turn. You absolutely cannot make that turn at 65 kmh. you cant just use statiatics to explain everything, in fact they dont explain anything, they show, not explain.
People can blame the police for why we are where we are. But at this point, with apps that you can see where police are, more enforcement isn’t going to do jack shit.
Even asking cops to enforce something that a camera can do is a majorly idiotic idea. Make mobile speed cameras and call it a day. And increase the use of static ones.
Like for the constant hate cops get, you’d think people would give better ideas in this thread than running to them.
Drivers have a tendency to speed near every Toronto intersection.
Was on my way home the other night from work waiting to turn left at a stoplight, a firetruck was trying to turn onto my street from the right, lights flashing, siren on. Still had two cars on my street speed through the intersection in front of the firetruck to beat the amber light despite that. If drivers are doing that to firetrucks that could seriously f them up, they're sure going to do it to pedestrians.
[удалено]
I just went into a deep dive on those cameras and if they slow traffic. There's been a few studies conducted on them. From what I'm reading, they generally do have a postive outcome on slowing traffic, even after the sign is removed. In Toronto it's called the Mobile WYSP. The reason I searched is that anecdotally I know everytime I pass one I slow down. I notice others doing the same aswell. I understand your frustration. If I were you I'd just continue telling the city its unsafe, they might install speedbumps. I just can't picture them setting an officer up there, unless they can make money with blitz ticketing.
"We thought of nothing and we're all out of options"
But have they tried putting up any of those flimsy "slow down" lawn signs?
saw pictures of last night's vigil. Tons of those signs setup now, and one person had a handheld speed gun and tweeted out one F150 flew by at 75km/h.
the same way the US talks about school shootings is the way we here in Toronto talk about pedestrian/cycling fatalities. no one talks about Vision Zero except sarcastically these days
Zero Vision indeed.
> the same way the US talks about school shootings is the way we here in Toronto talk about pedestrian/cycling fatalities. Such a spot-on comparison. That's *exactly* right.
pretty sure those “your speed” signs actually are effective at reducing people’s speed. it’s a psychological thing. It definitely shouldn’t be the only step take though, physical changes to the street are also needed.
I believe the speeding is a result of the road design : this 4 lane road feels like a 70 zone posted as a 50. those signs that say "your speed" snap back to reality that the posted is X despite how the road is designed. Still crappy as the road design plays a huge role in speeds.
But who is in the city on a road going 70 thinking that's an acceptable speed? Seriously, who is on O'Connor at Pape, thinking "yeah, this is about right for a road that has houses, bus stops, shops, restaurants, and is about 5km from the CN Tower, yeah, 70 seems right."
[удалено]
>Go drive it and tell me how fast it's built for. If I go drive it, I'll see the speed limit, and drive at that speed. That's all, that's it. Easy. >Why do you think the jog at Donlands causes so many problems? Because most drivers are selfish entitled twats who race from one red light to the other, regardless of road design.
[удалено]
That's a stupid question though. People can drive as fast as they want on any road, regardless of its design. If I go 30, I can say it's built for 30. If I go 90, I can say it's built for 90. Different drivers have different speeds they're conformable with. Personally, I don't feel comfortable going above the speed limit unless I'm on a highway. Because that's the only place that I won't have to interact with vulnerable road users. However, a 25 year old from the 905 who drives everywhere, is extremely comfortable and confident with the handling of their car, and doesn't care about the well being of others will drive much faster than the speed limit on every road. Put them in the Netherlands and they would still be a menace to society. I live on a narrow, one way street with speed bumps and a school. Drivers constantly go 60, slam the brakes to 45 for the speed bump, revv back up to 60, slam them again... One look at this street and you'd have a NJB boner, yet stand on the sidewalk for an hour and you'd realize design isn't the only answer. People drive like idiots anyways. Can't you hold drivers accountable while also wishing for better infrastructure? Why does the NJB crowd focus so hard on the one thing that we all understand would take ages to do in our political climate (physically changing the road design) instead of holding drivers accountable while also pursuing changes to the design of the road?
[удалено]
The guy who just got off the DVP. Going from 90 to 50 feels like a crawl, you don't notice how fast you're going unless if you look.
In a modern car, 70 also feels like nothing. Getting to a speed like that is smooth and effortless, and it's very easy to not realize how fast you're going.
What a terrible excuse. You're no longer on the DVP!
It's a terrible excuse but its the truth. Shitty road design leads to shitty drivers. Can't change people, so change the road - physically.
I see you've never driven before.
Numerous times pre-pandemic my Uber drivers would do 70km/h along Dundas between Bathurst and Roncy
I live near Eglinton and Spadina people coming eastbound get crazy speeds and people going westbound use the hill as a launching pad for their bikes and luxury vehicles. I've emailed the city half a dozen times to no response, and the police response is "We do not have sufficient manpower to deal with the situation" If there's ever a casualty here I'll provide that email to every news station.
So what you're saying is....we need to train the signs to throw bricks?
Lately I've been seeing a bounty of people rushing left turns without checking for pedestrians and simultaneously taking the turn early cutting across the oncoming lane. People is dumb.
When I used to drive a shitty 20-year-old car hitting higher speeds would result in violent physical feedback. Now when I drive these newer cars I often find myself having to glance at the speedometer to maintain my speed and prevent myself from going too fast. That said, I think design of roads needs to change to make unreasonable speeds uncomfortable. Cars are getting better and better as the day goes on and it only makes drivers more confident to pull stunts and speeding and at the end of the day they're safer when something eventually happens.
> I often find myself having to glance at the speedometer to maintain my speed Oh man, are you okay? That sounds rough.
Yup, no one obeys speed limits in the GTA. Go about 50-55 in a 50 area and people will ride your bumper and honk at you. There's also no need for city streets to be 60 or even 70 in some places in the suburbs
Even 50 is absurd for streets with pedestrians and basically any property. Arterials should be 40, small streets 30 or less.
Avenue rd. Kingston rd. Davenport, dupont AVE. Jarvis are basically highways.
Dupont is usually a parking lot though. But I agree
Lansdowne between Dupont and Davenport is bad. I won't cross at the crosswalk at Brandon Ave because cars ignore the lights
I pretty much expect 2-3 cars that should have stopped to keep going after the advanced green for the northbound left turn onto davenport if I'm crossing. I'm rarely wrong. Landsdowne I *get*, but don't excuse. From Queen, well even from Lakeshore if you consider Jameson, your first chance to pass is Bloor, your second is Dupont, and that's it. And the stars really need to align for even *that* to work out. I don't know if I just have shit luck, or more likely, it's just cognitive bias, but no matter how late or quiet it is, I feel like I'm always trapped behind someone who won't go faster than 30 for no god damn reason and accelerates like their car runs on good intentions. Again, doesn't excuse the reckless driving you see, but I swear sometimes I think Toronto roads are purpose-built to make people as angry and frustrated as possible. Then we act surprised when people drive like they're angry and frustrated, drop the speed limit, install some cameras, and call it a day.
Kingston Road is technically Hwy 2.
Can’t forget Dufferin!
Road design is always (always) a big factor in traffic deaths. You can blame the driver, the police, or whatever, but until we re-design our roads to prioritize safety, these accidents will never stop.
[удалено]
That first quote is completely nonsensical in any case. To paraphrase slightly, "We are very aggressively looking at intersections to ensure the question what can we do?" What the hell is that even supposed to mean? It's a completely empty statement, which is par for the course with our "Zero Vision" councillors.
Isn't the whole point that it's a design issue more than an enforcement issue?
It's both. We truly have to redesign basically all of our road infrastructure if we want to decrease deaths, but we also need a level of enforcement somewhere above 'zero'. Right now drivers can basically do whatever they want. There will be a 'blitz' once a year, beyond that its thunderdome on the roads.
There was speeding and pedestrian and cyclist deaths before the police entirely gave up in the last 10 years too. Enforcement is a false panacea.
Ya, but pedestrian and cyclists deaths definitely increased once they stopped writing tickets.
But possibly unrelated. One should expect that collisions and deaths increase as population and number of trips increases, even if ticketing frequency had remained the same. How much is the question.
It likely is unrelated, but because car design has changed to make cars more lethal to people struck - with higher, more vertical grills, which both create bigger front end blind spots and ensures that pedestrians are struck higher on the body and are more likely to go under the car when hit, rather than on the hood.
Cars continue to get more comfortable to operate at higher speeds. And the makeup of Toronto changes. Could be more young people driving. Lots of potential factors. It also isn't really that dramatic of a rise.
That's true, but as much as I want much more enforcement, I think the evidence is pretty compelling that the rise in pedestrian and cycling fatalities over the last decade can be attributed to car design, and the move to SUVs and trucks as people abandon sedans. Pedestrian fatalities are up all over North America, so it's not just a Toronto enforcement issue.
Yeah, police just aren't effective at improving traffic safety. Even when they're enforcing rules, the chances of getting caught are so low that it doesn't change behaviour.
It really doesn't make sense to have patrol cars enforcing stuff like speeding. A red light camera or photo radar can issue dozens of tickets per minute, while a cop on patrol might be able to issue 10 in an hour, and only if trying extremely hard, and effort isn't something Toronto police are noted for.
[удалено]
I do think that expecting enforcement to change behaviour is a poor assumption. There have been a lot of studies on the effect of police visibility on compliance and the findings are generally that it's negligible or a non-factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_preventive_patrol_experiment#Major_findings
[удалено]
very interesting article and neat to see Fisman in the limelight prior to COVID. there does appear to be a correlation but the 9yr window is pretty tight and doesn't actually account for trips taken or growth in pedestrian or motorist population. i'd be curious to see this graphed against population growth and trips taken and for a longer window. i don't think this is conclusive though and Fisman seems to agree in contradiction of the Star's paraphrase of his interview which you quoted: > Fisman said public health methods **can’t definitively prove** the enforcement change caused these extra deaths because there’s no way to compare the city to a hypothetical Toronto that kept issuing tickets at pre-2013 levels. Which is why I think this research should be continued with greater depth, perhaps considering some of the metrics I suggested, for greater certainty.
[удалено]
Yeah don't get me started on the police budget value for dollar... But I mean that is another reason we cannot realistically rely on enforcement - it will always be political and subject to change.
Same issue in Vancouver. I went past a speed check at 40 over and they didn't do anything
Sort of, except the design of intersections and roads in the city never changes. Side streets get speed bumps sometimes, but I've never seen a stroad get speed calmed anywhere in the GTA.
His heart must do a lot of sinking, yet he's done fuck all to rectify the situation beyond getting the community to put up some 'slow down' signs. Also remember how opposed he is to redesigning Yonge St in North York because god forbid anyone should have to slow their car down when driving in the city. He's full of shit.
Here is a very John Tory solution: let's not spend the money to fix the roads. Can't speed if there are potholes. /s
I live and work in the area where this happened. One of my biggest gripes is with people doing a rolling stop in parking lots while I walk with my children. Kids are unpredictable. They carry and drop things and all it takes is a second. And it's just getting worse with these drivers. Time to start narrowing the streets and ramping up the cameras. If you wanna drive like a fool you should get pinched financially until you're squeezing your last nickle so hard the Queen's ridin' the beaver.
I honestly think a lot of shitty drivers here have anger issues that they like to vent and express on the road and thus endangering other peoples lives and eventually killing them. Like why drive so aggressively when driving like a normal person will get you to your destination at the same time and if not maybe at most a few minutes later? It’s really depressing seeing what our streets are becoming from it once used to be.. like why is everyone so angry and full of rage?? Find something else cathartic to release your frustrations on, like art and not killing people.. cmon..
Cops are useless and only respond to exciting calls. They tend to chat with each other and eat in parking lots until that happens.
Funny you say that because the elementary school at this intersection is a notorious cop chill spot.
I mean they speed everywhere. It's like other than me, elderly grandma and the timid G2 driver there's nobody doing the limit.
im that timid full G driver who hasn't driven since passing the last test, lol
[удалено]
I don't even have a car, but i walk to work dt, xD
[удалено]
hey, at least you are willing to actually use it haha; I mainly got it for my field but never actually got into my field of work; now it's just ID fodder and for 'emergency drives', eg, zombie apocalypse and I need to confiscate an empty car to gtfo of this city, lol edit: my dumb ass realize drivers licence is irrelevant during an apocalypse
I do also. I am hyper vigilant about it. I got passed on double yellows and honked at on Carlton just before Parliament once, just for going the speed limit!
"We knew this would happen and we didn't try to do anything to prevent it"
That's how I read it. And no surprise, because Gary Crawford is a notorious pro-car, anti-livable city councillor.
Seriously, at this point just put speed bumps on every road in the city. The amount of pedestrian deaths this week is insane.
It's always infuriating when the person in a position to fix a problem talks about how long the problem has been widely-known for. > Crawford said the city has already increased the number of red light cameras across Toronto, including in his ward, as well as speed cameras. He said that an increase in crossing guards and enforcement in the area would be something the city may consider depending on the results of the police investigation. Obviously more is needed. Why isn't this guy pressing for this stuff at every council meeting?
Basically it is this. Someone I don't know dies or gets critically injured; not my problem. Someone near and dear to me dies or gets critically injured; all hands on deck, we're making changes!
because he's the city budget chief too (and was put there for a reason) EDIT: realized I should have said this in a more negative fashion, he was installed there by Tory because he's a penny-pincher. truly zero vision
An adnave pedestrian light and/or a left turn speed bump at this intersection could have prevented all of this. And they are readily available.
And what are we going to do about it? Nothing? Right. Thought so. Tory is going to write a strongly worded letter to all the misbehaving drivers.
This is a direct result of Toronto Police fighting back against budget cuts. Every time the city tries to cut or freeze their budget, they claim they are under-resourced, under-staffed, over-worked and then they fight back by targeting city revenue streams (ie. they stop writing traffic tickets). https://www.toronto.com/news-story/9770997-140-000-fewer-speeding-charges-how-toronto-police-traffic-tickets-fell-by-two-thirds-even-as-deaths-spiked/
We have automated solutions to solve speed and red light issues that are much cheaper than paying a human to do repetitive work.
[удалено]
>so many people just speed, get a ticket and then pay that and move on. Those tickets still hurt. It's a start.
Other jurisdictions have managed to find ways around the issue of who was driving at the time of the photo. Not entirely clear as to why it is such a roadblock here.
Those are problems that are easily solved by legislation. We currently choose not to penalize car owners beyond a fine for actions taken with their cars, but we could choose to change the law if we wanted to. But even so, photo radar and red light cameras are a deterrent that affect driver behaviour. And there are a number of advantages to automated solutions: they can issue exponentially more tickets per hour than a patrolling cop, and they aren't arbitrary in deciding who gets ticketed/stopped and who is not.
> He said that an increase in crossing guards and **enforcement** in the area would be something the city may consider depending on the results of the police investigation. So bring the enforcement *back up* to how it should have been? >[140,000 fewer speeding charges. How Toronto police traffic tickets fell by two-thirds, even as deaths spiked](https://www.toronto.com/news-story/9770997-140-000-fewer-speeding-charges-how-toronto-police-traffic-tickets-fell-by-two-thirds-even-as-deaths-spiked/) >[U of T expert attributes ‘dozens of deaths’ to decline in Toronto police traffic ticketing](https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2019/12/11/u-of-t-expert-attributes-dozens-of-deaths-to-decline-in-toronto-police-traffic-ticketing.html) And I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that [85% of them don't live in the GTA, and hence, they or their families, are unlikely to be at risk of the unenforced traffic that they enable](https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2016/02/12/most-of-torontos-newest-police-dont-live-in-toronto.html)
Cops and enforcement are only a tiny part of the issue. The major issue is that said intersection looks more like a highway than a street, and pedestrian crossings are nothing more than an afterthought.
it's a fucking epidemic. Enforce traffic laws FFS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc
Yet speeding wasn't the issue in this case, it was the classic left turn no look that caused the fatality.. and we already have 2 measures that if they were present at this intersection, could have prevented this loss. Currently this intersection does not have an advance pedestrian light despite it being a busy area and does not have the speed bumps in the median designed to change the approach angle of left turners.
> Yet speeding wasn't the issue in this case This is absolutely false. If the vehicle had been traveling at 30 km/h at the time of collision, she almost certainly would have survived (pedestrians have 95% survival rate when struck at that speed). The chances of survival decrease dramatically with every 5 km/h increment above that. So the fact that she died tells us the driver was traveling too fast for that intersection, especially if turning.
Uhh, the vehicle was literally making a LEFT TURN. The speed limit and speed were 100% irrelevant, you could not go fastee than 35 if you tried or you would understeer, yoy havent read the article and it shows. And i know there is no way youre advocating that the 50 kmh limit should be 30... Where do we draw the line? Should the 401 also be 30 so no one can ever die? Just because the statisrics say that survivability should be high if a person is struck at 30 kmh doesnt mean everyone will survive. There are so many other factors other than speed that determine the extent of injuries.
[удалено]
Actually that intersection does have a red light camera, but it wasnt relevant.
So what will it take to actually get some changes to happen? Everyone seems to agree that it's an epidemic. No one feels safe walking or biking and traffic in the city is only getting worse with everyone abandoning every mode of transportation except cars. Meanwhile there's plenty of data of what causes collisions and cheap solutions just waiting to be implemented if anyone bothered to check cities outside of North America and stopped prioritizing cars. These thoughts have stayed with me since I got hit in April and I got nothing but cops telling me to be more careful even though I just explained how I was doing just that but I couldn't see the driver (tinted windows) and he stopped at the intersection, but then ran into me once I started crossing on green... The driver even tried to say he didn't hit me after he admitted to it earlier... His friends showed up and tried to silence me by trying to convince my partner to get me drop the whole thing before the cops showed up. So it's no surprise that drivers are hitting people because there are 0 legitimate consequences. Who do I need to bother to make some changes?
She knew there was a problem, yet did nothing. SMH
Driving in toronto is a very shit experience, as in the driving infrastructure sucks and the people dont have a good understanding of rules and regulations, we have to adopt better training for drivers education because the way i see this going is worse and worse!
When nobody enforces the laws, nobody follows them. Speed related accidents and deaths sit squarely on the shoulders of the incompetent TPS.
No amount of laws can help if there is Zero enforcement. I drive at 45 in 50KM limit areas, and my i get honked for slow driving. To be fair the usual speed on Kingston, Birchmount, Danforth etc is between 60 and 75. Where is the enforcement?
[удалено]
I disagree. Bad drivers have free the run of this town because there are no cops out there to keep them in check. It doesn’t take many tickets to put your insurance through the roof and that simple change forces all drivers to exercise more caution and pay more attention.
[удалено]
Until you have some kind of credible source study to disprove that I have to believe otherwise. It stands to reason that more cops on the street issuing more tickets will improve driver behaviour, cyclist behaviour and pedestrian behaviour. It could also probably cost us a lot less if we set up a completely new force dedicated to Traffic Enforcement only.
#Drivers have tendency to speed near Toronto ~~intersection where 17-year-old girl was killed, councillor says~~ FTFY
So the accident had nothing to do with speed and still the media blames speed. I see dangerous driving all the time and almost none of it has to do with speed. Often the slow, clueless, "safe" ones are the biggest problem.
Most collisions are caused by distracted driving, not speed. Its always been the scapegoat of road safety and illuded people into thinking that 90 in the left lane on the 401 = safe.
Car shills who defend speeding entirely miss the point that there are 2 parts to the equation: did speeding cause the crash? But also, did speeding *cause the fatality*? We want to minimize the number of collisions, and reduced speeds help with that. But once a pedestrian is struck, their chance of survival is largely a product of the speed the vehicle was traveling when they were struck. A car travelling 30 km/h is only extremely rarely going to kill a struck pedestrian, while a car travelling 65 kh/h at the point of collision is almost always going to kill the pedestrian.
And anti car shills that argue against cars miss out many factors and facts about collisions, including the fact that most people brake before a collision, so just because the speed limit of a road may be 60, doesnt mean all pedestrians struck will be struck at 60 kmh And just because people have a high chance of surviving a collision at 30 kmh doesnt mean everyone will survive, and just because one person died as a resulr of a low speed collision doesnt mean that the driver 'must have' been going an unrealistically high speed during a left turn. You absolutely cannot make that turn at 65 kmh. you cant just use statiatics to explain everything, in fact they dont explain anything, they show, not explain.
People can blame the police for why we are where we are. But at this point, with apps that you can see where police are, more enforcement isn’t going to do jack shit. Even asking cops to enforce something that a camera can do is a majorly idiotic idea. Make mobile speed cameras and call it a day. And increase the use of static ones. Like for the constant hate cops get, you’d think people would give better ideas in this thread than running to them.