Thread by @JessSpieker

It's been 4 years today nearly to the minute since the driver of a 300HP 4,600lb SUV made a negligent left turn and slammed her oversized, overpowered vehicle into my body while I was riding my bike to work. I have been living with the fallout ever since. #BikeTO

She inflicted a broken spine, brain injury, severe soft tissue damage to my left side. I developed a deep vein thrombosis in my left leg, and later a big piece of that clot broke off, chewed through my heart, and landed across both lobes of my lungs. That's often fatal.

This driver's actions nearly killed me TWICE. She was fined $300 and received ZERO demerit points. Compare: if you cut down a tree without authorization in Toronto, you can be fined $100,000. She got to keep driving like she didn't nearly just kill someone. No justice for me.

But finger-wagging at any individual's reprehensible negligence doesn’t make change. It's more productive to focus on higher-up systems: road infrastructure, and the laws governing behaviour on the roads, and those in charge of them. That’s what #VisionZero is about. #SafeSystems

Re infrastructure: this happened on Bathurst. The city's 10-year cycling plan - which doesn't even include Bathurst!!! - has all but ground to a halt. Even a textbook #VisionZero plan like #TransformYonge (cycle tracks on Yonge in North York) didn't get majority council support.

The idea of slowing cars down and adding physical separation between cars and vulnerable road users - the only way any city in the world has successfully reduced road death - is apparently political kryptonite to the majority of leaders in Toronto, including our mayor.

Evidently, by their dithering and hypocrisy, they prefer to see a person violently killed and a family shattered nearly every week than risk their jobs by supporting bold, life-saving action. And that’s not even considering the cases of serious life-changing injury, like mine.

The hilariously perverse thing is that complete, safe streets are better in every measurable way. More vibrant business and more money, better population mental health, reduced isolation, better population physical health, less infrastructure cost because of less wear-and-tear.

BUT YOU WOULDN'T WANT THAT!!! Better to preserve the lethal status quo that doesn't work for anybody. Also, cities that implement #VisionZero don't guillotine their leaders. People are mad for a bit, and then they realize how awesome it is. Deaths go down. Life goes on.

Re laws: we’ve been fighting for #Bill62, the Protecting Vulnerable Road Users Act. It adds meaningful penalties for drivers who injure and kill other people. License suspension, mandatory driver re-training, community service, requirement to appear in traffic court.

Doesn’t that all sound reasonable?? Welp. The Liberal government scuppered the VRU law on the last go-round in a show of political theatre, trumpeting that their new Careless/Dangerous Driving causing Death/Injury charge constituted a VRU law. It doesn’t. Not even close.

The resistance to this one is puzzling too. Everybody already assumes there are harsh penalties in the HTA for killer drivers. I assumed my driver would get something like “attempted vehicular manslaughter” and face some serious consequences. But that charge doesn’t even exist!

Given that everybody already believes something like this law is already in place, why not amend the law to meet people’s expectations?

I've been doing as much as I can with my friends in @FFSafeStreets to fight hard to make sure that what happened to me, to our family members and friends who were suddenly taken from us, can and will never happen to anyone else, ever again. No more violent preventable death.

The salt in our wounds from #RoadViolence is that EVERY instance was preventable. It shouldn’t be SO hard to make these changes. If you hate this as much as I do, what can you do? You can call or visit your MPP and voice your support for #Bill62.

If you live in a city, express your support for #CompleteStreets – protected infrastructure for all road users. Let your politicians know that you believe that speed and convenience for drivers is NOT more important than the lives and safety of people outside of cars.

Whether you are a first responder, walking, riding a bike, construction worker, solid waste worker, person with a mobility device, we are all people with families and friends who love us. Tell your leaders that you don’t appreciate losing your community members to #RoadViolence.

We are all in this together. No other system that predictably causes such violent and preventable death and serious life-changing injury to so many would be tolerated. Let’s stop tolerating #TODeadlyStreets and build some better ones.

Wow this thread got some traction! If you want to know more about #Bill62, check out saferstreets.ca. If you too have been affected by #RoadViolence, @FFSafeStreets offers peer support meetings every 2nd Sunday of each month. You are not alone. See ffsafestreets.ca

If you would like to support @FFSafeStreets, you can donate here: cycleto.ca/civicrm/contri… Donations fund our support meetings, outreach and advocacy work. Thank you for reading and caring! 🙏♥