There isn’t a lot to say about something such as this, except that at the end of the day, regardless of potentital criminality, this was almost certainly avoidable at a couple of stops along the way. Christie Blatchford, writing in the Globe, however, uses this as an opportunity to reflect on road rage and the motorist-cyclist dynamic. I think that this is the best part and is how I feel, regardless of whether I am behind or on top of the wheel.

It worked: At the next light, he got out of his car and put a boot through my door. I was so shaken, and simultaneously mortified by my own conduct, that I reported him neither to police nor insurance company, and just paid for the damage myself – and that was in a clash with a peer, a fellow motorist driving a vehicle as big and powerful as my own. We were for the most part in our moving bubbles, seat-belted and air-bagged and roll-barred unto safety.

But a cyclist is never in a bubble like that.

Thus, it is the motorist who has the greater responsibility – not just because he is the only party licensed by society to drive, by which I mean granted the privilege of driving – but because on some level, all of us understand the rules, one of which is that behind the wheel, we are driving a potential weapon. The burden of sucking up the insult, the raised finger, even the punch, and acting like a grown up is always and forever with us.

It is easy to say this was a random act which could not be predicted but I think what this really demonstrates is in order to make cities safer for cycling the municipal government can’t just paint some bike lanes on a road, call it a cycling plan and then sit back. In order to make cycling truly safe, other vehicles have to respect cyclists for the vehicles they are under the law. This necessarily means a shift in how drivers think when they are behind the wheel of a car. It means checking for cyclists as well as cars when they open doors, turn right and fly down the road at night. I believe that both the provincial and municipal government has a role to play in changing the driving culture of their particular city and province. While a previous commenter pointed out that thousands of cyclists co-exist with cars without problems every day, these events clearly show we are a long way from where we need to be.

Finally though, how do you do this:

“He angled into the lane, brushed up against the female cyclist, hit the other four — who are the ones who are in bad shape — and then carried on out,” he said.

Then just keep on driving? He is charged with five counts of failing to stop at the scene of a collision causing bodily harm but in my mind this should be on par with attempted murder. He had no idea if any of the people he hit were alive when he left the scene. His intentions were exactly the same regardless of the condition of the victims, the law should treat them the same not be subject to whether all of the victims survive.

Riding a bike with weather conditions like this, it seems kind of silly…. It’s common sense.

165. No person shall, (a) open the door of a motor vehicle on a highway without first taking due precautions to ensure that his or her act will not interfere with the movement of or endanger any other person or vehicle

While I’d never heard of this section before, to say nothing of hearing of it being enforced, it felt satisfying to know that some lawmaker somewhere had considered this problem.

Thus, like others, I was incredulous when I heard the reaction of the Toronto Police Service to the death of an unnamed Toronto cyclist, age 57, who hit the opening door of a parked car, fell into traffic, was hit by a truck and died four hours later. This sergeant’s response seems rather one-sided:

He said the motorist may well have looked before she opened her door, saying bikes ‘‘can be hidden by a lot of things — blind spots on a car, [the cyclist] just came off a side street. It’s not from any negligence that may have happened. If she didn’t look, would that be negligence? It’d be very hard to label that as negligent.’’

I won’t pretend to be an expert on criminal negligence, but it seems to me that would have been the perfect opportunity to mention s. 165 of the HTA and make it clear that unsafe door opening is illegal. According to the TPS, his comments were taken out of context, but notably, they do not claim that the quoted sergeant mentioned the HTA in his interview – which makes sense, because I doubt any reporter could resist quoting “I don’t know if that would be criminally negligent, but it sure is illegal.”

Well, a month later, the cops have sorted out their law: the TPS’ Traffic Services have charged the door-opener with “Open Vehicle Door Improperly”, which comes with a $110 fine. Since the car was parked, apparently any other charges wouldn’t hold up in court.

While the Toronto Cyclists’ Union rep was quoted diplomatically in the Post – “It’s an accident, and I understand that, but there needs to be some kind of repercussion” – and less so in the Sun – “That’s just simply not good enough” – I think the most constructive comment was this:

Eleanor McMahon, whose husband Greg Stobbart was killed while biking when he was run off the road by a truck in 2006, believes “better laws” are the answer. “You really can’t blame the police here,” she said. “We need to look at beefing up the Highway Traffic Act.”

While many cyclists perceive a police anti-bike bias (which is often justified), in this case, I think we need to look for a more systemic answer. Hopefully it won’t take any more headlines like the Sun’s:

“Cyclist’s life: $110.”

Now, I take the Bay street bike path to work every day, and this sort of thing pretty much represents my biggest fear. Even this week, a car started a turn without looking while I was going through an intersection: it stopped, I got through, no one was hit or hurt. I probably should have been looking at its turning signal, but this speaks to the situation that we need to structure shareways in such a way that we limit the amount that human error can create tragedies. I’m pretty careful and not that aggressive; the driver of that car this week, or that truck 2 years ago, aren’t bad people (at least not for this) and are probably good drivers. It wouldn’t take a lot for the city to put bollards up at such intersections, even if they had to be removed in the winter for snow-clearing purposes, to limit such accidents. It wouldn’t cost that much and would absolutely reduce collisions and save lives.

Remember: the important point of “sharing” the road is that both bikes and cars have a right to be there, and the is trick to design infrastructure in such a way that we reduce danger as much as possible. It doesn’t require blame, it doesn’t require lots of cash, and it doesn’t require removing cars from some roads. Sometimes, it just requires a few well placed concrete posts.