Readers are advised to write their MPP.

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.”

The Ottawa Cycling Plan was approved by the city Transportation Committee earlier in the week, and is now off to full Council for approval. The Citizen has a story, and you can read the full plan online.  Be warned: it’s a couple of hundred pages long, but the executive summary is pretty thorough. I’ll try to say some more on the weekend (which, admittedly, I’ve promised before), but it is really good news that committee has opted to accelerate the plan first phase of the plan to be completed in 5 years. The city might be short on cash, but these are the sorts of projects that pay off in the long run. The real test will come at budget time, when cyclists will have to fight not to get squeezed out in the annual budget blood letting.

Reevely, in light of the plan, is looking for comments as to where the early-priority improvements are. My biggest pet peeve is the terrible state of some road’s curbside – Queen St. and Lyon can be especially brutal; I inadvertantly ended up in a 2 foot square, 3 inch deep pothole on Bronson last week (I was fine).

Secondly, PEI Liberal Shawn Murphy has introduced a Private Members Bill to remove the GST from Bicycles. I’m pretty sure that Joyce Murray (another Liberal, from Vancouver) had a similar bill on the notice paper yesterday, but it must have been withdrawn. Or I’m nuts. In any case, PMB’s almost always go nowhere: you can introduce as many as you want, more or less, but a lottery determines which bill’s get considered further. In most cases, even if considered, the legislation (often rightfully) won’t go anywhere, and an election would kill all legislation waiting on the order paper.

However, this is still probably worth a letter or call to your MP: the idea is simple enough that it could easily be incorporated into a future budget or integrated into a larger part of an election campaign. By making it clear that people care, that’s more likely to happen. Removing the GST won’t make a giant difference in anyone’s pocket and smacks a bit of tokenism (as Ben pointed out last year), but saving money is saving money and anything that helps people afford bicycles is a good step.