Articles Posted in Pedestrian Accident

We aren’t tone deaf at the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog.

Back to School is around the corner. But Back to School 2021 in the midst of a looming 4th wave during the Global Pandemic brings a new unprecedented set of worries and anxieties for parents, teachers and students. The large boogey man in the room is the COVID-19 Delta variant which is more transmissible than it’s predecessors.

Children under the age of 11 aren’t vaccinated; so what do you do?

You can keep the kids at home and continue with online learning at the risk of isolating kids, hurting not only their education but also their mental health.

Or, you can send the kids back to school and hope for the best.

Whatever option you select is your decision to make. Nobody can tell you that it’s right, or wrong. These are unprecedented times which we aren’t accustomed to. No matter how much we try to tell ourselves that “this is the new normal“; there’s certainly nothing normal about it.

Now that the COVID-19 Delta variant is out of the way, we can talk about what to expect the first day after Labour Day once schools open up.

For starters you will see an increase in pedestrian, bike and vehicle traffic on the roads. More cars, more buses, more mini vans, more people taking kids to and from school. This means we all need to be a little bit more careful getting to where we need to go. That stands for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike.

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September means back to school time. It can also mean back to work time for many adults who have take a summer vacation. That means our commutes are more crowded on the roads. Increased volumes of motorists, pedestrians and cyclists are imminent.

The City of Toronto is in the midst of its Vision Zero comprehensive safety plan to reduce the number of fatality claims and serious injury claims on Toronto streets to ZERO. This is a bold objective. Starting in 2017 and lasting until 2021, Vision Zero believes that serious accident claims are preventable and ought to be totally eliminated.

I’ve not seen very much on Toronto streets when it comes to eliminating pedestrian/bike/car accidents on city streets. Attempts at segregated bike lanes ebb and flow depending on which way City Counsel is feeling that day. Increasing or decreasing speed limits, adding more (or less) red light cameras, better sequencing of traffic lights has been discussed and implemented to some form or extent.

But I would like to share with you a recent observation from right around the block from our Toronto Office near the busy corner of Yonge and Sheppard.

Directly across the street from Goldfinger Injury Lawyers’ Toronto Office is the Catholic District School Board. It’s a busy place, rumbling with students, parents, teachers, administrators etc. Within walking distance are a number of Catholic, Public and Private Schools as well. Right across the street are twin buildings which play host to the Small Claims Courts, Family Courts, OHIP Offices, ODSP Offices, Landlord Tenant Tribunal, accounting offices, law firms, and other professional offices. Across the street in the other direction are 4 high rise condominiums, the entrance to the Yonge/Sheppard Subway, a bustling mall with shops and a food court, along with other professional offices.

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If you’ve been involved in a serious car accident, the police will generally come out to investigate the accident and lay charges on the at fault driver, if necessary.

At the scene of the car accident, police officers are required to take notes. Some officers notes are more detailed (and legible) than others. The police officers may also prepare an accident report at the scene of the collision, or back at the station. Those officers may (or may not) give you a copy of the accident report on the scene. Or, it may be provided to you at a later date (at a charge).

The motor vehicle accident report, or the police report as it’s commonly called, is the building block for proving liability in any personal injury car accident case.

This is the starting point for personal injury lawyers, insurers, defence lawyers and judges to understand how the accident happened.

The police report provides what’s supposed to be an objective synopsis of what happened.

Let me be perfectly clear. Sometimes the police don’t get it right. Their intentions are in the right place, but we are all human and we make errors. It happens.

Unfortunately, when these errors in reporting the collision happen, it can have a significant impact on the personal injury case.

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An Ontario MPP’s private member’s bill proposed that pedestrians not paying attention to where or how they are walking, could be fined up to $50 for distracted walking.

It’s called the “Phones Down, Heads Up Act” and was tabled by Toronto MPP Yves Baker of Etobicoke Centre.

Baker’s bill would ban people from looking at their phones or electronic devices when crossing roads, with an initial $50 fine for the first offence, $75 for the second and up to $125 for the third. Exceptions would include pedestrians making an emergency call or if they began speaking on the phone before stepping into the crosswalk (this would be difficult to prove).

In Ontario, the OPP attributed 65 deaths in 2016 to distracted driving, which is more than impaired driving, speeding or not wearing a seat belt. While this is not distracted walking, it’s certainly along the same lines. In 2016, 42 pedestrians were killed on Toronto’s streets, the most since 2002.

Here are Goldfinger Injury Lawyers, we applaud the “Phones Down, Heads Up Act” as too often, we see people taking those so called “zombie walks” without paying attention to where they are going, or what they’re doing.

But, we have a lot of questions about the new Act, which are explored in greater detail below.

Please keep in mind that distracted walking does not only involve accidents involving pedestrians, and cars, bikes or other motorized vehicles.

People walk in to pot holes or cracks or lose their footing on account of not paying attention to where they are walking .

People walk in to lamp posts, doors, walls, guard rails, other pedestrians, parked cars and fall down stairs because they are not paying attention to where they are walking.

People slip on ice or other slick surfaces because they aren’t paying attention to where they’re walking.

You have all seen the YouTube clips before of ridiculous distracted walking incidents. Our personal injury lawyers field some of those calls.

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Around this time of the year, our law firm receives a noticeable spike in pedestrian collision claims. These are the sort of cases where somebody is trying to cross the street (on foot), and they get hit by a car, or some other sort of motor vehicle (even a bike).

What explains the spike is anybody’s guess. But, it would make sense that near the end of October we get less daylight, making visibility more difficult for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians alike. We also have some worse weather which can lead to visibility issues as well. And who can forget the Halloween Holiday, whereby residential streets are flooded with trick or treaters in full blown costume.

At the time of preparing the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post, at least 12 pedestrians were hit by cars around the General Toronto Area during the commuting periods. Some new outlets have the number as high as 16 pedestrian collisions throughout the course of the day. That’ a lot! Police are attributing this spike to poor visibility on account of decreased daylight and bad weather. This was one of the first days of the fall where the weather was rather cold, damp and dark.

Scary because Halloween is right around the corner and you get the sneaking suspicion that people can’t drive safely anymore? Scary because you get the feeling that motorists don’t have respect for other motorists, cyclists or pedestrians? I know the feeling. Adding insult to injury is that the penalties handed out by our Courts following a breach of the Highway Traffic Act are akin to slaps on the wrist. A few demerit points, a license suspension, a fine. None of these penalties are proportional to the devastating impact a serious car accident can have on an innocent accident victim and their family.

There are a lot of young parents who read the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog. Having a young family of my own, I want to share with you some of Goldfinger Injury Lawyers’s top tips on how to keep Halloween safe when you’re outside trick or treating this holiday season. If the recent trend of motorists colliding with pedestrians continues, I’m certain you can use these tips. I’ll do my best to give you some out of the box tips you may not have even thought of aside from the usual ones you may see in other media online.

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