People are going to die

It is one thing for city politicians pandering to the green vote to wage war on cars. It is quite another when they deliver the city over to bikers, the skinny wheeled kind, without any directives to police to enforce basic traffic rules on them. The arrogance of Montreal’s bicycling community, particularly downtown, is beyond irritating. It is downright dangerous.
We are not suggesting any new laws. But we are suggesting that police be instructed to enforce at least a minimum of respect for rules of the road and use their power to persuade and educate. Often during a day one feels the need to compel and coerce our cycling fraternity.

Cyclists, for the most part and particularly in the centre city, pay no attention to red lights, stop signs, nor the rudimentary rigour of braking when they see a car turning or a person crossing. They actually think they have the right of way. A new tactic that has victimized many, is for cyclists to bang on your car when they are frustrated. As the old saying goes, where are the cops when you need them? Instead of hiring cadets to stick their hands in people’s faces to stop jaywalking — a personal choice — they should be used to civilize cyclists.
It will be a much easier job. The unnecessary and uncalled for bike paths that have begun to destroy this city’s traffic pattern, aren’t that used. The cops won’t be overworked. This paper’s publisher and editor once stood at the corner of Peel and de Maisonneuve checking out the bike path that has paralyzed what was once the centre city’s most efficient east-west artery causing more emissions because of stalling. They counted 17 cyclists in an hour. One of them — a courier — told them the median was dangerous not only to pedestrians but to cyclists as well because they were no longer in the flow of traffic. He said he had escaped being killed three times. Others have not been so lucky.

On the evening of Thursday, Oct. 18, 1990, CBC Television’s Joan Donaldson, founding director of Newsworld, was in a coma in a Montreal hospital after being hit by a bicycle. She had been attending a meeting at Radio-Canada. The taxi stand in front of the Radio-Canada building on René Lévesque Boulevard was on the far side of a bicycle lane. Joan looked left, saw nothing and stepped off the curb. But on this stretch of path bicycles travel both ways.

The bike knocked her to the ground and her head snapped back against the curb. Her brain rotated and hit the jagged lining of her skull. At St-Luc Hospital, neurologists studied images of her brain — damaged temporal lobes, cerebral swelling, internal bleeding, blood clots. She’d slipped into a coma. At the age of 44, Joan Donaldson switched from reporting on tragedies to being the subject of one. Although she was able to regain the power of speech about three years after the accident, she remained a quadriplegic for the last years of her life.She died in 2006.

There aren’t many stories this tragic, but there are many near misses. Every day, in every corner of this city, with young and elderly alike. This city, so scared of right turns on red, is hostage to the sorcerers of cycling far more dangerous than any right turners.

A few days ago a cyclist skidded into Léna Chabot while she was walking on Mount Royal, leaving her with cracked ribs, bruises and cuts. The cyclist, plugged into an iPod, wouldn’t give Chabot his name. “He was gone in about two minutes,” she told reporters. Chabot discovered she couldn’t ask police to look for the cyclist as a hit-and-run offender as they would had a motorist hit her. That’s because any vehicle not requiring registration is not covered by either the Criminal Code or the Highway Code. A police spokesperson said that they don’t even keep track of how many pedestrians are hit by cyclists.

Well police should. We are not suggesting that bicycles should be registered. But we are suggesting that the bike paths in the centre city be closed. It might send a message that would reduce the arrogance of the bikers. Additionally, the police should monitor cyclists. If they don’t rein them in, people are going to die.