Reaction to the Government’s decision to review cycling deaths in Ontario ranges from the sensible to the silly. One person comments that he rides daily in downtown Toronto and loves it. You need only wear a helmet and obey the traffic rules to be perfectly safe, he declares. In the silly department is the complaint that we should prevent obesity by encouraging cycling. A laudable goal but eating another cookie doesn’t seem to rank with the imminent peril of cycling between a bus and truck. Vox populi aside, the causes of cycling deaths are pretty apparent. No doubt Coroner Dan Cass will nail them. There are the dreadful but relatively rare instances of drunk drivers ploughing into cyclists. Terrible. And then there are the easy habits so suitable to the small footprint of the bicycle. Easy and lethal. Among the most common of these is riding swiftly between slow moving traffic on the left and parked cars on the right. A door opens and the cyclist of thrown under the wheels of the vehicles to his left. Such accidents frequently exhibit carelessness on the part of both the cyclist and the motorist. We think cyclists are sensible people who will normally act in their own best interest. The many ways in which bicycles mix with both cars and pedestrians would be made safer if simple signage alerted riders to the local rules, i.e. no riding on the sidewalks, keep to the right, bicycles may not pass etc.
