“The cost would be minimal, compared with the lives that could be saved,” Ms. Chow contended. “It’s just a tragedy all these senseless deaths.”
Ontario’s chief coroner’s office recently announced it would review cyclist and pedestrian deaths in the province. The probe will look at what has changed since a 1998 examination of fatalities involving cyclists. That coroner’s review recommended Ottawa examine the life-saving potential of side guards.
The 2005 death of Toronto bike rider Ryan Carriere, a father of two young girls who was crushed beneath a truck, also sparked demands for change: the City of Toronto requested that Transport Canada introduce side guards on trucks in 2006.
Mr. Carriere’s widow, Megan Holtz, said she believes the safety device would have saved his life and added she hopes the latest coroner’s review presses the federal government to act. She also wants the city to build bike lanes separated by barriers.
“He was not riding recklessly. He was riding carefully, and yet he was killed,” she said. “It terrifies me that my children want to ride in the city.”
For now, the federal government has no plans to regulate side guards.
Prominent Toronto neurosurgeon Charles Tator wants the federal and provincial governments to take a closer look at the safety tool. But Canadian Trucking Alliance president David Bradley doesn’t believe sufficient evidence exists to support making side guards mandatory. He maintains there are better measures to explore, such as adding bike lanes and education campaigns on sharing the road.
“Everybody feels badly for what’s happening,” Mr. Bradley said, “but too often people jump to conclusions about things that really might sound like they would work but don’t hold up to empirical scrutiny.”
Ms. Holman-Price has no doubt side guards work. The Newfoundland mother said they would have prevented her daughter’s death and her son’s brain injury.
The pair were standing on a snowbank in Montreal, waiting to cross the street, when the 10-year-old boy was snagged by a snow-removal truck and pulled underneath in December, 2005. His sister scrambled and pushed him to safety, but in doing so, she slid under the truck and was crushed by its wheels.
Their mother has been campaigning for safety guards on trucks ever since.
“I’m 100-per-cent positive that they would have made a difference in my daughter’s case and my son’s as well,” Ms. Holman-Price said. “Had there been a side guard there, they wouldn’t have been able to get underneath the truck.”
