Saule Gascon by a sign stipulating the reserved lane hours and usage is for buses, taxis and cyclists on Papineau Ave., in Montreal on Jan. 20.Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail
Quebec cyclists say sloppy police reports and a lack of enforcement after motor-vehicle collisions with bikes are preventing people who are injured in those accidents from being compensated, and perpetuating a “culture of impunity” among drivers.
Béatrice Létourneau discovered the system’s flaws the hard way. In July, 2017, when she was 25 years old, a vehicle brushed against her while she was cycling in Rimouski, Que. She fell and lost consciousness.
Despite her helmet, she sustained multiple injuries and spent two weeks in hospital. She filed a claim with the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), which administers the province’s no-fault public car insurance plan. But the claim was denied.
“There is no evidence” that the event involved a vehicle, reads the SAAQ’s answer to her case review request, which relies in part on a police report in which Constable Michel Plourde of the Sûreté du Québec, the province’s police force, wrote that the cyclist was “the only one involved” in the accident.
Because of this mischaracterization, Ms. Létourneau had to fight the SAAQ for years before a court ruled in November that she was entitled to compensation. A judge noted that a car probably was involved, and that police did not discuss the accident with Ms. Létourneau, nor with a witness.
“This is not the only such case,” said Magali Bebronne, program director at Vélo Québec, a non-profit cyclist advocacy group that is pushing the province to expand compensation to all road accident victims, even when no motor vehicles are involved.
A working group set up last year to analyze this possibility will produce recommendations by the end of 2023, SAAQ spokesperson Gino Desrosiers said. He added that the public insurer’s database system makes it impossible to measure the extent of the problem without examining each case one by one.
The SAAQ currently pays only when it is convinced a motor vehicle was involved, sometimes relying on police reports showing “a certain nonchalance or a lack of seriousness” on the part of the officer, Ms. Bebronne said.
When a cyclist reports an infraction, “an investigation is initiated,” and information is collected “to target the motorist at fault, especially if the latter did not remain on the scene,” Sergeant Claude Doiron, a spokesperson for the provincial police, wrote in an e-mail.
He did not answer questions related to Ms. Létourneau’s case.
Cyclists have also faced issues when dealing with the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, which billed one rider for damage to a car after a crash last year. The decision relied on a police report that didn’t clearly assign responsibility, though the injured cyclist said the driver ran a stop sign. This decision was also overturned.
In Montreal, a city praised for its recent efforts to expand its bike lane network, cyclists’ complaints about drivers sometimes lead nowhere.
Saule Gascon, 45, was heading to work on his electric bike on Nov. 9 when a driver decided to bypass traffic using the right lane on busy Papineau Avenue. The lane is reserved for buses, taxis and bicycles during rush hour.
The truck passed so close to Mr. Gascon that it hit his bag, which was knocked to the pavement. The driver did not stop.
Mr. Gascon was not injured. He captured the incident on a helmet camera. Witnesses and the truck’s license plate are visible in the footage. The cyclist filed a complaint, but he said Montreal police declined to investigate. The force did not answer questions about the case.
An image captured from Gascon's helmet camera in November, 2022.
Quebec’s Highway Safety Code says a driver “may not pass a cyclist within the same traffic lane unless it can be done safely,” keeping a distance of at least 1 or 1.5 metres, depending on the speed limit.
Offenders can be fined $200 to $300, but the provision is rarely enforced. Montreal police said in a statement that they have handed out an average of fewer than 21 fines per year for this infraction over the past five years. Many Montreal cyclists say drivers violate the rule on a regular basis.
Ms. Bebronne, of Vélo Québec, said that she, too, experienced this recently, but did not go to the police. “There is about a one in 10 chance that a police officer will want to do something about it. Therefore, the culture of impunity continues,” she said.
Caroline Labelle, a spokesperson for the Montreal police, said in a statement that each case is unique. “The decision to launch an investigation or not will depend on several factors,” she wrote. Identifying drivers is essential before charges can be laid, she said, which “can be difficult in the absence of direct testimonials or video evidence of sufficient quality.”
In 2017, Clement Ouimet, 18, was training on Montreal’s Camillien Houde Way, a popular route for competitive cyclists, when an SUV driver did an illegal U-turn ahead of him. Mr. Ouimet did not have time to slow down, crashed into a passenger door and died of his injuries.
His story attracted significant media attention, and a coroner’s report recommended that Montreal “put in place the most appropriate measures to ensure the safety” of vulnerable road users there.
But Quebec’s public prosecutor did not bring charges against the driver, reasoning that the U-turn wasn’t “a marked departure” from the behaviour of a reasonable person.
“It says a lot about the culture of impunity,” Ms. Bebronne said. Unless a driver commits a hit-and-run, is under the influence, or drives at an excessive speed, “there is a very good chance that you will get away with almost no consequences,” she said.
The public prosecutor was unable to provide data on cases where charges were brought against drivers who injured or killed cyclists.
Between 2016 and 2021, an average of more than 11 cyclists per year died on Quebec’s roads, according to SAAQ data. Sixteen cyclists died in 2021, the last year for which complete data were available, and 63 were seriously injured.