Toronto Star: Toronto's mean streets
Toronto Star: Toronto's mean streets
As more cyclists share our crowded streets, collisions become inevitable. And when two wheels meet four, simple physics favours the car – often with life-changing consequences for the cyclist
Tess Kalinowski | May 23, 2009
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/639204
Arthur Yeung was following all the rules as he biked out to meet friends last May 24.
"I did everything I could to be safe. I had light-coloured clothes, lights. I was still hit," says the soft-spoken 29-year-old.
Cycling had been his main mode of transport since moving back to Toronto from Montreal in 2003.
"I loved how I could go anywhere in 15 minutes. There was a freedom," says Yeung, one of 748 people reported injured in city cycling collisions between January and September last year.
Although fatalities are rare – one or two a year – the rate of cycling collisions has remained stubbornly stagnant for the past decade: between 1,100 and 1,200 annually, according to city statistics.
That might be good news, given the growing ranks of cyclists in the city. But per capita, Toronto has the most such collisions of any major Canadian city. And it's likely many incidents go unreported.
Cyclists on Toronto streets can be undereducated and careless, particularly at this time of year, when recreational riders decide they want to become bike commuters. There are also drivers who fail to check their mirrors for bikes or exit their cars without looking behind first, delivering the infamous "door prizes" responsible for many cases of road rash.
It doesn't matter who is to blame. When two wheels meet four, simple physics favours the car.
Yeung was making a left near the River St. bridge about 9:30 p.m. that Saturday. He never saw the vehicle that hit him from behind before driving away.
He has no memory of the collision that sent him airborne, depositing him unconscious in the middle of the road, his bike helmet a bloody, broken eggshell, his limbs disconnected from his brain by spinal fractures.
Temporarily left quadriplegic, Yeung spent 10 days at St. Michael's Hospital before entering a rehabilitation program, struggling for six months to regain the use of his arms and legs.
When released, he could no longer navigate the stairs and narrow hallway of his Leslieville apartment. He had his possessions packed away and moved to a furnished rental near Yonge St.
What it lacks in charm, the new apartment makes up for in security and an elevator. Yeung can easily get to his daily therapy sessions, the subway and the gym where he does strengthening exercises.
A home-care worker visits each morning to help him dress, chop food and manage other once-routine chores. He feels continued improvements in his legs, but his right arm hasn't been as responsive. Yeung tinkers with a guitar and keyboard in hope it will aid the recovery of his right arm and hand.
He doesn't know when he'll be able to return to his public relations job, or if he'll ride a bike again.
"I am grateful for everything I've got back. It could have been so much worse," he says.
He is too focused on his recovery to nurse a grudge. "I only have a limited amount of energy and I have to spend it wisely," says Yeung. "That person has to go to bed every night knowing they left me for dead."
Toronto police don't track how many people fail to remain at the scene of cycling collisions. Even when the cyclist gets a plate number, it can be difficult to identify a driver, says Const. Mig Roberts of Toronto Police Services.
"Identity is a huge issue," Roberts says. "Sometimes we get the plate but (the cyclists) don't get an identity of the driver. There's not much we can do. When we go to court we have to establish identity, and if we can't, there is no case."
When a silver car sent cyclist Ian Krykorka sprawling onto the sidewalk a couple of years ago, he reported the incident immediately.
"I was really badly cut up. I had strawberries from the road rash," he says. "I was looking at the car that slowed down to make sure I wasn't dead and as I started looking up they sped off."
When police asked Krykorka if he could identify the driver, he told them: "I was too busy making sure I wasn't killed."
"It ended with extreme disappointment with our police force. The police don't take cycling injury as (seriously as) they do a car accident," he said.
Roberts says that's simply untrue: protocol demands that any collision be properly investigated.
"When drivers make mistakes, consequences are a lot worse for cyclists," says Krykorka. "Cops call it the law of tonnage."
Cyclists try to look out for their own. There is a fundraiser for Chris Kasztelewicz, who lost a leg last year when he was hit by a taxi on Bloor St. W.
Shannen Leslie keeps a jar on the counter of his Kensington Market store, Red Arrow Bikes, to collect donations for injured cyclists. Many of his clients are couriers.
"There's a definite attitude about being in your car. It's easier to lose your attention. You've got the radio, you've got the windows up, a lot of people are still talking on their cellphones," says Leslie, adding he's no different than a lot of cyclists who also drive.
Elizabete Ludvicks doesn't know if the motorist who clipped her handlebars on March 28 was even aware the car made contact.
Ludvicks, who has delivered two babies at home, knows something about pain. But nothing prepared her for the aftermath of that seemingly minor collision.
It was a routine Saturday. Ludvicks visited a friend, then biked to her office to clean up some work.
Biking home westbound on Dundas St. W., she merged with traffic where the bike lane ended near Sorauren Ave.
"The last thing I remember seeing was a large grey vehicle that had just hit my handlebar and I was so freaked out I was completely spinning out of control," she says.
She doesn't know exactly what happened next, but believes she "flew off the bike and most likely hit the vehicle that hit me ... I had two severely broken wrists that both needed surgery to be repaired. I had a fractured right elbow and a broken orbital bone – the bone that surrounds your eye."
In hospital she was put on morphine for the pain, and that meant she "had to instantly stop breastfeeding (her daughter)," she says.
"That's been the hardest. I was breastfeeding nights and mornings. We had a close bond. After a week of me being in the hospital, she was afraid of me. She just felt so abandoned, I suppose."
Children adjust. Sometimes it takes longer for adults.
"It's still sad to see my 17-month-old run to her grandma rather than me," she says.
Ludvicks has a plate in one arm, and her wrists are strong enough now that she can hold a coffee cup rather than sip through a straw.
"One day you're a totally capable adult. All of a sudden you can't do anything. It's a real mental challenge to get over that," she said. "I feel lucky that I don't have brain damage or any permanent damage.
"I would like to think I will get back on a bike because I'm not the type of person who gives up, but I don't know. Once I actually get on my bike, I don't know if I'm going to feel as safe," she said.
