Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

[W. K. Lis]

Teen driver involved in Vaughan, Ont. crash that left two children dead sentenced​

From link.

A teen driver who struck and killed a young brother and sister playing at the edge of their driveway last spring was sentenced to one year in an open custody youth facility on Monday.

The driver, who was 16 at the time of the incident and cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was also sentenced to six months supervision in the community following the one year in open custody.

Monday’s sentence was handed down a little less than a year after the driver lost control of his father’s Mercedes while travelling at a speed of over 100 km/h on Athabasca Drive in Vaughan, according to an agreed statement of facts.

The driver struck a curb and lost control of the vehicle, crashing into the two siblings and a neighbour who was fixing a bike on the driveway at the time.

The siblings were rushed to hospital in critical condition, while the neighbour sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The four-year-old boy, identified by the family as Jax Chaudhari, died in hospital the same day. His sister, 10-year-old Anaya, was pronounced dead a day later.\

The driver, now 17, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in December.

The siblings’ parents, Ketan Chaudhari and Binta Patel, were at the courtroom Monday and expressed their grief in an address following the sentencing.

“The five of us were in our comfort zone [the day of the crash], in our front yard of our home. We were at ease, we felt safe, and unrespecting of the horror that was about to unfold in front of our eyes,” Patel said through tears.

“I have to accept we were completely helpless and vulnerable to the recklessness of a stranger. I have to accept the devastation on my family. And I have to accept the laws that protect the guilty,” Chaudhari said. “I have to carry the guilt and the regret for the rest of my life. I’m angry and devastated and I hate all of these things that I have to accept.”

Ontario’s Minister of Education Stephen Lecce made a statement following the sentencing, saying in part, that he was sending love, prayer, and light to the family.

The 17-year-old driver’s open custody sentence means the teen will not serve time in a lockdown facility, or traditional jail, as criminal defence lawyer Ari Goldkind explains it.

“This is not jail in the typical way that we picture it. There are facilities scattered throughout the GTA, throughout Toronto. They are open facilities. They are sort of halfway houses for people who know that term from adult sentencing. It is not a lockdown facility in the traditional way of a youth jail.”

Goldkind added that the sentence itself comes with what he described as “more freedom.”

“There are more opportunities there for the youth to be out and about in the community… Open custody means actually just the way that word sounds: open. It is a much more open facility. Remember, in the youth criminal justice system, it operates so differently from the way we think of the adult system.”

The problem remains that the residential street design was made for the "safety" of speeders doing 100 km/h, not for the safety of pedestrians. "The driver lost control of his father’s Mercedes while travelling at a speed of OVER 100 km/h on Athabasca Drive in Vaughan."

 

[crs1026]

Teen driver involved in Vaughan, Ont. crash that left two children dead sentenced​

From link.




The problem remains that the residential street design was made for the "safety" of speeders doing 100 km/h, not for the safety of pedestrians. "The driver lost control of his father’s Mercedes while travelling at a speed of OVER 100 km/h on Athabasca Drive in Vaughan."

To be picky, the street was more likely made for the safety of drivers doing 80. (which is still too fast). When this driver chose to go 100ish, they lost control.
A better street design might have prevented them from getting up to this speed, and wiping out at 70 on a 50 designed road might still have fatalmconsequences, but the odds will be much better.
Street design is the basic, fundamental safety barrier that needs to come first. Bad judgement will still be a hazard, hopefully a less fatal one some day.

- Paul

 

[sche]

To be picky, the street was more likely made for the safety of drivers doing 80. (which is still too fast). When this driver chose to go 100ish, they lost control.
A better street design might have prevented them from getting up to this speed, and wiping out at 70 on a 50 designed road might still have fatalmconsequences, but the odds will be much better.
Street design is the basic, fundamental safety barrier that needs to come first. Bad judgement will still be a hazard, hopefully a less fatal one some day.

- Paul

I honestly can't understand how 8-10m wide residential streets keep getting built.

Even if you don't care about safety, they are:
- Are more expensive to build and maintain (more asphalt, larger stormwater pipes required due to larger impervious surface)
- Decreases tax revenues for municipalities (decreases size/number of properties by taking up more space)
- Make the place more ugly
- Are bad for the environment
- Reduces profits for builders (fewer/smaller properties)

I can't think of a single benefit of having such a wide residential street. They're bad for residents, municipalities, builders, everybody.

 

[DirectionNorth]

I honestly can't understand how 8-10m wide residential streets keep getting built.

Even if you don't care about safety, they are:
- Are more expensive to build and maintain (more asphalt, larger stormwater pipes required due to larger impervious surface)
- Decreases tax revenues for municipalities (decreases size/number of properties by taking up more space)
- Make the place more ugly
- Are bad for the environment
- Reduces profits for builders (fewer/smaller properties)

I can't think of a single benefit of having such a wide residential street. They're bad for residents, municipalities, builders, everybody.

I can't think of a benefit for SFH-exclusive zoning, but here we are. "Traditional" 1960s planning norms that absolutely must be adhered to, I guess.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I can't think of a benefit for SFH-exclusive zoning, but here we are. "Traditional" 1960s planning norms that absolutely must be adhered to, I guess.

Worse is the restrictive single-use zoning. No corner stores, where neighbours could walk to buy batteries or chips or popsicles. No, stores must be segregated, forcing the driving at 100 km/h to get to the big box stores kilometres away.

 

[afransen]

To be picky, the street was more likely made for the safety of drivers doing 80. (which is still too fast). When this driver chose to go 100ish, they lost control.
A better street design might have prevented them from getting up to this speed, and wiping out at 70 on a 50 designed road might still have fatalmconsequences, but the odds will be much better.
Street design is the basic, fundamental safety barrier that needs to come first. Bad judgement will still be a hazard, hopefully a less fatal one some day.

- Paul

Some speed tables would make it very likely the kid's father would be very annoyed with his destroyed suspension and missing muffler if he tried driving that fast.

 

[afransen]

To be picky, the street was more likely made for the safety of drivers doing 80. (which is still too fast). When this driver chose to go 100ish, they lost control.
A better street design might have prevented them from getting up to this speed, and wiping out at 70 on a 50 designed road might still have fatalmconsequences, but the odds will be much better.
Street design is the basic, fundamental safety barrier that needs to come first. Bad judgement will still be a hazard, hopefully a less fatal one some day.

- Paul

They need to be this big to fit our oversized fire engines and still have room to open every door even if cars are parked on both sides. Completely asinine prioritization of public safety.

 

[W. K. Lis]

They need to be this big to fit our oversized fire engines and still have room to open every door even if cars are parked on both sides. Completely asinine prioritization of public safety.

Yet they make do with smaller fire engines outside of North America.

 

[crs1026]

^Just to be fair, Toronto Fire did experiment with a pair of smaller pumper trucks some years back, with the hopes that they would work better on congested downtown streets. The trial was not successful, and the vehicles ended up in the Caribbean somewhere.

I don’t know why they would have been unsuitable here when they are common elsewhere, but I’m told they were not a hit.

The trucks are definitely getting bigger…. a decade or so ago Toronto Fire had a work program to raise lintels and/or lower driveways because the newer trucks were too tall and/or heavy for some of the older fire stations.

- Paul

 

[Admiral Beez]

Yet they make do with smaller fire engines outside of North America.

The vast majority of fire department calls have nothing to do with fire. We should instead be sending out well equipped paramedics rather than big pumper trucks.

 

[lenaitch]

Well, according to this article, urban design is all the fault of emergency services:

Why Do We Have Such Big Fire Trucks for So Few Fires?

And why are our cities being designed around the needs of the trucks instead of vice versa?

www.treehugger.com

For what it's worth, here is a bit of an industry discussion on some of the differences between European and NA (US) apparatus:

Fire Apparatus - United States vs. Europe - Fire Apparatus: Fire trucks, fire engines, emergency vehicles, and firefighting equipment

Geography of areas covered, types of structures protected, street layouts, firefighting tactics, and more dictate the designs for apparatus in the United States and countries across the Atlantic. ALAN M. PETRILLO

www.fireapparatusmagazine.com

 

[crs1026]

^The fire truck debate is interesting, but I suspect it gets misused, especially when city bureaucrats get put on the defensive and are looking for a quick trump card to justify status quo in road standards.
Bear in mind that it’s a 15-year life cycle to replace the City’s fire fighting fleet, and when major fires happen the majority may be called upon….so until many vehicles are downsized, the rest will need to get through. This is not a two-year transition scenario.
A much bigger issue is the size of logistics and construction equipment, especially with the trend to upsize every home in the city. I regularly see enormous cranes and cement mixers on those downsizable local backstreets. Even the lumber and drywall deliveries are made by 18-wheelers.
And then there are Hydro trucks, forestry trucks, waterworks trucks…..
I’m not arguing against the change, I’m just observing that a downsized Fire Department won’t change much withoutother changes also..

- Paul

 

[ADRM]

I’m just observing that a downsized Fire Department won’t change much withoutother changes also..

This is an important and correct point, and it also points to something we can do in the meantime, which relates to a point eluded to earlier in this thread, which is that the City's accompanying urban design and transportation policies can change even without the size of the trucks changing. For instance, Transportation often mandates that streets be wide enough to account for an illegally parked car, or a car parked up partly on the sidewalk, as well as room for parked drivers to open their doors with a vehicle driving by. It sounds hyperbolic, but those are policy choices that literally make our streets less safe in favour of convenience, and they can be changed immediately.

 

[daniel_kryz]

This is an important and correct point, and it also points to something we can do in the meantime, which relates to a point eluded to earlier in this thread, which is that the City's accompanying urban design and transportation policies can change even without the size of the trucks changing. For instance, Transportation often mandates that streets be wide enough to account for an illegally parked car, or a car parked up partly on the sidewalk, as well as room for parked drivers to open their doors with a vehicle driving by. It sounds hyperbolic, but those are policy choices that literally make our streets less safe in favour of convenience, and they can be changed immediately.

Good points. What I find to be even more nonsensical is that there are many different and overlapping standards from Transportation Services, Engineering and Construction Services, Toronto Hydro, and City Planning. There might be more. Instead, there should be a comprehensive set of standards that are applied consistently by all the departments and external agencies that contribute to the design of our streets.

 

[ADRM]

Good points. What I find to be even more nonsensical is that there are many different and overlapping standards from Transportation Services, Engineering and Construction Services, Toronto Hydro, and City Planning. There might be more. Instead, there should be a comprehensive set of standards that are applied consistently by all the departments and external agencies that contribute to the design of our streets.

It's actually even more nonsensical than that: there are different and overlapping standards within those departments! And the decision as to which of those standards is applied is literally made by mid-level bureaucrats. It's insane.