In early November, a 66-year-old man lost his life in the Villeray district. Hit by a truck, the cyclist found himself trapped under the vehicle. The collision occurred when the truck driver made a right turn into rue de Liège, at the corner of boulevard Saint-Laurent.
In a series of articles published last week, The duty compiled statistics on road accidents in Montreal. Conclusion: between 2012 and 2020, two thirds of fatal or serious collisions took place at intersections, such as in Villeray. While cyclists are often involved, pedestrians are even more in danger. Annually, 16 pedestrians have lost their lives in recent years. In 2019, they were 24.
Heavy trucks are over-represented in these accidents. Between 2011 and 2109, they were responsible for 47% of cyclist deaths and 32% of pedestrian deaths in Montreal. However, they only represent 4% of vehicles on the road, recalled The duty.
This is not the first time that heavy trucks have been singled out. And those who regularly walk the streets of Montreal will not be so surprised to discover these statistics. Pedestrians and cyclists witness dangerous maneuvers by trucks on a daily basis.
In an attempt to improve the situation, the City has revised the layout of the streets, installing priority traffic lights for pedestrians, and developing a network of protected cycle paths. There is still work to be done, but we have understood that by protecting the most vulnerable, we can avoid accidents.
Several solutions designed specifically for trucks have been suggested over the years. The one that comes up most often: the side guards, which have also been found on the City of Montreal’s trucks since 2016.
However, studies show that these protections would reduce only 3% of accidents involving trucks. Similar observation for truck side skirts whose efficiency is less than optimal since three quarters of fatal collisions between heavy vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists occur in the front and not on the sides of the vehicle.
Among the paraphernalia of equipment that potentially improve truck safety, there is also the addition of mirrors, rear-view mirrors, radars or cameras. These tools are great as long as the drivers use them. As for the cameras, truckers who tried them out testified that they get dirty quickly and therefore become unusable.
The approach that seems to work the most is based on field of view standards (or direct vision standards). Basically, it’s the ability of the truck driver to see pedestrians and cyclists directly through their vehicle window rather than through mirrors or cameras.
In this regard, London is often cited as an example. Trucks that do not meet these safety standards are simply not allowed into town. The only problem, and it is a major one: the design of trucks is different in Europe. We would therefore have to review the design of all our North American trucks to adopt such an approach here. In the short and medium term, this is quite unlikely.
As we can see, there is no magic solution.
Of course, we could educate pedestrians and cyclists to take full responsibility for their safety. But this goes against the trend in our cities which is more focused on sharing the road among all its users.
The only avenue that is essential is that of thinking about the traffic of heavy trucks in Montreal.
Several cities in Quebec already prohibit the circulation of heavy trucks in their downtown areas. In some American cities, they are prohibited during certain time slots. Elsewhere, smaller trucks take over from heavy trucks that leave their loads on the outskirts.
Montreal also set up the Colibri pilot project in 2019, but this approach, which relies, among other things, on deliveries by electric cargo bikes, would hardly be deployed throughout the city. We must consider other solutions.
During the election campaign, the candidate for mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre, had launched the idea of a trucking summit. A smart idea that should be picked up by the Plante administration. Because the current situation is simply intolerable.