On Tuesday, a young student was run over by a motor vehicle near her school, in Saint-Constant1.
Yes again.
Last December, Mariia Legenkovska, a 7-year-old girl who had fled the war in Ukraine, died after being hit by a driver at the intersection of rue de Rouen and rue Parthenais, in Montreal. She was walking to school.
Five months later, far from being extra careful in this place marked by tragedy, motorists are ignoring the ban on left turns introduced to secure the intersection. Worse: knowing they are wrong, they often do it in a hurry, which is even more dangerous.
In one hour, a citizen filmed 44 of these prohibited maneuvers2.
It’s as shocking as it is heartbreaking.
Across Quebec, pedestrians’ sense of safety deteriorates at the speed of a car accelerating at the sight of a yellow light.
More and more motorists are on the roads. They drive ever larger vehicles with larger blind spots, which cause more serious injuries in the event of an accident. And they often have their nerves on edge because of the many roadworks… and the congestion they help to generate.
Pedestrians pay the price.
Both the Sûreté du Québec road safety record and that of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec show that after a lull during the pandemic, the number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured has unfortunately returned to pre-COVID levels. 1934.
In the long run, it’s the whole “tank culture” that needs to be tackled. Reviewing land use planning, focusing on public transport and car sharing… Crucial work, but one that takes time.
In the meantime, there is a very concrete measure that we could quickly implement to discipline driving offenders: deploy photo radars on our roads.
These are underused in Quebec. There are just 54 in the entire province, 24 of which are mobile and can be placed in accident zones. It’s far too little.
On the island of Montreal, there are only 8 fixed speed cameras, in addition to seven locations approved for installing mobile speed cameras.
Toronto, by comparison, has 75 photo radars.
No, these devices are not a magic solution. They can’t detect illegal left turns like the ones that multiply at the intersection where little Mariia died. And in the case of the student knocked down in Saint-Constant, it seems that the driver stopped and then left too quickly. A photo radar would probably not have changed the drama.
But what is certain is that other tragedies could be avoided. The studies are conclusive: by pinning down motorists who drive too fast and those who run a red light, photo radars lead to a reduction in speed and the number of collisions5.
At the beginning of the year, in the wake of the death of little Mariia, we heard both the City of Montreal and the Minister of Transport Geneviève Guilbault praise photo radars.
Since then, however, nothing has changed.
In school zones, cities can deploy these devices without provincial government approval. We are still waiting for the action.
Elsewhere, nothing less than a ministerial decree is required to install photo radar. It seems excessive to us.
Mme Guilbault will unveil a new road safety action plan this spring. In his office, it is said that photo radar “can be part of the solution”, without going further.
A few weeks before the unveiling of this plan, we would like a firmer commitment to photo radar. The offenses that are committed every day at the intersection of the streets of Rouen and Parthenais show that awareness has reached its limits. Photo radars are far from solving everything, but they are part of the solution.
Let’s use them to tighten the screw with those which consider our streets like the wild west.