David Stark choked up describing the scared, confused faces of his three young sons as he tried to say their 42-year-old mom, Erica, would never come home because a motorist had jumped a curb and killed her.

About four metres across the courtroom, driver Elizabeth Taylor put her head down and sobbed as Stark described the depth of mental anguish being suffered by one son.

Tears continued as David read victim impact statements from all his sons including 10-year-old Gavin who wrote: “It's not fair at all because all she was doing was standing on the sidewalk.”

The raw scene was unusual in Toronto, which is in the grip of a surge in pedestrian and cyclist deaths, only in that the driver bothered to show up for the verdict and that the sentence she received is unusually tough, lawyers say, for negligently killing somebody with a car in Ontario.

After finding Taylor guilty of careless driving under the provincial Highway Traffic Act, Justice of the Peace Lynette Stethem imposed a $1,000 fine, six months probation, a total driving ban for one month and five months where she can drive only for work and emergencies and, one day per week, necessities such as groceries.

After court David Stark, who this year co-founded Friends and Families for Safe Streets, told reporters that he realizes many drivers who kill are never charged, and those convicted often get lesser fines and no driving ban.

His group and other advocates for cyclists and pedestrians are calling on the Ontario government to adopt “vulnerable road user laws” pioneered in Oregon, and adopted in other U.S. cities, with an aim to eliminate traffic deaths of those in traffic outside vehicles.

Stark said he would like to see fines of up to $50,000, significant driving bans and significant sentences of community service, rather than jail time. Advocates are also lobbying cities for reduced speed limits.

Erica Stark, a beloved Riverdale resident and volunteer, took a service-dog-in-training for a walk in Scarborough on Nov. 4, 2014 while a garage was installing her winter tires.

As she stood next to a bus shelter at Midland Ave. and Gilder Dr., Taylor in her 2007 Dodge Caravan suddenly veered off Midland, jumped the curb, smashed into a TTC bus pole, knocked a traffic control box off its concrete mooring and slammed into Erica.

Her death helped prompt Toronto city council to pass a motion asking for the Ontario government to introduce vulnerable road user laws.

Taylor did not testify and there was no explanation given for her actions. Court heard the minivan was in working order, that it was bright out and that the roadway was dry. Two witnesses described the minivan as travelling quickly before the crash but the justice of the peace noted there was no proof Taylor was speeding.

The Stark family is suing Taylor and will be in court Jan. 6 asking for production of her cellphone records from the time of the crash, the family’s lawyer Patrick Brown said in an email.

David Stark described meeting the outgoing, generous and community-minded Erica in 1993 at McMaster University and building “a beautiful life together” over 22 years of marriage.

That life was destroyed in an instant. “I miss her more than I am able to express,” and she has lost more than anyone, he said.

“When she died, part of us died too,” he said, calling his wife “an enormous presence, a void that can't be filled...

“She has been denied her beautiful and wonderful life.”

The boys are in grief counseling, he is in therapy and he is struggling to be a single parent to three grieving kids.

Stark’s mother, Linda Bissinger, 69, said her daughter was killed by a car 32 years after her own mother was struck and killed by a car in Brockville, and the horror of the earlier tragedy came rushing back.

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Erica’s father, Edward Bissinger, said his daughter “should have been safe” standing on the sidewalk.

In his victim impact statement, Erica Stark’s youngest son, who is 7, said he misses her crepes, her Mac and cheese, her hugs and her voice. He said he is “mad at the driver” and frightened he will lose somebody else.

“If I could see my mother again, I would say ‘I love you.’”