Lotty Rozendaal had big plans for her twilight years. She and her husband planned to travel to Aruba for a month. The couple, married for 58 years, were “like two peas in a pod,” their daughter says.

One July night, while helping a friend look for her lost keys on Sheppard Ave. E., near Don Mills Rd., Rozendaal was hit and killed by a car. In an instant, the healthy 83-year-old Holocaust survivor was taken from her friends and family by a vehicle changing lanes.

The elderly woman’s death came during a year when Toronto is experiencing a surge in pedestrian fatalities — 38 so far in 2013 (compared with 21 at this time last year). Seniors are suffering the worst of the increase with 22 over age 65 killed (compared with seven at this time last year).

“It was unbelievably sudden and it just devastated us and has devastated my father beyond belief. He’s completely lost without her,” said Betty Rozendaal. “He goes to the cemetery every day to spend time with her.”

Rozendaal said details of her mother’s death are still not entirely clear, but she regularly notices a lack of attentiveness on the roads.

“On a daily basis I drive and I see people on their cellphones, changing lanes without paying attention. At the same time, pedestrians are also crossing the street not paying attention,” she said.

The city is on the verge of two precipices. Pedestrian collisions tend to increase during the winter as daylight hours are shorter and road conditions are worse.

The second precipice is the oncoming wave of senior citizens, aging boomers who are increasingly moving downtown, according to Susan Eng, president of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons.

“There is greater urbanization of all our Canadian population especially seniors as they come to the city to be closer to services,” said Eng.

She noted the elderly are also more prone to be fatally injured in accidents due to their frailty.

“Because of the size of this demographic group, the absolute numbers will increase. Any forward-thinking city needs to pay attention to this because these are preventable deaths,” said Eng.

With the rise in fatalities, the issue of pedestrian safety has come to the fore this year. In northwest Toronto, on the day police launched their annual back-to-school road safety campaign, a 14-year-old girl was hit and killed by a dump truck. In Mississauga, a memorial to a 4-year-old boy surrounds a stop sign near his school, where he was run down Nov. 20. The family of a 47-year-old woman is suing the TTC and a bus driver in connection with her death.

This year’s fatality statistic marks a 10-year high, with possibly the worst yet to come as the days shorten.

Still, the surge isn’t uncommon when seen in the context of what has come before.

“Last year we had a record low number of fatalities. What we’ve found over the last 40 years is we get into these cycles,” said Mike Brady, head of the city’s Traffic Safety Unit and a man who has made Toronto’s roads his domain for the past 15 years.

The numbers have fluctuated wildly for decades. In 2003 there were 43 pedestrians killed, compared with 50 in 2002 and 32 in 2001.

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Probability experts note that the spike this year is well within the norm over a longer period of time.

“Whenever this happens you want to say is, is this a random chance fluctuation or is there some actual change?” said Jeff Rosenthal, a professor of statistics at the University of Toronto. “It’s a little higher than it’s been for the last 10 years or so, but it’s been higher before that.”

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“When you look at the long-term data we’re on a bit of a roller-coaster,” said Brady.

The main cause of fatalities this year has been pedestrians crossing outside a crosswalk or intersection, according to Brady. This is followed closely by drivers turning and hitting pedestrians in intersections when the pedestrian had the right-of-way.

Pedestrians and drivers can significantly alleviate the risk by paying attention to those two areas, Brady said.

“Between those two factors alone there’s 20 fatalities that were unnecessary,” said Brady. “Until we find that silver bullet solution that’s going to make all traffic fatalities go away, we need to get the road users’ attention to make the road safe.

“I really think if we could create and maintain an active conversation in this city about traffic safety maybe we could prevent some of the tragic situations we’ve seen this year.”

Managing fatalities, and collisions overall, has become a game of tweaks and adjustments rather than sweeping changes. The Traffic Safety Unit reviews each fatal collision and regularly evaluates intersections in the city.

The city has been gradually adjusting its traffic lights since 2010 to cater to slower walkers, particularly the elderly. To date, 74 per cent of signals have been changed to accommodate slower crossing speeds, with the rest expected to be done by the end of 2014. The assumed walking speed has been lowered from 1.2 metres per second to one metre per second.

Howard Cable, composer of the original Hockey Night in Canada theme song, lives on Queens Quay. He is 92. Many of the crossings in his downtown neighbourhood give him trouble.

“The lights are just not adjusted for seniors. They’re adjusted for traffic,” said Cable. “They have to think about the elderly because there are more and more elderly every month.”

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