You want to know why pedestrian deaths are up in urban areas nearly everywhere? Because nobody gives a damn. Because we’re a bunch of selfish jerks. Because we drive monstrously big trucks so we can feel safe, even if that feeling costs others their lives.

We are increasingly choosing to be distracted by every wingding bell and whistle on the dash or in our hand.

That’s right; your bulletproof, oversized steel cathedral is costing those not driving the same thing their lives.

We are dying in record numbers, but we are complicit. We can introduce all the programs we want; all the stats from Vision Zero or whatever they call it this year. Politicians can introduce new laws based on the sad death of a child, but after the initial headlines of the introduction, most of those efforts limp from the spotlight and die in the wings. We talk a lot; we wring our hands and say we need to change.

But we make it worse.

We drive with cell phones in our hands, or while punching buttons between podcasts or getting the heated seats just right. We ask Waze to tell us where the cops are, we take an email from the office, we answer a text from our kids. And we drive into people and things, but we don’t get hurt because our cars have never been safer.

You can lower speed limits all you like, but until drivers buy into the idea that pedestrians and cyclists are just as important as they are it hardly matters

They’ve also never been bigger. We are safe, yet others die. When we talk about safety ratings for cars, we’re talking about how safe it is for the occupants. Manufacturers are working on systems to protect those around the car, but ultimately, consumers care most about how safe they are, and physics is real. Period.

And we are OK with that. If we weren’t, we’d actually address the real problem, instead of dancing around the centre facts. We are distracted, we are poorly trained drivers, we are driving massive, heavy vehicles we don’t need, we speed, and we feel entitled to every inch of the road.

Toronto’s mayor is dumping more money into Vision Zero, a program I was initially on board with when it began to spread around the world. Now? Now, I think we are going to have to do something more direct, more blunt. We are going to have to follow the example of the Dutch, who in the 1970s decided to stop the carnage on their streets with a campaign called Stop de Kindermoord — “Stop Murdering Children.”

It worked; pedestrian deaths plummeted, and while cycling deaths in that nation are climbing of late, that statistic can’t be separated from the drastic increase in cycling miles by road users.

The latest newsout of Toronto City hall is to extend the growing movement to lowering speed limits on some arterial roads. Some limits are going from 70 km/h to 60 km/h; some are going from 60 km/h to 50 km/h, and others from 50 km/h to 40 km/h. You’ve probably already noticed an explosion in speed bumps and other traffic calming devices, and you’ve also no doubt noticed cars slamming over the speed bumps or, worse yet, swerving into bike lanes trying to avoid them.

You can lower speed limits all you like, but until drivers buy into the idea that pedestrians and cyclists are just as important as they are – and far more vulnerable – it hardly matters. The only way these reduced speeds will be obeyed is by carpeting the city with photo radar. Never thought I’d say those words. But introducing things to curb the carnage without constant enforcement will be the same as never doing it at all.

Vehicles making left turns are the most dangerous thing on our streets; the city should consider banning a lot of turns in the downtown — drivers have a dozen ways to plot their course ahead of time, make them do it.

1. Welcome to Toronto, where apparently you should now wave a flag if you hope to cross the street safely.



At a signalized intersection.



By a school. pic.twitter.com/rlJCuN4vBf — Gil Meslin (@g_meslin) June 24, 2019

At a crosswalk near Bathhurst and Nina streets in Toronto, local residents have created their own system: they’ve created flags people can take from a holder to help them cross with higher visibility. This is creative, it might be effective, and it’s totally ludicrous that those legally crossing near a school zone have to do this. I could link endless clips of cars running red lights, of near misses on pedestrians and cyclists, and of course, our favourite stunt-driving imbeciles. The end result is the same: pedestrians are being murdered in record numbers.

No, people shouldn’t jaywalk. But Tory himself notes there are huge gaps between safe crossings, and we have to start favouring those on foot over those in their cars. I don’t care if you have to wait in your cocoon of connected comfort an extra minute or two to allow a pedestrian to safely cross without walking an extra 12 minutes. We have an aging population; our seniors are disproportionately represented in the statistics. They comprise 14 per cent of the population but account for 60 per cent of pedestrian fatalities.

Yes, pedestrians should wear reflective clothing at night. No, they shouldn’t have their nose buried in their phone at crosswalks. Yes, cyclists should obey the rules of the road. But none of that matters because when you hit them, they die. They die because they are outgunned.

You’re the driver: you are supposed to know what’s going on all around you, not just be staring at the light to make sure you jackrabbit off the start when it turns green. You are supposed to be cautious where others are not, because you can kill them. A pedestrian hitting your car will do nothing; you hitting that same person can kill them, or injure them severely. And let’s not forget that category: injury. We count the dead, we dismiss the injured. Injuries from getting hit by a vehicle, at any speed, yield lifelong repercussions.

We can only be better when we decide we want to be. We have to decide we want to stop killing pedestrians. The Netherlands did it. They simply decided that one death was too many. We, instead, are happy to accept ‘one less than last year’ as a measure.

People die because we are selfish. Because we are careless. People die because we speed, we drive oversized vehicles in tight urban cores, and we refuse to put down a ceaseless tether to a connected world that takes precedence over the only, only, only thing that matters when we get behind the wheel: to drive.