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tiffer24
Senior Member
crs1026
Superstar
^It does say something when the prospect of a driver remaining on scene of a pedestrian struck is so uncertain that TPS consider this a detail worth including in their initial tweet.
- Paul
- Paul
Admiral Beez
Superstar
'Ghost wheelchair' memorial honours woman fatally struck by cement truck driver in downtown Toronto
'Ghost wheelchair' memorial honours woman fatally struck by cement truck driver in downtown Toronto
A salvaged wheelchair painted white and adorned with colourful flowers pays tribute to a beloved woman who recently lost her life on Toronto’s streets.
I don't know if a ghost wheelchair is appropriate here. The ghost bikes are about reminding us of the need for shared road safety. But if I roll my wheelchair into moving traffic and then position myself in front or between live lanes of traffic, any peril that becomes me isn’t really an issue of poorly conceived road safety. I place a lot of responsibility for this fatality on those car drivers that through misguided generosity incentivize in-traffic panhandling. Emergency services, mental health and outreach workers, etc. can only do so much, but if the potential reward is there, desperate people will take their chances. So, people, when you see a panhandler sitting or standing in live traffic the correct thing to do is call 911 so that emergency services can help them, and do not roll down your window to offer money, instead give to the YSM, https://www.ysm.ca/donate/
This same issue occurs on many of the downtown east intersections along Dundas, especially Parliament, Sherbourne, and Jarvis. But in-traffic panhandling is endemic across this city, the GTA and at 400-series hwy exit ramps, even though it’s a clear violation of the Safe Streets Act. https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-37/session-1/bill-8 “Solicitation of captive audience prohibited: (2) No person shall, (f)while on a roadway, solicit a person who is in or on a stopped, standing or parked vehicle.” It’s as if Toronto Police have been told to look the other way because the courts and society in general doesn’t know what to do with the mentally ill, addicted and homeless people doing the panhandling. But by ignoring the issue people will get killed.
Northern Light
Superstar
The controversial new sidewalk on Dwight Avenue has been deferred by Council.
This motion, from Councillor Grimes carried:
This motion, from Councillor Grimes carried:
How about a human was struck by a human driving a vehicle. Always saying struck by a car takes away the human element of the driver.
crs1026
Superstar
That’s potentially factually incorrect and an abuse of “innocent until proven guilty” let alone “keeping an open mind”.
The physical contact was in fact between the pedestrian and the car. One can always assume that the car had a driver, but that’s kind of redundant.. Some other jurisdictions (the railways, for instance) say only that contact occurred and do not imply that either party “struck” the other.
These tweets are issued at the point in time where an investigation has only begun. Their purpose is to make the incident known and to confirm it’s being investigated. It’s not appropriate (and legally dangerous) to allege anything about the driver (or about the pedestrian) at that point.
When the investigation is concluded, and the facts are properly documented, then is it fair to weigh in on who did what.
(Having said that, the outcome of many of these incident investigations seem to drift off into the ether, with dispositions only reported when certain types of charges are laid. Eventually they show up in the TPS online portal, but that’s not a very good way to track the outcomes. More specific tracking and reporting might lead to more consistent media reporting and general public awareness.
- Paul
ADRM
Senior Member
And also, a human was literally killed at this intersection mere months ago. Shame on Transportation, but also on Mike Layton for his forever enduring deference to them.
Not mentioning that a human driver was involved isn’t helpful though. It passes the blame to an object. Perhaps we could refer to the weapon wielded by the human behind the wheel? The designation of car as weapon was recently raised by a crown attorney in an Ontario trial.
crs1026
Superstar
Maybe that’s why the police have a practice of mentioning in their tweets that the driver remained on scene… to emphasize that the driver remains front and centre in the aftermath… and demonstrated a sense of accountability by sticking around to face the music, whatever that might be.
In past days the media would have included a statement such as “was struck by a car driven by a 57-year-old male”…. including details such as age or gender has its own problems, but “struck by a car driven by a driver” is a bit redundant.
PS - the reporting only of dispositions where charges are laid is also a poor metric for understanding what drivers need to be more careful about. It’s a sub-sample of the end decisions, and it’s misleading because one doesn’t get a true picture of how often fault is found at the non-criminal level. Police traffic investigations need to serve two purposes - providing good data on what happened, so we can understand root causes, plus holding individuals to account should they have committed a serious offense. Talking only about cases where criminal negligence is alleged sensationalises the data…and distorts it. We don’t know, for instance, how often drivers failed to yield at an intersection.
- Paul
- Paul
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lenaitch
Senior Member
^^ I get both of your positions. These social media posts are issued by emergency services at the very earliest stages of an incident. Although attempting to parse the language on social media these days is probably pointless, I assume each department has internal policy and fixed points of issue (i.e. not every copper posts their own incidents). Before the days of rampant social media platforms and web-based news media, much of the stuff now released by the police et al was pretty much unavailable to the public beyond the immediate area. Traditional media would listen to radio scanners or send a cub reporter down to the division desk to review the incident logs, but editors made the decision on what was newsworthy. Now, many incidents, particularly traffic-related, are blasted to the universe - largely unfiltered - almost immediately. And it's not just the 'official' sources; there are websites that monitor radio scanners and post incident details.
Simply in terms of accuracy, I would much prefer the bland 'a collision occurred between' as the initial description and let the investigation sort out the liabilities. While they don't form part of a Crown's case should charges be laid, they need to be benign enough so as to not interfere with any future prosecution. Whether something is an 'epidemic' or some location is 'problematic' can't be loaded onto the shoulders of a single person involved in a single incident.
The issue of the newsworthiness of 'incident' versus 'charges' versus 'outcomes' is as old as newsprint. Concerns that an incident might be newsworthy today but a conviction/acquittal a year from now is not needs to be taken up with the media, not the justice system.
Simply in terms of accuracy, I would much prefer the bland 'a collision occurred between' as the initial description and let the investigation sort out the liabilities. While they don't form part of a Crown's case should charges be laid, they need to be benign enough so as to not interfere with any future prosecution. Whether something is an 'epidemic' or some location is 'problematic' can't be loaded onto the shoulders of a single person involved in a single incident.
The issue of the newsworthiness of 'incident' versus 'charges' versus 'outcomes' is as old as newsprint. Concerns that an incident might be newsworthy today but a conviction/acquittal a year from now is not needs to be taken up with the media, not the justice system.
As for “remained on the scene”, I suspect that is because of the high number of hit and runs 
crs1026
Superstar
I probably sound a little academic or technocratic, but for discussions such as this forum wants to pursue, we really need a more objective database to work from.
I do look to the police, as the primary collectors of incident information, to disseminate the facts in a more helpful way…..although it isn’t necessarily their job to analyse the data in terms of road design or safety interventions or insights into common causal factors behind safety failure. They only assess the facts as evidence of specific offenses, and then feed only that specific evidence into the justice system. The justice system is constrained by the standard of proof, and by resourcing…. so it filters the data further. ….. and then social and commercial media generalises to fit specific agendas.
Justice and media exist to serve other purposes, and I would not argue to change those. Our purpose is a different one altogether.
If anybody has better data, it’s possibly the insurance industry.
- Paul
DSC
Superstar
I suppose that if/when we have autonomous vehicles all over the place there will be a more fine-grained situation. "A female pedestrian was struck by a vehicle driven by a male driver." or "A female pedestrian was struck by an autonomous vehicle."
lenaitch
Senior Member
It's really two different things. The releases (tweets) we see emanate (I will assume, not knowing TPS procedure) from their communications centre and generally aren't elaborated upon unless it is to update on a closure or something. It is the most basic of information as known at the time.
Technically, the collection of collision information is done on behalf of the Minister of Transportation. If a fatality occurs then the Coroner's Act comes into play. While police services will analyze basic incident data, such as time, date, location, etc., for enforcement purposes, you are right that it is not their role to conduct in-depth analysis; that falls to the Ministry and likely the city's transportation department. You are also right that the insurance industry probably has pretty good data, which they will often publish in macro form. However, they are not the State.
Collision investigation is really two-hatted. The collection of information is on behalf of the Minister, but can also be used for prosecution purposes, but a lot of the Ministry-mandated data often has little value for enforcement purposes. Obviously, the more serious the incident, greater investigative techniques and services are employed.
I have a bit of a problem expecting the police to proactively disseminate detailed incident information, if for no other reason than cost and staffing. The concept of "in a more helpful way" implies data management and manipulation, which is beyond mere releasing. Toronto Police does have a 'public safety data portal' full of all sorts of raw data. Realistically, what would the general public do with a flood of detailed incident information? Sometimes, information such as forensic scene and vehicle data takes weeks or months to analyze; the raw data would be meaningless.