DIGGING IN

PG. 13
Spear fighting back
PG. 15
Laskowski Leads
PG. 16
Volvo’s SuperTruck
city leaders. This, he notes,
would also ensure cyclists
help to pay their fair share
for revamped infrastructure
they’re demanding.
“I see a lot of cyclists
breaking the law and zipping
through lights. They need to
be sanctioned and recorded
when they make mistakes,”
says Barr.
His greatest fear is that
Transport Canada’s latest
investigation may end in the
government mandating collision-avoidance
technology
that he and many others simply
can’t afford after years of
stagnant rates.
Side guards, on the other
hand, have been the go-to
option to enhance intersection
safety in some of
North America’s largest
cities. New York, Boston,
Portland, San Francisco and
Washington, D.C., along with
the Montreal suburbs of
Westmount and St. Laurent,
and the City of Halifax have
all made side guards mandatory
for heavy-duty trucks
in municipal fleets. Chicago,
often compared to Toronto
in terms of size, is currently
looking at the side guard
option after six cyclists died
there so far this year, all at the
wheels of heavy-duty trucks.
While Roberts concedes
that roads were built for
vehicles, he says it’s a city’s
responsibility to adapt to
change – such as the strong
upswing in cycling over
the last 20 years. Toronto
roads, he says, were simply
not built to handle so many
users. Roberts says one need
only look at an issue such
as public transit to see how
the city has failed to adapt to
the challenges of increased
population density.
Side guards could be considered
somewhat pessimistic.
It’s brute technology that
assumes trucks and cyclists
will at some point end up
entangled at intersections,
the guards only serving to
minimize the cyclist’s injuries,
or prevent death. It’s
actually the reason cited by
many in the trucking industry
who have traditionally
opposed side guards. One of
the most quoted lines from
Canada’s 2010 federal report
states that, “It is not clear
if side guards will reduce
deaths and serious injury
or if the guards will simply
alter the mode of death and
serious injury.”
Transport Canada last
left off on the issue of side
guards in 2010, when a Phase
One study commissioned by
the department failed to
convince the federal government
that lives could be
saved by blocking the gaps
between wheels.
While many experts agree
side guards are just one part
of the puzzle that will make
intersections safer in major
cities, there are some strong
statistics that show side
guards may have been a
strong transitional option, at
least while municipalities
come up with better longterm
solutions. In the years
following the United
Kingdom’s 1983 mandate for
side guards, blocking gaps
between truck wheels saved
lives. Only one in four bicyclists
was killed or seriously
injured in crashes when the
truck was equipped with a
sideguard. Two out of three
bicyclists were killed or seriously
injured when the truck
was exempt and not equipped
with a sideguard. TT
NOVEMBER 2016 11