Life-Saving Solutions like Side Guards Already Exist for Toronto

As Toronto looks to spend an additional $22-million to make its roads safer, it’s time to implement life-saving solutions that already exist. Side-guards and sensors for trucks, among other devices and road-design changes, have been proposed before. But despite these recommendations and the release of visionary road safety plans, traffic deaths of people walking and bicycling continue to rise.
Among the regional coroner’s recommendations in his 1998 review, which was prompted by Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists, was for Transport Canada to investigate the feasibility of side-guards for trucks in urban areas. The guards are designed to prevent cyclists and pedestrians from falling under a truck’s rear wheels, the scenario in the deaths of Erin Krauser and Martha Kennedy in 1996, and many others. (It’s not yet known whether the rear wheels or another part of the truck killed Ms. Chako.) Victims’ families and advocates have long demanded this safety feature.