opinion: are accidents waiting to happen really accidents?

the driver first struck a hydro pole, then john , then another vehicle, before coming to a stop on the picturesque residential street on the banks of rivières des prairies. montreal police are investigating the cause of the fatal collision.

locals say the narrow road was notoriously risky , with too many motorists speeding in the 40-kilometre-per-hour zone where pedestrians stroll, cyclists ride their bikes, children play and others come to gaze at the waterfront vistas. some say they’ve requested speed bumps or that lalande be transformed into a one-way street to make it safer for those who live in the neighbourhood. borough mayor jim beis said the city had asked police to step up patrols in the area while it considered various options.

an accident waiting to happen is also how the death of an 8-year-old boy was characterized last summer in st-henri.

it was also called an accident waiting to happen when a woman crossing atwater st. near tupper st in december 2018 was hit by a dump truck turning out of the old montreal children’s hospital, which is now being transformed into condos. nearby residents said they had long feared how little time pedestrians were given to traverse a busy thoroughfare with all kinds of machinery coming and going from the construction site all day.

according to vision zero, the traffic safety strategy founded in sweden in 1997 and adopted in montreal in 2016 , the answer is no. under vision zero, any death or serious injury on the roads is “unacceptable” and dangers must be addressed through improved design, education and behavioural changes. while montreal has set about reprogramming crosswalk signals to prolong the priority given to pedestrians, securing school zones, reducing speed limits and widening sidewalks, it still seems like the city too often ends up reacting to calamity rather than proactively saving lives.

so dropping back to 18 in 2020 is not very reassuring — especially given montreal was in the throes of a pandemic, where schools were closed, many people were working from home and there was noticeably lighter traffic on the roads.

thus far in 2021, eight pedestrians have died, according to the service de police de la ville de montréal. john was the 7th. a man crossing golf blvd. near des sciences blvd. was killed in anjou on june 22 , a few days later, and  is the most recent death.

the toll includes two women who were run over by garbage trucks backing out of alleys: one, age 26, was killed on april 8 in ville-marie ; and another, age 74, died on may 17 in hochelaga-maisonneuve .