The Economic, Human Cost of London's Car-Dependency

[Nintentario]

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/child-struck-by-vehicle-in-londons-old-south-neighbourhood

One child hit by car-driver in Wortley Village.

No clue why Wortley Village between Craig & Briscoe isn't pedestrianized. Absolutely no clue in the world.

[MolsonExport]

^awful to hear.


Some asshole in a big, jacked, black RAM prickup truck rolled coal on me and my wife as we were driving westward on Sarnia Road on Friday, just after the intersection of Wonderland Road.

He had passed me very aggressively before the intersection, with all the extreme noise you have come to expect from these massive tank-like prickup trucks. The driver is sitting there (you know exactly what he looks like), in the next lane, waiting for the light to change (I glanced a quick look). My lane pulls ahead first, then he roars ahead of me at 90km/hr or more, and as soon as he pulls ahead of me into my lane, he rolls coal.

The rage that hit me was incredibly palpable. I saw myself driving after him, opening up his door, and pounding his face repeatedly. Of course I didn't do this (a younger, single, version of me probably would have, though).

But I swear to God, the next time I see that truck, I am going to get his plate number and call the police.

What the hell is wrong with people that they feel the need to spend thousands to modify their engine in order to spitefully spray people with toxic fumes? This is assault.

Was it because I glanced a look at this turd at the intersection? Was it because my wife is of Asian descent?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/...02404/the-cruel-practice-of-rolling-coal

[haljackey]

Ya I could see Wortley car-free between Elmwood and Askin, at least to start. Use Ridout or Wharncliffe for through traffic.

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For those coal rollers, ya those should be (or already is) illegal. Any cop that sees trucks with this stuff should pull them over and impound that vehicle permanently, along with a hefty fine and/or traffic violation.

Do you have a dash cam? If so I recommend getting one just to see the footage here. They're pretty cheap these days and you can even get ones that do front and rear recording with just one camera (wiring one for the back can be a pain).

[Nintentario]

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/pedestrian-hurt-south-london-crash

"Pedestrian suffers life-threatening injuries in south London crash: Police"
Nov. 6, Commissonmers and Wharncliffe

"...a man suffered life-threatening injuries in the crash, which took place on Tuesday evening at about 6:45 p.m."

No changes or review of the intersection as a result of a critically hurt Londoner.

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[Nintentario]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/lo...-killed-getting-off-school-bus-1.7415940

"Longwoods Road residents call for changes after 7-year-old killed getting off school bus"

Notice the neutral language avoiding directly blaming the driver.

No automatic review or change to the crash site as a result of a manslaughtered child. No mention of an automatic lifetime driving ban for the driver.


Our ill-planned cultural obsession with private-car ownership creates externalities in the form of pollution, traffic, noise...

... and typically a dead child every year or so. Then everyone will continue on acting like this is just a normal thing that happens to normal children of normal families here in London, Ontario.

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[Djeffery]

I would say there is no mention of an automatic lifetime ban because there is still a legal process to go through.

Also, for those curious, the deceased child was a family member of former City councillor Roger Caranci. Nephew I think.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by Nintentario

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/lo...-killed-getting-off-school-bus-1.7415940

"Longwoods Road residents call for changes after 7-year-old killed getting off school bus"

Notice the neutral language avoiding directly blaming the driver.

No automatic review or change to the crash site as a result of a manslaughtered child. No mention of an automatic lifetime driving ban for the driver.

Our ill-planned cultural obsession with private-car ownership creates externalities in the form of pollution, traffic, noise...

... and typically a dead child every year or so. Then everyone will continue on acting like this is just a normal thing that happens to normal children of normal families here in London, Ontario.

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To the best of my understanding, the police are still investigating the incident. Charges may still be pending, and often in very serious incidents such as this charges may not be laid for a while until the investigation is concluded and conclusions drawn. If the article were to assess blame to the driver at this point, and it turns out the driver is not found to be at fault in the future, that's called libel. That's why the article is neutral, not some pro-automobile bias/conspiracy by the newspaper.

Until those conclusions are drawn by the police as to why and how the incident occurred, there is nothing to act on in terms of making physical alterations/improvements to the roadway.

Automatic lifetime driving ban? The driver hasn't even been charged with anything (yet). Burn the witch?

No one will ever view this as a normal thing.

manslaughtered child? Show a little reverence for this tragedy instead of making it your hyperbolic soap box.

[Nintentario]

It's frustrating to see the headline avoid directly stating that a vehicle driven by a driver killed the child, opting for vague neutrality instead. This tragedy isn't an isolated incident; it reflects systemic design and engineering failures that prioritize cost over safety, as evidenced by the lack of road improvements despite frequent accidents. Society has sadly normalized the death of children in traffic incidents, treating these losses as routine rather than addressing the underlying issues. Using the term "manslaughtered child" is not only accurate but essential to convey the severity of the loss, rather than diluting the language to downplay the tragedy. Furthermore, dismissing advocates for change as "hyperbolic soapboxes" is unacceptable—it perpetuates the normalization of these preventable deaths and ignores the urgent need for meaningful action to protect our children.

Maybe the ex-London councillor has given a thought to all the votes he made on road design. "I wonder if I could've made a decision that stopped this".


Any bets on which area of London will see a kid hit by a car next? Because y'all only respond negatively instead of positively and it's..... weird. The article even mentions that cars pass stopped school busses frequently - saying it happened several times leading up to the child's slaughtering. But somehow my connecting of the dots is what the repliers dial in on saying I'm presumptious and libelous. Weird. Aren't y'all interested in solutions to dead children?

It's like we can't apply the content on this thread to the other threads on city design lmao.

[MolsonExport]

• Video Link

Now of course we will never be like Utrecht, but I would love to see us move towards that ideal--even just a little bit--and away from being stroadsville/Rimmies central. But that is pretty much all that our North American society knows.

[bolognium]

Originally Posted by Nintentario

Because y'all only respond negatively instead of positively and it's..... weird.

I wanna preface the latter part of my post by first saying that I've been working with bicycles and cyclists professionally for over 7 years. Two of those years I worked for a London not-for-profit that advocates for cyclists (I was not working directly in the advocacy side of the organization, but was working adjacent to it).

I don't have a license and have never owned a car (both by choice). I live downtown and work downtown. I cycle everywhere. I bike for transportation, and also bike for exercise and recreation in my spare time. Over the last 10 years I've cycle-toured tens of thousands of kilometers during the summers, camping and exploring virtually all of Southern Ontario by bike.

Saying all that, I've found you posts here very off-putting and difficult to engage with. And again, this is coming from someone that is seemingly as aligned with your opinions and values as you're gonna get.

You're posting on a niche public forum that is already absolutely skewed towards people that are mostly in agreement with you. Most people here know and see the value in good urban design, and know how it affects us as we move through our cities. Yet you seem to be directing a lot of outside frustrations on us in your posts. It's obvious to me that you're extremely passionate about what you're writing here, but you could use a little more tact and know your audience here a bit better.

I want to see way more investment in active transportation. I want to see our streets and roads redesigned to give pedestrians and cyclists priority over cars. I want to see harsher punishments for motorists that injure or kill people outside of cars. I want safe fucking roads. I'm guessing I agree with nearly everything you are in favour of!

If you're seeking engagement here, maybe try coming across a little less adversarial. Again, I know you're very passionate because I read every single one of your posts, but if you want to facilitate discussion here you've gotta approach this from a different angle. You're not interacting with Facebook car-brains here. We aren't the douchebag RAM truck drivers you're seemingly frustrated with.

[Djeffery]

There is a go fund me going on for the Caranci family and it's approaching $250,000. Something just doesn't sit right with me when I see these types of fundraisers catch fire like that. It still states in the description the goal is to cover funeral and other expenses for the family which is great. 5% of the money raised will cover that. I don't know why the organizer kept it going after the first 15 or 20 grand was collected, as this isn't a case of someone needing lifelong care

[ldoto]

I agree totally I don’t understand this at all:

Originally Posted by Djeffery

There is a go fund me going on for the Caranci family and it's approaching $250,000. Something just doesn't sit right with me when I see these types of fundraisers catch fire like that. It still states in the description the goal is to cover funeral and other expenses for the family which is great. 5% of the money raised will cover that. I don't know why the organizer kept it going after the first 15 or 20 grand was collected, as this isn't a case of someone needing lifelong care

[Nintentario]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/one-dead-highway-402-crash-strathroy-1.7419943

Just shy of two weeks between this 7-year old boy and this 20-year old man being killed by/as drivers.

No mention of reducing the speed limit of the 402 from 120km/hr down to 100km/h. Instead, the 401 has been increased to 120km/hr - statistically increasing the amount of preventable deaths our community faces.

To my dismay, I can only reach the conclusion that our culture wholeheartedly accepts and normalizes the murder of children in the name of individual transportation freedoms. Perhaps a local campaign with the slogan "Stop The Child Murders" would wake people up... (hint: it worked before).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01lw88k

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[bolognium]

I think where you and I differ is when it comes to the implementation and feasibility of safety improvements. Whether a safety improvement is financially and politically feasible, vs whether it is objectively the safest decision.

The design speed of the 400-series highways is 130km/h. The reason people have consistently driven over the 100km/h speed limit is because they perceive 120km/h as safe. Declaring a lower speed limit without redesigning the highway will not reduce vehicle speeds. To employ a 100km/h speed limit that people actually adhere to, would require a redesign of the highway. We would need to make people feel anxious and unsafe driving at speeds approaching 100km/h for them to actually change their driving habits. Speed traps, and speed cameras will only do so much.

You present these ideas like if people aren't on board with reducing speed limits on 400-series highways, then they are in favour of dead babies. Do you not see why you're having a difficult time engaging with people? You seem to ignore (or dismiss) the logistics and hurdles in the way of properly implementing your ideas. We have 70 years of car infrastructure, car laws, car habits, and car culture that need to be undone for the pendulum to truly swing away from car-dependency. This is a multi-generational shift that is happening slowly.

The car-brain monolith in North America is still too large and too entrenched for us to just redesign every road, every intersection, every highway, whenever someone tragically dies. It's truly sad, but that's just our reality in North America right now.

We can't invest in everything and change everything all at once. Things unfortunately need to improve incrementally. Is properly redesigning our 400-series highways to reduce speeds and make them safer a reasonable financial investment? Or could we save the same amount of lives (or more) if that financial investment was directed to other improvements instead?

Should we redesign the 400s, or should we remove slip-lanes in our cities? Redesign the 400s, or add curb extensions and bump-outs to daylight intersections? Redesign the 400s, or narrow problematic urban roads to calm traffic and make drivers feel less safe speeding?

It would be great if we could just implement any and all safety improvements that are objectively the safest regardless of their costs, but that's not how our society functions. I think this is why some have suggested your opinions here are kinda soap-boxy. You seem totally uninterested in acknowledging that some of your ideas are exceptionally hard to practically implement. If anyone disagrees with you, then they are in favour of murdering babies.

[Djeffery]

I don't even know how we get to "child murders" from a 20 year old dying in a traffic crash. Nor do I get what 400 series speed limits have to do with some idiot blowing past a school bus on a county road. This poster should call the OPP and save them the time of investigating the 402 crash since they already have all the answers.

[bolognium]

I know I'm being a little difficult here, Nintentario. I'm just frustrated because despite me aligning with you and agreeing with you, I can't help but feel like your method of engaging with people is doing more harm than good.

Here's a recent Youtube video that touches on much of what we've been discussing. I find this guy's channel enjoyable, and would encourage everyone to check it out if you're ever bored. Nintentario, I'd love to hear what you think of the video, because I agree with pretty much everything the creator says in it.

How do you feel about the way he presents his ideas in that video? To me it feels like he's trying to educate and enlighten the audience. He's not upset with the viewer and blaming them. He acknowledges that decades of driving being our default means of transportation has resulted in us dismissing the negative externalities of car-dependency. People are not in the wrong for choosing driving when that is the only option available to them. The problem is that driving is seen as a right, not a privilege. That's what breeds so much entitlement in drivers. While it's selfish of people to prioritize their travel times over the safety of others, I don't personally find it surprising given our car culture.

Originally Posted by Nintentario

To my dismay, I can only reach the conclusion that our culture wholeheartedly accepts and normalizes the murder of children in the name of individual transportation freedoms.

Yep, I think that's the correct conclusion unfortunately. While not exclusively affecting children, Doug Ford has received tons of support with regards to his war on bike lanes. Unless he's a complete idiot, deep down he must know f o l k s are gonna die on those roads because of his decisions.

Changing people's views on car-dependency is like trying to turn an ocean-going cargo ship. It's a juggernaut with stupid momentum, and expecting an immediate response from our inputs is naive.

• Video Link

[haljackey]

Ya putting an artificially low speed limit on roads makes things worse in my mind. You get a lot of difference in speed variance which increases risk.

The 400 series are mostly 130 design speed so that's why you feel comfortable doing 130 on it and 100 feels super slow. So when you have people doing 130 and others 100 that's unsafe as you have people weaving around the slow, but law-abiding drivers. It's best to go with the flow, not the speed limit, which is what the 85th percentile of drivers do- about 120 in most stretches.

Upping some of the 400 series to 110 helps this speed variance problem a bit, but getting it up to 120 or even 130 would fix things.

I can't really comment on country roads because you're not really going to spend a lot of money changing those since volumes are low and pedestrian use is even lower. What happened on Longwoods sucks but it could have happened in any rural area anywhere in Canada/US as that's what rural country roads look like.

In town we really need to fix up roads before lowering speed limits. Cheapside for instance went from 60 to a 40 with NO changes to the road design and the speed variance on it is wak and unsafe for drivers and pedestrians. Give that thing a road diet, narrow the lanes, etc if you actually want people do drive 40 on it because the road is comfortable to drive doing double that (80) east of Highbury, yet it's 40 all the way to Clarke.

At last Quebec got a redesign north of the CP overpass. It's all 40 now and doing 40 is ok here- but south of the overpass no changes were made and it's 40 now too.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by Nintentario

No mention of reducing the speed limit of the 402 from 120km/hr down to 100km/h. Instead, the 401 has been increased to 120km/hr - statistically increasing the amount of preventable deaths our community faces.

Freeways in Ontario are designed for 120 km/h. Until recently, the posted speed limit for all Ontario freeways has been 20 km/h less than their design speed. There are exceptions where a freeway couldn't be designed to that standard due to physical constraints, and the posted speed in those locations is reduced to 90 km/h.

Why stop at 120 km/h? Why stop at automobiles? What about aircraft? 179 people instantly died yesterday in Korea, likely including some children. Where they all manslaughtered as well? At the core, what is the fundamental difference? After all, people operate transportation machines, and inevitably there will be mishaps due to operator carelessness or error, or mechanical failure (humans are not infallible). That indeed is what happened in a fundamental principle way several weeks ago outside of Lambeth, the other day outside of Strathroy, and yesterday in Korea. As such, the basis of reasoning for your argument is that the operations of such machines should be banned or radically reduced.

Originally Posted by Nintentario

To my dismay, I can only reach the conclusion that our culture wholeheartedly accepts and normalizes the murder of children in the name of individual transportation freedoms.

Society has decided a very long time ago that the value of that mobility outweighed the cost imparted by the flaws in those imperfect transportation methods/technology. Ships carrying immigrants to the Americas in the 1800's had a mortality rate of up to 20%. Early passenger air travel was very questionable in terms of safety. In Canada the annual mortality rate for automobiles is about 5 per 100,000 people (0.00005%). In each case, society as a whole by a very, very large majority felt that this price is acceptable for the benefit of having of "transportation freedom", and it has been that way for a very long time. That said, no one considers the price being paid due to those transportation modes being imperfect to be murder. It is considered an acceptable risk of an undesirable and unintentional outcome in using such transportation modes, up to and potentially including loss of life.

Does a mother who straps her child into a car seat in their car for a trip to the grocery store consider that she is exposing her child to the possibility of being murdered? The simple answer is "never", because that term is patently inapplicable in such circumstances.

As defined by the Oxford dictionary:

Murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Your use of such terms as this is nothing but absolutist wild hyperbole, and discredits your argument, regardless if your position is correct of incorrect. To paraphrase your technique of persuasion, the way you present your of argument is killing me

[Nintentario]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ne...membered-for-her-bright-spirit-1.7421003

Another senseless killing of a member of our community. Notice the neutral tone "struck by a vehicle" instead of "killed by a person driving a vehicle" - weird choice of wording, eh?

Considering our cities are continuously designed with the understanding that these deaths happen at a statistical constant, it's easy to argue that this killing of a human being by another human being was premeditated. We know what certain street designs do and don't do, we have the data - the outcomes of which are premeditated.

Loving the responses! Though it is illuminating some of the deficits in knowledge members of this like-minded community have. For example, concepts such as Social Murder. One poster even mentioned the fact that Doug Ford must know that his decisions will increase traffic deaths - exactly! Doug Ford is committing premeditated social murder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder

Don't worry folks, we all know Sachina Shrestha will be the last one killed by another person with a vehicle in London, and I won't be posting here anymore!


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[Nintentario]

Originally Posted by Snark

As such, the basis of reasoning for your argument is that the operations of such machines should be banned or radically reduced.

*clears throat*

*leans into mic*


Yes.



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