Traffic car keeps watch over stop sign on August 14th.
On August 5th Jack Roper, 84 years old, was killed by a car while riding his bicycle on Greenwood Avenue. The car was driven by an 81 year old driver. I think TreeHugger sums up the issue of driving and age best. Although we really do not know anything of the driver and his abilities.
Don Mills southbound empties cars from the Don Valley Parkway onto O’Connor. They then have three choices, east or west on O’Connor or south on Greenwood. As you can imagine drivers are adjusting to the slower residential speeds (there is a word for that phenomenon), so they are going at a good clip. On Greenwood the first thing they hit is a stop sign, the one Jack Roper got killed at. Apparently residents have been complaining for years about people running the stop sign. How effective are stops signs in residential areas when faced with a high volume of cars wanting to get home fast?
Looking south on Greenwood from O'Connor. Stop sign is where car is at.
It is interesting to note after this stop sign at Plains Road there is a traffic light for Cosburn. Too bad someone has to get killed before these bad designs/poor planning designs get some attention.
A Ghost Bike for Jack Roper.
Behind the wheel seniors scare the shit out of me and it’s a huge problem taking away their license. Almost none of them will give it up by choice.
My friend once related a horrible story of how one night they followed a blood trail up Leslie(?) for a few km into a residential area. There they found a clearly deceased young woman lying on a curb and promptly phone police.
Apparently this woman was hit somewhere near the downtown and became lodged under the car. She was dragged for quite a distance only to become dislodged when the senior drove up the curb lip on her drive-way.
Police, who were notified earlier by witnesses at the original scene, were tracking this blood stream had lost the trail as the weather had recently drizzled rain and washed away the track. After my friend phoned the police they announced “oh you’ve found her – good we’ve been looking for hours”.
Apparently this driver had dementia or Alzheimer, hit the pedestrian, became confused and drove back home.
I can give you too many scary stories about drivers and most involve 16yr old kids or 80yr olds.
Is the cop parked on the sidewalk?
I live on Greenwood just south of that intersection. Southbound traffic is always super fast on the street. Northbound traffic can’t access the DVP from Greenwood, you have to go over to Donlands or Coxwell which are wider and better suited to fast traffic. I don’t know why they don’t redirect southbound traffic as well.
Just south of the Cosburn lights (north of Mortimer) there’s another intersection that is also unsafe (and bizarre). There’s an overhead flashing yellow – for north and southbound traffic – and flashing RED for east/west. Several times I’ve seen an eastbound driver stop at the red, and wait for someone to go through southbound. They assume (understandably) that it’s a four-way stop and that it’s their turn to go – and then nearly get hit by another car speeding southbound through their yellow light. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve seen a couple 3- or 4-car fender benders there, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.
this happening only serves to remind me that Toronto is a BIG city when out cycling. That incidents do happen outside the downtown core and that you have to be just as carefull in the ‘burbs as you do downtown. I had to come home from Kipling & Dixon last week and hurriedly found my way to the Humber Trail to get off the Eglington Ave west racetrack. For quite a distance till I found the multi-use path there, I thought that the drivers were having a contest to see who could get the closest to me when passing without hitting me!
True Confession: I do rolling stops at Greenwood/Plains all the time, especially since I’m always in a hurry to get to a workout in the neighbourhood after 35km of driving in evening traffic.
I am publicly pledging to come to a full stop at this intersection.
We really do drive way too fast off the DVP on Greenwood.