pbrown@mollp.com
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Government MPPs put politics before road safety by voting down amendments to a bill at Queen’s Park, says Toronto critical injury lawyer and safety advocate Patrick Brown.
NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo had asked members of the legislature’s Justice Policy committee to incorporate her own private member’s bill, the Protecting Vulnerable Road Users Act, into the road safety provisions of the province’s new law on the regulation of cannabis, Bill 174.
However, her motion was recently defeated by committee members from the ruling Liberal party.
“This was an unfortunate example of partisan politics getting in the way of meaningful change,” says Brown, partner with McLeish Orlando LLP and founder of Bike Law Canada.
“This would have saved lives,” DiNovo said in a statement following the vote. “It is surprising and disappointing that the Liberals voted against protecting vulnerable road users.”
Her amendments would have added penalties to all driving offences under the Highway Traffic Act that result in the death or serious injury of a vulnerable road user.
Stiffer penalties
The changes provided for community service, licence suspension, and driver re-education in cases that resulted in deaths and serious injury, as well as requiring culpable motorists to attend court for sentencing, and to hear victim impact statements.
“At the moment, a driver can kill or seriously injure a pedestrian or a cyclist, and often all that will happen is that they will have to mail in a $550 cheque, while the victims give their impact statements to an empty courtroom,” DiNovo said. “This is unacceptable.”
Similar laws already exist in several jurisdictions in the United States, but Brown, who was one of several road safety advocates to appear before the Justice Policy committee to urge them to accept the amendments, describes DiNovo’s proposed bill as “the most comprehensive” of its kind in North America.
As the law currently stands, he says Ontario drivers charged in fatal accidents are able to avoid the most serious consequences by admitting less serious offences. However, such “pleading out” would be impossible under bill 158.
“The penalties would apply to more than 50 sections” of the HTA, “not just one,” Brown says.
