Since there's been a lot in the news lately about guns (specifically, the arrests in the Jane Creba murder case on Yonge St. on Boxing Day), I thought I'd re-visit the issue of gun-related homicides and car-related homicides.

I last did this on April 21st, shortly after two cyclists were killed by trucks making right turns on Toronto streets, and compared numbers of car-related deaths (traffic fatalities) on the Toronto Police Service News Release page (look for "traffic fatality") to the number of gun-related deaths on the handy GoogleMap produced by the Toronto Star. Back on April 21st, cars were 3 times more deadly than guns, killing 21 people in 2006 to the 7 people guns had killed.

I'm sorry to report that this sad fact is still true. As of yesterday, June 14th, cars had killed 31 people so far in Toronto during 2006 and guns have killed 10 people.

I always hear the term "senseless death" when the news does the stories about the gun-related homicides, but almost never when it comes to cars. What is sensible about people getting run over, crushed, thrown dozens of feet by a mass of fast-moving metal and glass? What is sensible about someone dying because a driver is inattentive or tired or talking on a cellphone, or simply in a hurry?

I'd really like to see the traffic laws re-written to reflect that people who drive should bear more responsibility than those who don't, as an Ontario coroner's report has suggested. Drivers give way to cyclists and pedestrians, cyclists give way to pedestrians, and pedestrians rule all:

Ontario's Highway Traffic act presently does little to clarify how bicycles interact with other traffic on our roads. The concept of motorized vehicles yielding to non-motorized vehicles, who in turn must yield to pedestrians seems to be a common sense rule which should be accepted by all road users. Entrenching this principle in the HTA would clarify the situation, and likely significantly reduce risk of injury and death.

With great power should come great responsibility.

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