Dreadful news
An irresponsible driver seriously injured five cyclists riding in a bicycle lane.
Cathy Anderson, 45, Hilary McNamee, 26, Rob Wein, 35, Rob Harland, 45, and Mark White, 33, had all gone for a training ride in preparation for a half marathon. Their route, March Road, had a wide bicycle lane. Police investigators allege that 45-year-old Sommit Luangpakham plowed straight through the group at about 8:00 Sunday morning. Police have charged him with leaving the scene of an accident, and will consider other charges as their investigation proceeds. Mr. Wein, by all the accounts I have read, remains in critical condition.
Recovery from this is never easy
I can't begin to imagine what the families are going through, or have gone through.
Meanwhile, Sommit Luangpakham is out on bail for reasons we don't know -- due to a publication ban of his bail hearing.
And yet it was so easy for Sommit Luangpakham to cause all this.
Sometimes life is unjust, i hope they put Sommit away for an appropriately long time so he can get a clue. He obviously has no appreciation for what he has done. I'm glad they were able to catch him and he didn't escape like he tried to.
He turned himself in. But I think that he realized that it would have been worse for him if he hadn't.
See http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/After+crash/2587362/stor...
It's a struggle, even if you survive.
I wonder if drivers would drive safer if the law would take away seatbelts, airbags and crumble zones....
would operate more safely if the law required the judge and prosecutor to make their decisions based on the harm caused and not the instrument of that harm. If someone had cut loose with an UZI and wrecked five lives and caused untold misery to all the people who cared about them, would he have had a chance at bail?
The leniency shown drivers who cause injury or death through apparent negligence endangers every road user and insults those of us who use the roads safely, whether by driving (when we drive) with real care, safely and legally, or by using less dangerous means of transportation.
John G. Spragge
Mariner, cyclist, pilot
and another one is critical.
6 cyclists plowed into by pickup while en route to triathlon training camp.
FACTS (IF ANYONE ELSE HERE CARES ABOUT FACTS):
1) The cyclists WERE NOT in a bike lane, they were on the edge of a roadway with a soft shoulder, therefore they were indeed forced to ride on the paved portion of the road.
2) The driver of the truck stopped immediately and attempted to help the injured cyclists.
3) There is no indiaction that alcohol or drugs were involved.
4) The driver was returning from work after completing a night shift.
5) People who have to work shifts are notoriously sleep-deprived, as indeed are many people who do not work shifts.
6) Equating the circumstances that appear to attend to this tragedy with a deliberate act involving an automatic weapon is, and this is as kind as I can be, silly.
I agree that equating an honest mistake, or even willful carelessness, with a deliberate act is unreasonable. I hope you agree the only important difference is the intent, not the weapon.
Driving distracted, driving without due care and attention, driving while sleep deprived or while intoxicated, is absolutely the moral equivalent of walking around a crowded mall with a loaded gun in your hand, finger on the trigger. No licensed driver has any excuse for saying they don't understand these actions endanger the lives of innocent men, women and children.
Intimidation with a deadly weapon is the same whether deliberately squeezing a cyclist on the road, or waiving a knife in the face of an elderly lady fumbling for her coupons at the checkout, just because she's slowing you down. The message is get out of my way, I could kill you if I chose to.
Yet society's blindness to the motor vehicle as a weapon is out of line with the mahem caused by ordinary citizens using these devices while going about their daily lives. It's a case of familiarity breeds contempt. Few would whip out a pocket knife at the checkout. But many, both men and women, will gleefully threaten a cyclist over a few seconds delay. This happens daily on the streets of our fair city.
Until all who believe themselves to be honest citizens come to accept the motor vehicle as the deadly weapon it is, and determine to drive with same sense of responsibility they'd use if their lives somehow required them to carry a gun, we'll continue to have these human tragedies in our public spaces.
I haven't heard of a man mowing down 6 and killing 3 cyclists in one go ever before.
At least it wasn't a hit and run like the last time a motorist ran down a group of cyclists. Which wasn't even a year ago!
Was this man asleep at the wheel? I guess killing three innocent women woke him up from his nice nap.
IH8bikes, as if the three victims family should claim it as simple water under the bridge because he was "tired" and not paying attention... that means he doesn't have to be fully responsible? Stuff just starts to happen to *other people *when you get behind the wheel of the car... that is how it goes? Wrong. (those are all sarcastic questions btw - don't bother to answer them)
P.S. maybe you(clueless) should go back to trolling the CBC comment page, you won't find too many more people here willing to talk with somebody called "ih8bikes" in a discussion about dead cyclists.
In most places, if a bartender serves an obviously intoxicated patron who then goes out and commits mayhem with a vehicle, the bar had better have good insurance, because the law permits the survivors to sue them. I suggest employers should have a similar incentive not to put employees impaired by fatigue on the roads, either.
John G. Spragge
Mariner, cyclist, pilot
@ dances_with_traffic
It happened when I was living in the UK - a driver hit a group of 12 cyclists, and 4 of the cyclists were killed, 7 injured.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4592412.stm
It was in January and a car going in the opposite direction hit some ice and crossed into the opposite lane, plowing into the group of cyclists.
As for this incident in Quebec, there's no indication he was asleep, but its apparently a fast stretch of road and he had on the cruise control. So he probably (certainly, given the outcome) wasn't paying as much attention as he should have. I suspect most drivers have, at some point, gotten behind the wheel when too tired. Which is basically as bad as driving drunk, but doesn't have the same stigma attached.
@IH8bikes
As much as I hate to give you ANY validation by engaging you in conversation - NOBODY in this thread suggested this group of Quebec cyclists were in a bike lane. The thread refers originally to an incident in Ottawa last year that DID involve a bike lane, and someone added a comment pointing to the more recent Quebec incident. If you're too busy ranting to read what you're ranting about with due care, then don't expect anyone to take your conclusions seriously. Or am I being silly?
And to reiterate what other posters have said, the fact that he was tired is not more OK than if he had been drunk (just, tragically, less illegal). If you get behind the wheel of a car you have to be in a fit state to control it. Period.
A separate incident.
Just today me and the guys were out riding a country road with and without a shoulder.
We were deliberately buzzed within a foot by a man, in a pickup truck, with his work gear on the back at 80-100km/h his horn blaring and he and his buddy sticking their middle fingers out.
You can see for kilometers on this country road.
I couldn't help thinking about this Quebec accident since the conditions were so similar.
And what is the first thing the Montreal police do?
They ignore the bull, instead handing out helmets and lecturing cyclists on traffic rules.
Great message you're sending, Montreal cops. The only thing that you need to do to stop cyclists from getting their necks and spines snapped, internal organs crushed, and limbs mangled is to get them to wrap styrofoam around their heads.
Globe and mail