HAAS PARTY #13: A life as the price for a driver's convenience

No epitaph should read "Just this once."

As I’ve mentioned before, I like to ride bikes. I ride them far, (try to) ride them fast, and also just ride them to get around. And as I’ve also written about before, it seems like only a matter of time until I get hit by a car. Will I die? I don’t know. But it’s a thought that enters my brain more frequently than I would like these days. That’s because a person’s life is frequently becoming the cost of a driver’s convenience. And no one, at least not anyone with any kind of power to do or say something, seems to care.

Last week, a friend of a friend was killed when an Uber driver pulled an illegal u-turn on one of Toronto’s major East-West thoroughfares. The friend was riding a motorcycle and hit the car. The only detail that matters here is that the driver likely believed making a u-turn would be faster, easier, more convenient for him to continue on his trip.

I’m going to parse a likely split-second decision (if it was a decision at all, rather than a reflex) into a few possible thoughts that could have entered this driver’s mind before he made his lethal move.

Does it matter this u-turn is illegal? No.
There aren’t any cops around.
Everybody does it.
I’m running late.
A u-turn isn’t illegal.
I’m only going to do it just this once.

Do I really need to save myself the 30-60 seconds it would take to detour? Yes.
I could get stuck in traffic.
I can just turn around here.
I’m an Uber driver, I have to get there as fast as possible.
I’ll re-route next time.

Do I need to shoulder check before I turn? No.
My car’s mirror has that blind spot indicator thingy.
It’s dark and cars have bright headlights.
It’s just one quick u-turn.

In my admittedly biased thinking-through of the situation, all of the driver’s reasons for making an illegal u-turn revolve around what’s most convenient for them. I don’t think this driver, or any, actually thinks through their bad driving behaviours before doing them, they are ingrained based on a culture that tells you driving should make your life faster, easier, more convenient.

So when a driver kills someone, it is the cost of allowing such conveniences to continue. It’s just something that happens. People who aren’t in cars are in the way of those who are. I jump to this conclusion because a death doesn’t change a driver’s behaviour if they weren’t the one who killed the person. It doesn’t even necessarily do it if they were.

Because it’s just something that happens. A news headline to be scrolled past, a flashing siren on an ambulance to be driven by, a white ghost bike chained to a post to be ignored.

Just one cursory glance at your phone, away from the road. Just one text while waiting at the light. Going to run this yellow-turning-to-a-red just this one time.

Next time you’re walking along a street, any street, I encourage you to look into cars as they drive past you and actively notice how many people are looking at or using their phone, running a yellow, or ignoring traffic laws entirely. As a cyclist, I have a raised position as I ride through the city and can see straight down into people’s laps. People are on their phones all the time while they drive. People also are not paying attention to their car’s own warning and alert systems. They are just driving endlessly in pursuit of arriving at their destination just that much sooner.

Why? Because they can. Because they should. Because it’s more convenient. Why spare someone’s life when you can save a few seconds? Why consider someone else at all?

At worst, maybe you’ll spend a few weekends in jail and get fined a couple hundred dollars. Lose your license? Nah, not even for repeat offenders. You’re a driver. And a good driver, I bet. You’ve got places to be. That person you haven’t thought about, because you haven’t bothered to look in their direction? Their life? Their family? Their friends? Don’t think about it.

It’s just something that happens.