From My Bottom Step

After video-recording the FAC meeting at City Hall this past Wednesday and as I headed back to the Old East Village, I had another encounter with a driver.

I was walking along the north sidewalk in an eastward direction past 580 Dundas Street when a large moving truck which had also been eastbound turned north into the driveway of that property instead of yielding for me. I was fortunate enough to react in time despite the shock and was able to avoid walking into the side of it (or under it’s rear wheels).

I hammered on the side of the truck as it passed by me, intending to have a conversation with the driver after he stopped, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t even slow down, and it was all that I could do to simply try and read the truck’s plate number as it went along it’s merry way.

The police never seem to be around to witness these things when they happen to me, but on this occasion there was a Police Headquarters right across the street. So, that’s where I went, to lodge a complaint in person.

The officer at the desk ran the plate number that I recited to him from memory and informed me that plate was recorded as having been “returned to the MTO” and that it’s previous owner was thought to be living in Northern Ontario.

Acknowledging that the incident had caught me by surprise and that it was possible I might not have remembered the plate number exactly, I asked that an officer be dispatched to identify the vehicle and the driver and to lay a charge if possible.

Now, I didn’t expect that a unit would necessarily be available immediately, but I did expect that at least a cursory drive-by could have been arranged within a period of time in which the truck might reasonably be expected to still be on the scene of the incident. But no, apparently the fact that illegal driver behaviour which potentially threatens the physical safety of pedestrians doesn’t have a high enough priority in the view of London Police. Apparently, in order to get a police response, a London pedestrian has to at least be hit by a vehicle. Like too many already have been this year.

What’s really got me ticked off is learning that the officer to whom I reported the incident didn’t even bother to file an incident report. It was only after I followed up via email and made a stink about it, that a higher-ranking officer agreed to document the incident.

Local politicians make a big deal about the size of the police budget at this time of the year, as they should. And we know that the largest share of the police budget is for salaries. But that doesn’t mean that there are enough police officers to respond to the need.

I’m told that London Police respond to about 125,000 calls per service in a year. But I have to wonder how many calls for service are not being responded to? And I wonder, after calling for service a couple of times and not getting any, how many people have simply stopped calling the police?

I’ve heard some local politicians complain about the size of the police budget and about the cost of hiring more officers and the cost of new vehicles, but I’ve never heard one of them ask how many calls for service are ignored every year. And I don’t recall ever hearing any of them ask about how the calls that are services are prioritized. Not in any public meeting that I’ve attended at least.

There have been an average of 208 annual vehicle/pedestrian collisions that we know about in London between 2005-2009 (complete 2010 stats not released to me yet) and we’ve already had at least two pedestrian fatalities in this first month of 2011. But how much larger is this problem, really? How many pedestrians have simply given up phoning the police simply because prior experience has taught them that their complaint won’t be treated seriously enough?

Because of the disparity between a vehicle and a pedestrian, every time that a driver ignores a pedestrian’s right of way it is a potentially physically dangerourous incident for that pedestrian (and often life-threatening).

Doesn’t that warrant a report being filed at least?