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A coalition of road safety groups is calling on Nova Scotia’s Chief Medical Examiner to investigate, and recommend steps to address, the dangers posed to pedestrians and cyclists by pickup trucks and large SUVs.
C.R.A.S.H. — otherwise known as the Coalition to Reduce Auto Size Hazards — has some two dozen members nationwide. In Nova Scotia, that includes the Ecology Action Centre, Vision Zero Kjipuktuk-Halifax and the Halifax Cycling Coalition.
The letter to the medical examiner comes on the heels of a fatal “dooring” incident involving Dalhousie professor Dr. Nouman Ali, last month.
This was followed by a pedestrian-vehicle collision involving an SUV on Nantucket Avenue in Halifax on Aug. 5 that sent a 54-year-old woman to hospital.
“It’s just another unfortunate reminder that oversized vehicles take up a lot of space,” says Ashleigh Boers, community programs associate director with the Ecology Action Centre.
“There’s far less visibility, far more blind spots for drivers as well.”
But collisions like these are preventable, Boers says — especially when they involve large trucks and SUVs.
Sara Kirk was Dr. Ali’s colleague at Dalhousie University. She is also a member of Vision Zero Kjipuktuk-Halifax, which advocates for road safety in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
According to Boers, between 2000 and 2018, there was about an 11-per cent increase in the front-end vehicle height, and a 24 per cent increase in overall weight.
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And just as the hood heights of these vehicles grow, so too do the number of fatal pedestrian motor vehicle accidents.
“We know for every 10-centimetre increase in the hood-height of these vehicles it leads to a 22 per cent increase in pedestrian injuries and fatalities,” Kirk says.
But it’s not only poor front-end visibility causing issues.
“The chance of being killed if struck by one of these larger vehicles is 3.4 times that of the chance being killed if you are struck by a conventional-sized car,” explains Chris Waters, C.R.A.S.H.’s national coordinator and law professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario.
And according to Kirk, the weight of these vehicles equally contributes to the risk.
“My colleague Dr. Ali was struck by the door of a pickup truck,” Kirk says. “The heavier weight of the doors of these pickup trucks is one of the problems that we have.”
But there are things that can be done at all levels of government.
C.R.A.S.H. is calling for the federal government to introduce vehicle warning regulations.
It also wants provincial politicians to consider differentiating vehicle licensing for larger recreational trucks and SUVs.
As for municipal leaders, they can introduce heavier parking fines for larger vehicles as a deterrent, Waters says.
Despite Nova Scotia taking the lead on this national appeal, the coalition is hoping other Maritime advocacy groups join the fight.
“It would be great to have a partner in New Brunswick as well,” says Waters. “We’re putting families at risk across the country with the unchecked rise of these oversized vehicles, and we need to really give it some deep thought.”
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