September may be approaching the end of a deadly season of two-wheeled fatalities.
A summary of collisions in September of 2018 that have been reported by official news agencies in Southern Ontario has provided some expected revelations. This summary is from news stories focused in areas of Southwestern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) including the Niagara Region through to Windsor. Stories from the Ottawa area and into more northern regions such as North Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste Marie have been excluded. While our summary has not documented every news story ever written it contains the majority of the fatalities and major injury collisions that have been reported in news media websites in the noted areas.
For September 2018, 63 news stories of such collisions were noted. Of those incidents 10 involved motorcyclists, 4 involved bicyclists and 6 involved e-bikes and scooters. Thus of the total of 63 news stories, 20 of these major collisions involved two-wheeled vehicles, or about 30 percent. Injury levels of those two-wheeled riders included 7 fatalities, 5 critically injured, 6 seriously injured and 2 with minor injuries.
While not an epidemic these data express the commonly understood fact that a significant problem exists with the numbers of fatalities and injuries in this category of two-wheeled vehicles. The results of any investigations of how and why these collisions occur are basically non-existent. While news media provide some basic information about the location and severity of these incidents, none of this information is useful for the public’s essential understanding of the problem.
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