What we know is that in July of 2019 Tristan Roby was a cyclist who was struck on Exeter Road in London, Ontario by the driver of a pick-up truck who did not remain at the collision scene. The driver, Jesse Bleck, was later convicted of failing to remain and sentenced to 4 and a half years with a 10-year driving prohibition.
A previous Gorski Consulting article was posted on this tragedy on July 16, 2023.
Publicly we will never know how this collision happened. That fact would seem trivial as some might argue it is none of the public’s business. And that would be true if Roby’s death was only a personal matter, but it is not. Fatal collisions are not just personal matters but they are canaries in the coal mine whose singing could save future persons from similar fates.
One will never know how Roby’s future might have been changed if the results of a previous cyclist fatality were made known to him and if this might have changed what actions he took on the night he was struck down. But it is always an available opportunity to use the results of a tragedy to change the consequences in some future incident.
Each year Gorski Consulting conducts about a thousand cyclist observations along the roads of London, Ontario. Those observations show how and where cyclists ride as well as their characteristics such as their helmet use, their clothing, the cargo they carry and their gender. These facts are not the best indicators of how a cyclist collision might be avoided but they are the best one can get. Because the facts surrounding any real cyclist collision are never revealed. And we just stumble from one tragedy to the next, like a blind public attempting to cross a high-speed expressway.
As a society what we deem important is that we can capture a culprit who is responsible for the collision and then we are satisfied when the culprit is given a punishment, a prison sentence or driving prohibition, and then that settles the matter. At no point is there a thought of examining the collision and asking: What could have been done, or what can be do, besides seeking vengeance against a specific driver? Could we install certain cycling infrastructure? Could we improve some lighting? Could we educate some drivers to focus on vulnerable cyclists. Could we instruct cyclists about where they should ride, what they should wear and the benefits of helmet use? None of this is happening. The specific facts of every cyclist fatality, and even those collisions of simple injury, seem to held in some “Fort Knox” facility, never to be seen by the public’s eye. After all, it is of national security that such specific information not be released because who knows what might happen.
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