On The War on the Car

To hear some Toronto politicians tell it, car drivers are a pretty oppressed bunch. Apparently red light running cyclists and their allies in the corner offices of City Hall are busily scheming up new ways of inflicting, quel horreur, a longer commute on motorists.

Apparently life is so bad for the Toronto car driving set that the risk cyclists take every day, that is the risk of being killed by a reckless driver (or an oblivious one), pales next to the anguish suffered in the daily oil powered commute.

From my reading of the daily paper and the letters to the editor, as well as the insults (and refuse) drivers hurl at me on the saddle, it would seem the recent untimely passing of one Darcy Allen Sheppard was the spark that lit the fuse, just as the untimely demise of one Archduke Franz Ferdinand lit a fuse some 95 years ago. Consider, both men were in or grabbing onto motor vehicles when they perished, both died violent deaths. Yet I must confess the comparison doesn’t really work for me, but let me back track for a second for readers from abroad who are not aware of the full story.

On the evening of Monday August 31 the Toronto Police detained a drunken Darcy Allen Sheppard briefly where upon they discovered he had a number of minor charges (mostly property crimes) against him in Alberta. The Edmonton police were not interested in sending anyone to Toronto to retrieve a petty thief and so the Toronto police let Darcy go. His girlfriend asked the police to drive him home as he was in no condition to ride, the Toronto police do not provide a taxi service and refused. Sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 in the evening Sheppard, in a drunken state left his girl friend apparently with the intention of returning to his apartment, by bike about seven and a half kilometers away. In a posh area of the city often called The Mink Mile Sheppard had an altercation with a motorist, Michael Bryant, who happens to be the former attorney general and was at that time the head of a new agency called “Invest Toronto”. Over the course of the altercation Bryant had good reason to fear for his and his wife’s safety and tried to drive away, Sheppard grabbed hold of Bryant’s vehicle (a convertible) and would not let go. Bryant drove on the wrong side of the road, jumped the curb and smashed up against a mail box and a tree in an apparent effort to brush Sheppard off his car. Ultimately Sheppard did let go and was subsequently run over by the back wheel of Bryant’s car. Sheppard died an hour later in hospital. In short, and this is coming from an avid cyclist there is blame enough to go around, Sheppard’s girl friend could have allowed him to stay at her place, the police could have driven Sheppard home, of course Bryant, and Sheppard all behaved in a manner that contributed to Sheppard’s unfortunate demise.

What happened to Sheppard was a tragedy top to bottom. I don’t deny that. But getting back to my little essay, nobody has satisfactorily explained what Sheppard has in common with the Archduke besides the fact that their deaths escalated an already alarmingly dangerous situation.

In the case of World War One a common cry heard from Germany in the years and months leading up to that fateful summer of 1914 was that of encirclement. Germans had come to the bizarre conclusion the democracies of the World work colluding with the Cossacks to confine Germany and prevent her from her rightful expansion as a European mega-power. So great was this fear of encirclement that the Germans would build the finest war machine the world had seen up to that time. I have not heard encirclement from a motorist (or right leaning municipal politician) yet, but I strongly suspect that build another bike lane on Jarvis Street or perhaps enforce the existing bike/bus/taxi only lane on Bay Street and it’s just a matter of time before motorists start building a Navy and sign treaties with Austrians.

I suppose now is not a particularly good time to remind my readers that the World War was the most horrible and violent affair in the history of the world. (Many modern historians consider both World War One and Two to be one continuous war with an twenty one year lull while the Europeans manufactured a new generation of boys to send to the slaughter.) I don’t believe this War on the Car will be so violent, not for the motorists, however for those who the motorists face off against, it will be like the Cossacks who rode their horses into the German machine guns and heavy artillery. Those who might logically make war on the car, would need to be insane to actually consider such a course of action. Yet it does seem to me, as I dodge a driver in his two ton steel yacht on his cell phone or another driver in her mammoth SUV busily applying makeup that perhaps the Cossacks had the right attitude, better to die fighting than live with this insanity.