A 71-year-old cyclist has died after swerving to avoid a possible collision with a vehicle in the Christie Pits neighbourhood on Tuesday.
Police say the cyclist was riding between moving and parked vehicles in the Christie and Dupont streets area at around 1:25 p.m.
While trying to avoid a collision with a vehicle that was making a left turn, the cyclist hit a parked car.
“A vehicle was attempting to make left hand turn into parking lot,” Const. Clint Stibbe told CP24 on scene. “As the driver was waiting to make the left hand turn the westbound traffic had come to a stop to permit the vehicle to make the turn. The cyclist then came between the vehicles in the left lane and the parked vehicles in the right lane and proceeded through.”
Stibbe said the driver didn’t make contact with the cyclist when the vehicle came to a stop.
“The cyclist, however, thinking a collision was imminent, swerved and unfortunately struck the back of the van,” he said.
Stibbe said that smashing into an immovable object, like a van in this case, is equivalent to hitting a brick wall.
“Imagine running into a brick wall at 30 or 35 kilometres an hour. I suggest you’re going to get hurt,” he said. “In this particular case, you have the bicycle as a piece of that momentum and unfortunately once you come off that bicycle, you have the impact with the asphalt that’s also going to contribute to that.”
One of Stibbe’s concerns is that cyclists in Toronto “are putting themselves at risk regularly.” He said while at an intersection in the city two weeks ago, around 90 per cent of the individuals did not stop at a stop sign.
“You don’t think necessarily that would be critical,” he said. “You’re putting your life at risk and the reality is, in some cases, it’s going to cost you your life.”
Police said they are waiting on more reports of the incident and they do not have information on the vehicle that failed to remain.
The cyclist was taken to a trauma centre, Toronto Paramedics said. He was pronounced dead in hospital later in the afternoon.
Traffic services will be investigating the scene, police said.
