TORONTO - Ontario's chief coroner will review cycling deaths across the province over the last four years amid growing concern about bicycle safety.

The review will try to identify and learn from common factors in the deaths from 2006 to 2010, and will be handled by Dr. Dan Cass, regional supervising coroner for the Toronto West Region.

It will look at all deaths of cyclists between those dates, including that of courier Darcy Allan Sheppard, who died two years ago after an altercation with former attorney general Michael Bryant.

Cass said he was undertaking the review because cycling continued to be a public health issue, noting that between 15 to 20 cyclists die in Ontario each year from injuries suffered on their bikes.

Just two weeks ago, Ottawa cyclist Danielle Nacu died when she was struck by the opened door of a parked car and fell into the path of a passing vehicle.

"The goal behind all of this is to try to prevent similar injuries in the future," Cass said.

Eleanor McMahon, CEO of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, welcomed the investigation as an important step toward road safety.

"An opportunity by the coroner's office to undertake a significant investigation that is a non-partisan, critical eye at how these collisions happen, what they have in common and consequently how we can prevent more of them is welcomed," said McMahon, who founded the organization after her husband was killed in a cycling collision in 2006.

"Cycling is so often framed in a very partisan way, which is highly regrettable because it doesn't allow us to have the kind of mature, sensible conversations about how we're sharing the road or not."

Unlike Quebec and B.C., Ontario doesn't have a policy framework that really embraces cycling, McMahon added, but there is hope some of that may change as the opposition parties exert pressure on the minority Liberals to pass some of their road safety bills.

Ontario's New Democrats had suggested a rule to keep cars at least a metre away from bicycles during last month's election campaign, saying the parties needed to get serious about making sure that people could safely ride bicycles if they wanted to get people out of cars.

Such rules are already in place in 20 U.S. states as well as France, Germany and Spain, and Nova Scotia.

The Progressive Conservatives had also advocated for paved shoulders on the province's roads, another bill cycling advocates want resurrected.

The Toronto cyclists union, which estimates about 35 pedestrians and cyclists die each year in the city in traffic accidents, also praised the review. The group's lawyers Patrick Brown and Albert Koehl, have already met with the coroner's office.

"Safety improvements for one group of road users benefits other users," said Brown.

"Any decrease in collisions will also reduce health care costs, suffering, and family grief, which makes this initiative very important for the entire community."

The last coroner's review into cycling deaths was held in 1998, but it only focused on Toronto. That review spanned 11 years and recommended additional funding for injury-prevention programs, better reporting of collisions and more bike lanes.

Share the Road said its polling suggests that 60 per cent of people in the province would cycle more but are too afraid to do so.

Cass said he will make recommendations next spring, but members of the public are welcome to make comments or recommendations to the review panel until Nov. 30.