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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

As a downtown driver I’ve really noticed the increase in Uber and lyft cars on the road. Not because I use these services but because I find myself increasingly driving near vehicles that seem to have drunk or stoned drivers weaving all over the place aimlessly only to on closer inspection notice the small sticker on their window. These services need to be regulated to the point where they basically have all the trappings of Taxis like clearly identifiable vehicles and signage.
 
TrickyRicky said:
As a downtown driver I’ve really noticed the increase in Uber and lyft cars on the road. Not because I use these services but because I find myself increasingly driving near vehicles that seem to have drunk or stoned drivers weaving all over the place aimlessly only to on closer inspection notice the small sticker on their window. These services need to be regulated to the point where they basically have all the trappings of Taxis like clearly identifiable vehicles and signage.
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Ditto the food delivery cyclists. As if many cyclists already don't follow the law or sensible protocol, those guys take it to a whole other level.

Neutrino said:
lmao "gender balanced budgeting" what a toxic term
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Yeah, I usually love watching progressive European social engineering vids, but after a while, I had to dump watching that one. I kept thinking of a very feminine but not feminist close friend of mine who teaches secondary school, and is very concerned about exactly that thinking 'denaturing' the young males to the point of disinterest in participating in learning. You could throw the baby out with the bathwater in trying to 'neutralize' behaviour. It certainly doesn't produce leaders. But it does produce conformists. Or failures.

Post Script: I just Googled for that term, and lo and behold:
[...]
Last year, the government applied a gender analysis to its budget for the first time. This year, Morneau is promising to go beyond that.

"This year, we'll be coming forward with concrete measures that are going to help women to be more successful in our economy," he said last Thursday.

Data needed
Yalnizyan said gender budgeting isn't about being pro-women but rather about being pro-efficiency.

"It isn't a bean-counting exercise," she said. "It's a benefit-counting exercise, and that's a radical way of looking at what governments can do by spending money on our behalf."

"What you are doing is actually using data and responsible government to improve services and save costs," she said.

Part of the problem in Canada, she said, is actually getting the robust data to see who is benefiting from federal services and programs.

"Part of a gender-based approach is to have a better outcome — and you're going to have to spend a bit more," she said

"But when we do it we can save money and improve lives."

Last year's budget showed that while the gender equity gap has declined over the past decade, Canada still has one of the highest gaps among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

The gender wage gap the difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men.

Canada's gender wage gap sits at about 18..2 per cent, according to the latest data. Sweden sits in the middle, at 13.4 per cent.

"The gender wage gap is particularly large for young women with at least one child, suggesting that women are more likely than men to make accommodations, such as work fewer hours, to balance paid and unpaid work," said Canada's 2017 budget analysis.

"Young women are less likely to obtain degrees in high-demand fields such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), which can offer better career and income opportunities."

Canadians will have to wait until next month at least before they see how the Trudeau government proposes closing that gap for the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
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www.cbc.ca

How Sweden's gender-balanced snow-clearing may offer Canada tips on budgeting | CBC News

In trying to understand what Finance Minister Bill Morneau means when he talks about viewing the federal budget through a gender lens, consider Sweden's experience with the humble and oh-so-Canadian snowplow.
www.cbc.ca www.cbc.ca

This is about optics and semantics, nothing really to do with 'gender balance'. And the hypocrisy is astounding:
"This year, we'll be coming forward with concrete measures that are going to help women to be more successful in our economy," he said last Thursday.
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Yeah, sure, like starting a whisper campaign about the most powerful woman in cabinet, and deriding her for doing her job honestly, efficiently and with the utmost of integrity?

This isn't about girls. It's about girly-men. And seeing their buddies get the pay-off.
 
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TrickyRicky said:
As a downtown driver I’ve really noticed the increase in Uber and lyft cars on the road. Not because I use these services but because I find myself increasingly driving near vehicles that seem to have drunk or stoned drivers weaving all over the place aimlessly only to on closer inspection notice the small sticker on their window. These services need to be regulated to the point where they basically have all the trappings of Taxis like clearly identifiable vehicles and signage.
Click to expand...

I agree that there are a lot of Uber and Lyft cars on the road. I don’t agree that there are many of them that have “drunk or stoned” drivers. Certainly not any more than there are regular taxi drivers that are terrible drivers.
 
TrickyRicky said:
As a downtown driver I’ve really noticed the increase in Uber and lyft cars on the road. Not because I use these services but because I find myself increasingly driving near vehicles that seem to have drunk or stoned drivers weaving all over the place aimlessly only to on closer inspection notice the small sticker on their window. These services need to be regulated to the point where they basically have all the trappings of Taxis like clearly identifiable vehicles and signage.
Click to expand...
From observation of the license plates, it appears is a lot of them may not be seasoned drivers; meaning they have less experience on the (city's) roads. This leads to an overreliance on GPS devices, which in turn leads to lots of last minute merges and lane changes.
 
11th said:
From observation of the license plates, it appears is a lot of them may not be seasoned drivers; meaning they have less experience on the (city's) roads. This leads to an overreliance on GPS devices, which in turn leads to lots of last minute merges and lane changes.
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Agreed, and agreed with @pstogios and @Neutrino above, we're all seeing much the same thing, and I see it with cyclists (and I'm an avid distance as well as local cyclist, my only form of transport besides transit, haven't had a licence in Ontario since my taxi and truck one forty years ago) and the problem in many cases is the false sense of entitlement whether using GPS or not. The roads are shared, and everyone else has an equal right of use, but I'm seeing time and again lately Uber/Lyft/cabs just coming to a stop in a one lane one way street that blocks traffic for a whole block behind, merely because the cabby or driver can't be bothered to pull over into a parking space to wait for their fare.

And as a cyclist, having a lot of these drivers just pull a sudden turn in front of you across a cycling lane without even a thought of looking first, let alone signal.

I'm a firm believer in assertive driving (pun fully intended with 'firm') to make things like 'zipper' merges as two lanes blend into one, being assertive is like taking the lead in a dance, things continue smoothly and consistently, albeit it demands reading the other motorists' intentions. What isn't good practice is aggressive driving where the presumption is that the road is yours, and yours alone.

And the latter is what a lot of 'cars for hire' practice.
 
In my previous comment I wasn’t suggesting the ride share drivers were actually drunk or stoned. I was implying that some drive like they are impaired: erratic like drunk, too slow and indecisive like stoned. I was also not suggesting cab drivers are better drivers. The point tying back to the theme of this thread is that I feel that conceptually taxis are safer than ride share vehicles because they are clearly marked and identifiable. Everyone knows to exercise caution around a taxi, that is not as clear around a ride share because you can’t easily tell it is a ride share.
 
^I can agree with that: Better the devil you know than the one you don't. I actually read you that way in your original post on it. My experience agrees with your observation.

It's only after the shit happens that I look for the 'secret sign', and I think "it figures". And then I have to question how some can trust them to drive them around safely?
 
To be fair, my experience with taxis is worse than Ubers. Taxi drivers seem prone to merging aggressively and tailgating, while many Uber drivers seem to religiously stick to the speed limit in the third lane.
 
steveintoronto said:
Ditto the food delivery cyclists. As if many cyclists already don't follow the law or sensible protocol, those guys take it to a whole other level.
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Cyclists like me have to break the rules sometimes because asshole drivers do not care about our safety.

I was riding on Richmond and stopped at a red light on Richmond yesterday, a driver pulls into the bike lane because the bollard has been broken from another reckless driver who doesn't care, bumps my back tire. I look back at him and he waves me forward. I pull forward as I am worried he will run me over (not enough to let him go through or anything). he squeezes past me hitting my pedal and gives me the bird. The light turns green and I started to go, he then goes on to cut me off as he turns right and was 5 centimetres from hitting a pedestrian on the crosswalk.

In total probably about 5 illegal things.

So do not even try to say cyclists are bad when they break one rule because they do not want to die from a hunk of steel driven by a scumbag.
 
Neutrino said:
To be fair, my experience with taxis is worse than Ubers. Taxi drivers seem prone to merging aggressively and tailgating, while many Uber drivers seem to religiously stick to the speed limit in the third lane.
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I'm downtown, mostly walking, and I would say Uber/Lyft are worse. In general, taxi drivers are better at knowing where they're going, and that makes a difference. They're also permitted to stop in unprotected bike lanes where Uber/Lyft drivers are not.

Taxis are a lot easier to spot, with visible unique numbers. Beck has become much more responsive too to complaints, and they've improved on this a lot. There's a lot less accountability with Uber/Lyft, and it's even harder to identify those drivers now that they use smaller rear decals (the old Uber logo at the rear was more visible).

Taxi drivers might be aggressive and make dumb U-turns, but they're more visible and predictable at least.
 
ShonTron said:
I'm downtown, mostly walking, and I would say Uber/Lyft are worse. In general, taxi drivers are better at knowing where they're going, and that makes a difference. They're also permitted to stop in unprotected bike lanes where Uber/Lyft drivers are not.

Taxis are a lot easier to spot, with visible unique numbers. Beck has become much more responsive too to complaints, and they've improved on this a lot. There's a lot less accountability with Uber/Lyft, and it's even harder to identify those drivers now that they use smaller rear decals (the old Uber logo at the rear was more visible).

Taxi drivers might be aggressive and make dumb U-turns, but they're more visible and predictable at least.
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Yeah, that all jives with my experience. It's unscientific, of course, but my daily experience is that Uber/Lyft drivers are doing way crazier shit than taxi drivers; literally not a commuting day goes by when I don't see an Uber/Lyft driver pull a u-turn in the middle of a controlled intersection, park in unprotected bike lanes, pull up on sidewalks, etc.

My commute takes me right through the U of T St. George campus and it's pretty much ground zero for those drivers endangering pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers.
 
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