Since 2026 began, the regional news has been a steady stream of pedestrian and driver deaths. Pedestrian killed. Cyclist killed. Driver killed. 

With the amount of death on the roads you would think there might be some kind of public outcry, perhaps a government minister would call a press conference and detail their plan to address our reliance on these death machines?

And yet, only the local police could muster a press release to let people know that a pedestrian or cyclist has been hit by drivers each of the first 19 days of 2026. Be careful, they reminded us.

We are numb to road deaths. Just as many are numb to drug poisoning deaths. It’s all just accepted now. If this many people died every week from boarding a ferry or eating pistachios you can bet there would be action. But not for vehicles. If  you get in your car or if you go near a road, there’s a decent chance you’ll die. Good luck.

I grew up in a rural community where we all thought that turning 16 and getting your driver’s license was the height of freedom; it kind of was, since there was almost no transit service. As an adult, I’ve always preferred walking or riding my bike. Leaving the dirt roads of Vancouver Island at age 18 (yes, I lived on a dirt road) and travelling around Europe blew my mind – regular train and bus service and no need for a car.

Distracted Driving

Seeing that life without a car is the way of things for most of the world certainly shifted my thinking on the best way to get around town, but it was one evening ten years ago when I really came to resent the car culture we’ve built.

I was listening to the CBC radio news – as I always did on my twice-weekly two hour commute from Nanaimo back to Victoria. If I wanted to keep my teaching job, I had to make the drive.

The precarity of teaching on contract at a university made moving to Nanaimo impractical; I had no idea if I would be hired on again once the semester ended. The train stopped running in 2011, so that was not an option either.

That night, at about the half-way point of my drive back to Victoria, I came to a stop at a red light. The radio news began. 

I looked in my rearview mirror. “That’s strange”, I thought to myself, “Those lights are coming up behind me very fast.”

Then my head hit the steering wheel. “What the fuck!? What the fuck!? What the fuck!?”, I screamed. The horn was blaring. My ears were ringing. 

A driver in a truck had slammed into the back of my car at over 90 km/h while I was stopped at the light.

I had scratches and my head hurt a lot, but luckily there were no other drivers proceeding through the intersection when I was hit. I was alive.

People pulled over and helped me. One of them was an off-duty Saanich firefighter. Then the volunteer fire department came and I was taken in an ambulance to the hospital where staff treated me for my injuries. In the days that followed my university colleagues sent me a Get Well card and flowers. I still have the card, it reads, simply:

Dear Kelly, Wishing you a speedy recovery.

I don’t think the pun was intended.

The months that followed were also difficult. At first, I noticed I couldn’t write properly; I was having memory issues. My first day back at teaching I got sweaty and shaky; I had trouble remembering the content.

When the responding RCMP officer contacted me about the event I finally learned what happened. The driver of the truck was on his cell phone, not paying attention. He received a $500 distracted driving fine and presumably some demerits on his insurance. 

What if he had killed me? He would have received a $500 distracted driving fine and presumably some demerits on his insurance.

We Built It This Way

We are forced to travel this way. The BC government puts the biggest dollars into highway expansion and upgrades while public transit and active transportation get a pittance. Todd Litman, President of Better Island Transit recently summed up what it’s like to get around without a car:

Let me describe the problems we face. The No. 66 bus that connects Victoria and Duncan makes only four daily trips, all scheduled for Duncan commuters to Victoria.

There are no reverse commute, ­evening or Sunday trips, and it costs $10 each way, three times a local [Victoria] fare. The No. 70 route connecting Duncan and Nanaimo is a little better; it makes seven daily trips with $5 fares.

Public transit travel from Victoria to Campbell River requires seven transfers, each with separate fares and limited schedules, so the trip takes at least four days, and there are no connections to other Island ­communities…Private buses provide limited and expensive connections that may be ­suitable for wealthy adult tourists but not travellers with limited budgets, tight schedules, disabilities or children.

Getting around by bus is difficult enough, but we also privilege drivers in all sorts of ways. Free parking on public streets is probably the best example of this , but so too are the limited consequences that follow from reckless driving.

If the BC legislature passes the recently introduced Xavier’s Law, drivers who commit a “reckless act” will be prohibited for driving for up to 30 days. It’s a start, but it took the death of 12 year old Xavier to make it happen.

It may sound outrageous, but if you want to murder someone, just do it with your car — there’s a better chance you’ll come away with a fine instead of jail time. 

Car Brain

“Car brain” is a real affliction. Our politicians suffer from it just like the rest of us. In their 2024 election campaign, the BC NDP promised more red light cameras at intersections; there are just six on all of Vancouver Island. I can’t find any articles or press releases that indicate the government has yet lifted a finger to fulfil this promise.

Of course, one does not need science or election platforms to tell us about car brain because reading the letters to the editor in the local paper is proof enough.

Safety upgrades alone can’t save us from getting killed on the roads. They help, sure, but they wouldn’t have helped me in 2016. The only way to avoid my accident was to not be in a car in the first place.

Instead of accepting that “kill or be killed” by car is inevitable, we could implement the solutions we have — they cost a lot less than highway expansion. 

I hope this happens soon. After my trip in the ambulance in 2016, I know exactly what can happen when we have no choice but to drive a car.

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