2023-10-14 04:00:00
A Montrealer whose father was fatally struck head-on by an SUV in 2019 believes the government should do its part to dissuade Quebecers from purchasing large vehicles.
“I say to myself: if it’s more dangerous and there are more people dying because of it, why don’t we regulate it more? » says Catherine Carle, 35 years old.
On November 1, 2019, 30 minutes following hanging up with her on the phone, her father, Denis Carle, was hit head-on by an SUV while crossing Crémazie Boulevard, very close to Foucher Street.
“It was a Friday evening,” says Ms. Carle. He said to himself, “I’m not making dinner for myself, I’m going to go to the little local restaurant to eat poutine and hot dogs.” He crossed the street somewhere he wasn’t supposed to and he was listening to music. »
According to the coroner’s report, Mr. Carle was crossing at a location where there was no pedestrian crossing and he likely never saw or heard the SUV, a 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander, approaching him approximately 57 km away. /h. His behavior contributed to the accident, as did the inattentive driver who shortly before looked at his phone installed on a cell phone which gave him directions on his route, the coroner concluded.
A size that is unforgiving
Arriving at the hospital that day, Catherine Carle quickly understood that the size of the vehicle that hit her father had played a large part in the severity of his injuries: fractures all over his body as well as severe head trauma.
“It was one of the first things the emergency doctor told us the evening of the accident,” explains Ms. Carle.
“He told us it was because of the height [du VUS] in relation to his body” that his head hit the windshield heavily. “A regular vehicle is lower, the impact to the head would have been only when it fell to the ground,” continues Ms. Carle.
Denis Carle died surrounded by his loved ones 12 days following the accident. He was 59 years old.
His death was very difficult for his family to accept. “It’s quite traumatic. You can’t prepare yourself for someone in perfect health, who isn’t even 60 years old, to leave you,” says Ms. Carle.
A big fan of football and the San Francisco 49ers, Mr. Carle was also an intellectual who might read three or four books a week. Passionate regarding music, he was listening to Elton John at the time of his accident.
Worried regarding their popularity
Ms. Carle acknowledges that her father “didn’t have good pedestrian behavior.” She nevertheless believes that when a collision occurs, increasingly larger vehicles in Quebec leave less and less chance to the most vulnerable road users.
“It really worries me a lot,” she says, when asked regarding the explosion in the popularity of large vehicles, particularly SUVs, over the last decade.
She believes the government needs to tackle the ads that make SUVs so attractive, convinced that the vast majority of their owners don’t really need them.
“I have people around me who have an SUV and I know they don’t need one, but they still have one. Why don’t we have a way to dissuade the world from having SUVs? »
1697270607
#losing #father #SUV #asks #government #regulate
