Caught in the headlights A voice for those who don't have gas

Very Important, all Ontarian Cyclists should read

by Patrick Brown

This morning I attended a stakeholders meeting with the Ministry of
Finance regarding the new changes to auto insurance. It is now on the
news.

The present law reform is not fair to cyclists, public transit users or
pedestrians.

Today I specially asked whether the reduce benefits being proposed will
apply to innocently injured cyclists, pedestrians and transit users.
The answer was "yes".

The system here in Ontario is complex to say the least, but I will try
to simplify as best I can the issue below.

When anyone [including cyclist, pedestrian car driver] is injured or
killed by a bad driver[ even a drunk driver], they will have various
benefits available to them. These include various things to help them
get better. Medical benefits, rehab benefits, attendant care etc.

With the new changes introduced today, many benefits are being
drastically reduced. However, the justification for such a reduction is
"consumer choice".

The new insurance reforms provide an option to the auto insurance policy
holders to increase the amount of their benefits if they so chose. They
simply up the premium in the policy.

However, if you are a cyclist, pedestrian or transit user, and do not
have a car insurance policy, you do not have the ability to buy up on
your benefits. You have no policy to do so. You must accept these
reductions.

Essentially your benefits (if you are part of this group) have just been
drastically reduced without the choice of getting more coverage.

How significant are these changes to cyclist and pedestrians. The
following are the amount of benefits being reduced.

1. Medical Rehabilitation Benefits [non catastrophically injured] are
being reduced from 100,000 to 50,000
2. Attendant Care Benefits [for non catastrophically injured ] are
being reduced from 72,000 to 36,000.00
3. Housekeeping and caregiver benefits eliminated.

The insurance companies argue "consumer choice". Ie if you want more
benefits you can pay an increased premium. Unfortunately that does not
help those without car insurance policies and who elect to travel by a
safer and less environmentally intrusive mode of transportation. Many
students, seniors, and lower income households do not have vehicles in
the city. They do not have car insurance policies. They do not cause
injuries. But they do get doored, hit, and stuck down all the time! I
also suspect it will continue for some time.

The Government however did do something right. They restored access to
claim compensation when someone is killed by a negligent driver. They
announced today the revocation of the 15,000 deductible. Many cyclist
advocated push to change this. This is a good thing for many who lose
a loved one. For instances to give some context, when Ryan Carriere was
killed cycling on Queen by a negligent truck driver (four halloweens
ago), his family had 90,000 in deductibles taken away from them. Despite
successfully proving it was the truck drivers fault and being successful
in their law suit. This was simply taken away as a deductible.

The Government will be moving forward in the next two month to draft
regulations to bring the above laws into force next year. It is
uncertain if they will change this unjust result regarding [cyclist and
pedestrian who do not have auto insurance] benefit reduction.

I strongly urge you to let your members know this. This issue will be
overshadowed by the lawyers, insurance industry and health professionals
during the present media attention to this issue.

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