I know of at least four instances of drivers running down pedestrians in Canada over the past five years. And the last two were just in the past couple of months.
There was the most recent incident in which a driver ploughed into a crowd of walkers in Amqui, Quebec, on Monday March 13, killing at least two people (two are still in critical condition in hospital).
There was the February 8 incident of a bus driver in Laval, Quebec, crashing into a daycare, tragically killing two children and injuring six others.
There was a horrific incident in London, Ontario in June of 2021 when a 20-year-old man ran down a Muslim family out for an evening stroll. This was clearly a hate crime but significantly, it was enacted by way of a vehicle.
It’s shocking to think that some disturbed individuals in our country are turning to their vehicles as a means of mass murder.
Canada has always been a peaceful, safe place to live but now these terrible crimes are causing pedestrians across the country to think twice about going out for a simple walk.
I’m a walker. I go out for an hour most days. The thought of some random driver deliberately trying to run their car into me or my fellow pedestrians is chilling.
I suspect that the one thing these four perpetrators all have in common is that they are suffering from some form of mental disorder.
The Laval driver jumped out of his vehicle right after the crash and started tearing off his clothes. He was described by witnesses as “acting erratically.”
The Toronto driver was affiliated with a group described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre.
Over the past several years, the mental health of Canadians has been in crisis and the pandemic has only intensified the problem.
Although the average person would never think of using their vehicle as an instrument of murder, it seems to have become one in the eyes of certain individuals – possibly those suffering from a mental health condition.
Having said that, I want to be clear in stating that as a psychiatrist, I’m well aware that the vast majority of people who suffer from mental health problems are not in any way violent or murderous.
But for those disturbed individuals who have violent tendencies, it’s imperative that they receive mental health care in order to avoid further incidents of violence by vehicle.
These crimes are deeply traumatic to the loved ones of the victims and to the entire community where they take place. This is the case of the impaired mental health of one individual – the perpetrator – having a negative impact on the mental health of other individuals – the victims.
The aftermath of each of these events included offering mental health services to the friends, family members, and co-workers of those killed or injured as well as to members of the community who were adversely affected by the crime.
The nature of trauma is that we can be emotionally wounded by experiencing violence, by witnessing it, and by having someone close to us becoming a victim of it. For that reason, it’s not only are those who have been injured in these incidents who end up suffering long-term mental health consequences but it’s also the people who were around to watch the events unfold and the people whose loved ones, colleagues or community members were hurt or killed.
If we don’t want more of such terrible tragedies, we need to invest more in prevention.
The mental health aspects of these crimes cannot, therefore, be underestimated. If we don’t want more of such terrible tragedies, we need to invest more in prevention. We need to have more mental health services available to people before these incidents take place so that we don’t need to mobilize these services in the aftermath.
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