Residents in a midtown Toronto neighbourhood say surveillance video of a woman with a stroller nearly getting struck by a vehicle at an intersection shows how dangerous the area has become since the start of construction for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.
“My kids go to the daycare right down the street, so we’ve been crossing this intersection both ways every morning and afternoon and it’s terrifying,” Sarah Wainberg, a mother of two, told Global News.
“The traffic on the street was always heavy but since the LRT, it’s really bad. We had a huge problem with big trucks using it as a cut-through, which they are not allowed to do.”
WATCH: Raw video shows a woman with a stroller jumping on the hood of car after nearly getting hit in midtown Toronto
The video captured on the Bessey family’s front-door camera on March 27 near Eglinton Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road appears to show a woman with her stroller crossing an intersection around 10:25 a.m. when a vehicle nearly strikes them.
“F–k you,” the woman is heard yelling as she gestures to the driver. “Get the f–k out of your car.”
After several seconds, the vehicle appears to move around her and the woman, who leaves her stroller in the middle of the street, jumps on top of the hood.
“Are you f–king kidding me right now?” she screams, as the driver tries to get away.
After the vehicle drives off, the woman goes back to retrieve her stroller and completes crossing the street.
It’s unclear from the video whether the vehicle made a full stop at the stop sign prior to the incident.
“The woman was in a difficult situation and she was emotional and my husband ran out to see if she’s around and she already left and the baby was safe. But it was a really concerning occurrence on our street,” Hishge Bessey told Global News.
Bessey said Eglinton Avenue is congested most of the time as drivers are using the residential streets to cut through the traffic.
“It’s a family neighbourhood and it has been a problem for some time and I know that a lot of residents have raised their concerns,” Bessey said.
“We had a campaign, petition to install speed bumps. It has been a problem for so long.”
Toronto police said they did receive a complaint and officers at 53 Division have been assigned to the case.
“The real message that I want to get out there is we don’t want people putting themselves into harm’s way. Especially involving traffic matters like this,” Sgt. Brett Moore said.
VIDEO: Homeowner describes video of woman with stroller nearly struck by vehicle in Toronto street
Despite the jaw-dropping nature of the video, some residents say the woman shouldn’t have acted the way she did under those circumstances, especially with a stroller.
“I think she probably was in the wrong there, number 1, to leave the child there by themselves and number 2, her language,” Laura Barrett said.
“I feel like maybe she had something else planned because she was kind of running in front of that car. It was a bit shocking.”
Some residents say they want an increased police presence in the neighbourhood to ticket drivers who aren’t obeying the law.
— With a file from Kamil Karamali