The morning of Sept. 26 began just like any other for Maria Dorsey and her partner, Jack Miehm. The pair had coffee and, before he left the house to catch a TTC bus, Jack asked what they would do for dinner that night. “All that boring stuff, it seems like now, but it’s not boring,” Dorsey recalled. “I gave him a kiss goodbye and said I’ll see you later, and that was it.”Moments after he left the house to go help a friend with drywall work, Miehm, a 61-year-old semi-retired contractor, was struck by a driver as he crossed at a stoplight at St. Clair Ave. E. and Jeanette St. in the Scarborough Junction neighbourhood. He was about two minutes from his front door. The impact was so powerful Miehm was thrown 50 metres, police later told Dorsey, and the side mirror of the van was ripped off. The driver fled the scene; a suspect was arrested two days later.Those who knew him say Miehm, who had two children and two grandchildren, was a quiet, friendly man. At the time of his death, he had been recovering from a stroke he had about six years ago with what Dorsey described as characteristic optimism. “He said, ‘it could be worse.’ That was his favourite line,” she said. “They say the voice is the first thing people (forget) when you lose someone, but I can still hear his laugh.”Miehm was one of 46 pedestrians or cyclists who have died in Toronto so far in 2018, a number that appears to mark a recent one-year high for the city. According to statistics compiled by the Star using police and media reports, 41 pedestrians and five cyclists, who together are classified as “vulnerable road users,” have been killed on the streets so far this year.The most recent death occurred Friday, when a woman in her 70s was found at the intersection of Finch Ave. East and Wayside Ave. in Scarborough.The 46 deaths so far in 2018 exceeds the number of combined pedestrian and cyclist fatalities recorded in any ...
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