Cellphone distraction may have led to death of Toronto pedestrian: police

A woman may have been distracted by talking onher cellphone when she walked into the side of a truck and was crushed to death under its wheels on Front Street in downtown Torontoon Wednesday night, police said.

According to investigators, a delivery truck was making a turn from Blue Jays Way onto Front Street just as the 28-year-old woman started across Front Street.

Because she was on her cellphone at the time, police said, she didn't notice the truck, and walked right into the side of it. She fell to the street and was run over by the truck's rear wheels, police said.

"There's no way to say definitively yes or no, but it certainly didn't help that she was talking on the phone while trying to cross a relatively busy street," said police Sgt. Steve Burrows.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have not released her name.

Police have not announced any charges against the driver of the truck, but they are still investigating.

Burrows said there are pedestrian collisions involving some sort of distraction every couple of months in Toronto, "whether it's the use of an iPod [or] the use of a cellphone texting or talking.

"These are things we have been warning pedestrians about. You certainly cut off some of your sensory abilities when you're doing something like that," Burrows said.