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Friends and family remember DARTS driver Sherri D’Amour
It has been one year since DARTS driver Sherri D’Amour was struck and killed by a motorist while picking up a passenger on Main Street West. Her family and friends are remembering her today, as the charges against the 75-year-old driver are coming to light.
May 5 brings up difficult feelings for those who loved D’Amour, including co-worker and friend, Wendy Harbison. She says, “Like everybody else that works for DARTS, traumatized, we still don’t know why or what happened, every day’s harder. We have a picture of her up on our wall at DARTS, drivers say good morning every morning.”
READ MORE: Pedestrian struck and killed in downtown Hamilton
Another friend and co-worker of D’Amour’s, Cathy Patar told CHCH News, “Sherri was a wonderful friend and an excellent co-worker. I do miss her. It was a terrible tragedy and she is forever in my thoughts and memories.”
Jay Hunter, head of D’Amour’s union CUPE local 5167 says she is deeply missed, “to lose a member on the job is really hard and it ripples through the whole unit.”
For almost twenty years, D’Amour was a DARTS driver until she was killed when a Honda Civic driven by a 75-year-old woman went off the roadway on Main Street West near Locke Street, striking a building, and killing Sherri on the sidewalk while she got off her bus.
Police say the driver is not facing a criminal charge. She is being charged with careless driving causing death under the Highway Traffic Act. The charges were not revealed until this week after inquiries from the Hamilton Spectator and CHCH News.
Police spokesperson Jackie Penman says, “We acknowledge a follow-up media release should have been issued. Between May 5 to July 5, 2022, there were six traffic fatalities in a short span of time and the follow-up media release to this fatality was missed.”
Those traffic fatalities along with a high number of pedestrian fatalities pushed city council to make changes to Main Street including reducing the lanes from five to four.
Harbison says Sherri’s death has scared her and other drivers and thinks more needs to be done to improve safety. She says, “Main Street’s not a good road for any of us to travel, and with the job we do, loading and unloading in traffic, now scares us all.”
READ MORE: Hamilton city council votes for immediate changes on Main and King Streets
Harbison worries the same thing could happen to her, “if somebody’s driving and not paying attention, we could be the next fatality.”
CHCH News asked the city if there are any statistics to show if the changes on Main have improved safety, but the city says there are no metrics yet. It says the lane reductions and changes to pedestrian crossing signals has immediate benefits but it could take years for statistical analysis.
On Saturday, May 6, friends will gather at a memorial near the spot she died to celebrate her birthday. D’Amour would have turned 50 on May 4.
