People who are killed in traffic accidents are not normally considered victims of homicide. Nevertheless two of these deaths resulted from such extremes of willful negligence -- or worse -- that it is impossible to exclude them from a list of Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides. The two victims were Tahir Khan (Toronto) and Antonio Lanzelotti (Winnipeg). Tahir Khan was a 46-year-old immigrant from Pakistan who was three days short of being granted Canadian citizenship. Like many immigrants he used his earnings to support family members in his home country. He was described as the family's "financial mainstay", paying for schooling for his sister's and brother's children. He planned to bring his wife and ailing mother to Canada after receiving citizenship. At 10:20 p.m. on the night of January 24th, 2006, Mr. Khan was driving his Diamond taxi south on Mount Pleasant Road unaware that two 18-year-old men in Mercedes sedans were racing toward him at speeds up to 140 km/hour in the 50 km/hour zone. As Mr. Khan was making a left turn onto Whitehall Road one of the sedans hit his taxi broadside, crushing it against a utility pole. Mr. Khan was killed instantly. The 18-year-old driver parked his car a few blocks away and then posed as a bystander at the scene of the collision. Both men were charged with criminal negligence causing death and with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death. The 18 year old who collided with Mr. Khan was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident causing death. The two men pleaded guilty to dangerous driving but denied that they had been racing, although police found a copy of the popular video game "Need for Speed" on the front seat of one of the cars. The judge accepted the plea and gave the each defendant a two-year conditional sentence including one year of house arrest and a year of curfew plus two years of probation. The defendants were also prohibited from driving for four years. The sentence sparked widespread outrage and calls for harsher penalties against street racing. It was alleged that the defendants were treated leniently because their families were wealthy. Diamond Taxi general manager Jim Bell said "I wonder if the situation had been reversed: If it was two cab drivers racing up Mount Pleasant and they hit a kid driving his father's car ... whether the cab drivers would be getting 12 months house arrest? ... I don't think so." The provincial Attorney General, Michael Bryant, came under immediate pressure to appeal the sentences. He announced in June, 2007, that the appeal would go forward. The Crown's notice of appeal stated that the sentence of house arrest did not reflect "the sheer gravity of the crimes committed", did not properly denounce the defendants' actions, did not deter similar behaviour, and "brings the administration of criminal justice into disrepute." Originally the Crown had asked for three-year jail terms.

Tahir Khan. (Source: www.taxi-library.org) Public and media outrage was fueled by the deaths of three more innocent people in the following months. In June, 2007, Monique McKnight, 16, and Aleisha Ashley, 17, died in a taxi when it was struck at an estimated 150 km/hour by a stolen car driven by a 15-year-old boy. The boy was also killed but the taxi driver escaped injury. In July, 2007, truck driver David Virgoe was killed when one of three young men racing in and out of traffic along Highway 400 struck his semi trailer and caused it to go out of control. In March, 2008, Mr. Khan's widow filed a two million dollar lawsuit against the two defendants and their parents on behalf of herself and Mr. Khan's mother, brother and sister. (For more about Mr. Khan's death see Managing the Aftermath of a Disaster.)