NY Times article

As the high-profile attorney general for Ontario, Michael Bryant championed severe and controversial traffic safety laws. On Tuesday, he was charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death in an unusually violent episode of road rage involving a bicyclist.

The arrest of Mr. Bryant stemmed from a collision between a bicycle and an automobile in Toronto’s most prestigious shopping district late Monday evening that started off as minor but swiftly escalated, leading to the death of Darcy Allan Sheppard, 33, identified as a bicycle courier.

After the collision, Mr. Sheppard apparently grabbed the driver’s side door and held on. Within moments, the police received reports of a Saab convertible racing past the fashionable shops of Bloor Street with a man clinging to its side. Two construction workers doing repairs along the road told CTV, a Canadian television network, that the car accelerated, its tires squealing, before veering into oncoming traffic on the left side of the street.

But it was as the province’s top justice official that he produced the greatest controversy and acclaim of his 10-year political career. Among his targets were street-racing motorists.

In 2007 he gave police the power to seize and destroy cars modified for racing even if no charges were laid against their owners.

After describing such cars as being as dangerous as explosives, Mr. Bryant said, “We will crush your car, we will crush the parts.”