LETTER

Call out to our neighbour-drivers!

 

I had an extremely frustrating drive home from work July 11th, so frustrating in fact that I am writing you this letter because I don’t know where to turn.  It starts with the traffic in Ottawa at the intersection of the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway and Island Park. Most of us that leave work anywhere from 3:30 to 5:30 pm Monday to Friday accept the fact that we may be waiting as many as four or five light changes before getting onto the Champlain Bridge.

Unfortunately, there are people, and I’m being kind referring to them as “people”, who feel like their getting home is so more important than everyone else’s that they make the horrible decision to put lives at risk by going two lanes wide to turn left onto the bridge from the NON-turning middle lane on the parkway! You know who you are, early-2000’s Volkswagen Golf!

I’m sick of it. At what point did society lose all courtesy towards others? I would later witness a young man on a scooter stop to allow two boys on bicycles who had been waiting to cross the street, when my heart nearly stopped as, from my vantage point, I saw a white Kia SUV impatiently swerve around the young man on the scooter and very nearly strike the two boys on their bikes! This woman slammed on her brakes so hard after her poor judgement call that I could see the top of her head as momentum had thrown her that far forward in her vehicle! This “woman” quickly sped off as the boys frantically pedaled across the road.  The moped driver and I looked at each other, shaking our heads at the reaction of this “woman” after nearly destroying the lives of one or two families in our community! Again, our neighbours! Finally, on the same ride, I would again see a burgundy F150 clearly needing to get home before anyone else, recklessly weaving through traffic while speeding with no regard for pedestrians or cyclists.

What I get from this is “hope”! Hope that people/drivers will take a second to recognize that we are all trying to get home for important reasons! I think about getting home in one piece so I can see my son, who, thanks to careless drivers, is not permitted to ride his bike on our deadly streets! It’s pretty sad that our small yet ever-growing community has to deal with so many poor, unsafe drivers who make our roads unsafe. Flashing red lights? -- all this does is introduce road rage even faster!  

Also these commuter lanes, does anyone else share the opinion that they should be taken away? All they really provide is a racing lane for the single commuter trying to lap a dozen cars before the police look-outs! I’m not an angel, and not some guy with nothing better to do.  I’m just concerned about the safety of my community in which some of my neighbours seem to not care about anything but themselves!  

These examples are from one day and don’t include the texters and phone-users that you can see daily as they drive.

Richard Raymond
Aylmer