I am glad to see city council wants to crack down on traffic safety in St. Albert. Every time I drive in St. Albert I see a lot of disturbing activity. People making left-hand turns while talking on their cellphone, texting, running red lights, tailgating, driving way too fast for the conditions and way over the posted speed. I have even seen people smoking pot as they drive on our streets.
Not only is this happening on the main arteries but on our residential streets, which is even more disturbing as the potential for a serious accident is greater. Just this past week a driver hit my wife’s car as she was pulling into our driveway. When driving on our roads we need to do just that — drive — not talking on our cellphone, texting, eating lunch, petting the dog on our lap, applying make-up, and the list goes on.
Distracted driving is getting way out of hand. We need zero tolerance on this type of activity. Do we not realize what a brief distraction can cause? I am a victim of distracted driving. Four months ago as I was entering an intersection a driver travelling in the opposite direction turned left right in front of me. I had no chance to brake or swerve out of harm’s way. I crashed into the vehicle. In doing so I suffered fractures to my right tibia. An RCMP officer visited me in hospital to take my statement as to what had happened. When finished I asked the officer what the other driver had reported. He said the other driver did not see my car. There were only two vehicles in the intersection — mine and the other driver’s. But still he did not see me. Obviously, he must have been preoccupied with some sort of distracting activity.
Because of this brief moment of distraction, I had to have knee surgery (a plate was screwed into my tibia to hold it together while it heals), spend time on crutches for 3.5 months and now need physiotherapy twice a week to restore muscle strength in my leg. I will be lucky if I return to work by April — six months after being laid up because of another person’s distracting activity.
I do not think anyone wants to be responsible for causing injury or worse to another person because of distracted driving. But every day these disturbing activities continue. It is time for us to stop hurting people on the streets.
Jim Hay, St. Albert
