According to a group in Red Deer, we need bicycle lanes on our roads.
Recently, an Ontario former cabinet minister was charged in the death of a cyclist in Toronto’s Busy Bloor Street area.
Apparently there was a minor accident between a Saab convertible and a cyclist, and possibly an assault.
For reasons that remain unclear, the cyclist was hanging onto the side of the car.
Was there a verbal threat of personal injury? Did the driver of the car believe to be in real and imminent danger? Was it the quick acceleration of the car that wiped the cyclist off with a tree and a mailbox?
In Red Deer, we have cyclists riding their bicycles anywhere and everywhere on the streets, cutting across in front of cars, holding up traffic and acting like they own the street.
Then, without notice, these cyclists are up on the sidewalk, brushing past pedestrians and hogging the sidewalk like they own it.
Just recently, I witnessed a senior exiting a city bus.
As he alighted onto the sidewalk, a young cyclist came along and ran right into the senior and looked at the senior with an attitude of “What are you doing here?” He made no apology. He just kept right on going down the sidewalk.
What are these cyclists? Are they drivers of vehicles or are they pedestrians? Where do they belong?
In many towns and cities I have seen and lived in, cyclists had to buy a licence at City Hall and had to demonstrate that they were familiar with “the rules of the road and road safety” before they were issued a licence.
Those who couldn’t demonstrate proper rules and safety had their bicycles confiscated until they could.
If the City of Red Deer does not want to see a test case, where it would be in the middle of this issue, it should act soon to clean up this mess on our city streets by making bicycle lanes and issuing bicycle licences.
Carmen Wallace
Red Deer