Another highway wake-up call
How many more shocking warnings will it take before Island motorists finally wake up?
“You OK, buddy?” the young man asked as he pried open the passenger door of my trusty Reliant K-car.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Last thing I remembered I was idling behind a car that was waiting to make a left-hand turn off Mount Edward Road.
Now, as I slowly regained my bearings, I realized I was completely off the street and my car was sideways in a yard not far from The Mount. Another car – possibly the one that had been in front of me moments earlier – was nearby, its rear-end pushed into its back seat.
I was taken by ambulance to hospital, examined, treated and released. A police officer investigating the case found me there and explained what happened. As I waited for the car to turn, he said, I was struck from behind. The force of that collision drove my car into the vehicle in front and both cars careened into the yard.
The officer assured me I wasn’t responsible for the collision that crushed my little K-car like an accordion. He said the driver admitted he looked down to adjust his radio and when he looked back up, it was too late to stop or avoid the collision.
I hoped it would serve as a wake-up call for at least one distracted driver. Maybe it did.
But most times, it seems, these wake-up calls go unheeded. I hope a nightmarish near-miss in Albany last week doesn’t become the latest example. A six-yearold girl was crossing the highway to board her school bus, its red lights flashing and stop sign fully deployed. Halfway across, an SUV raced past the bus, swerving at the last second to avoid the little girl before speeding off.
This unimaginable horror played out in front of the girl’s mother who had walked her to the end of their lane and watched as she crossed the highway. “In an instant that moment could have changed our whole lives,” she told reporter Colin MacLean. “I still see it. Had she frozen or had she turned towards me, she would have been hit – bad.”
Bus driver Ralph Coughlin was also watching, helpless. In a Facebook post, he said the travelling public has to learn to pay more attention to school buses taking on students before an innocent child gets seriously hurt.
It seems there’s a growing list of distractions, from adjusting the radio, eating and grooming, to the latest and perhaps most dangerous – texting and driving – the suspected cause of the Albany scare.
So, what’s the answer? Higher fines? Drivers convicted of talking or texting on a cellphone while driving in P.E.I. already face the stiffest fines in Canada. The maximum fine for illegally passing a school bus is $5,000. Greater enforcement? It would help to catch violators, as would installing cameras on school buses and putting licence plates on the front of all vehicles.
But that’s after the fact. Surely the primary responsibility for highway safety rests with the drivers. We need to learn, or be reminded often enough we won’t forget, that our sole responsibility when we get behind the wheel is to operate our vehicles safely.
Wake-up calls like the nearmiss in Albany should be enough to prompt distracted drivers to keep their eyes on the road. How many of these shocking warning signs it will take before we finally wake up?