Yes, road needs fixing, but you can’t fix stupid
Southbound motorists from Manitoulin Island who choose to use the ferry service, disembark the Chicheemaun at Tobermory on the tip of the Bruce Peninsula.
The ferry’s name is from the Ojibway language. Translated, it means the Big Canoe. And big it is.
The ferry can transport 143 vehicles, as well as passengers on its twice daily trips across the cold waters of Georgian Bay.
By the time the southbound travellers disembark and get their cars onto dry land, they have traversed some 45 kilometres of open water. Ahead of them they face a longer trek by car to get off the peninsula and on their way to their destination in the south of the province.
It’s 75 kilometres to Wiarton, or about 46 miles.
The start of that road trip is where our story begins. The route is not exactly the 40 miles of bad road enshrined in a legendary instrumental of that name by the master of guitar twang, Duane Eddy.
But it’s not 40 miles of an open, four-lane speedway that many of the ferry travellers are used to travelling in and around the Big Smoke and other cities of southern Ontario.
The two-lane Highway 6 takes the travellers up and down a number of hills and around curves, as it wends its way around the forests and lakes of the Bruce.
However, the quiet ambience and scenery don’t appeal to everyone. To some folks this stretch of road must seem like just a detour in their frantic lifestyle. A detour to get away from as fast as possible.
Last week a red car travelling in an erratic manner, pulling in and out of the long line of ferry travellers heading south, collided head on with a camper. The two occupants in the camper were killed as well as the driver of the red car. His three passengers were injured.
Although this is the most recent of a number of tragic accidents on this stretch of road, it is by no means an isolated tragedy.
In addition, the stories of close calls are legion. I even have one of my own.
A few years back I was forced to head for the ditch with my truck and trailer carrying a team of mules, when a car popped over a hill, while a woman was passing me.
She replied to my horn blast by giving me the finger, a finger she had to raise high so I could see it over the car seats where her two kids were strapped in for the joy ride. I hope they all made it.
The kind of empty headedness that results in these tragedies and near misses can be found in other areas of our society.
People are still locking dogs and even children in hot cars, hikers are still wandering off marked trails and sustaining life-changing injuries when they fall, holidayers still spend their last day of their vacation drinking beer at the cottage before heading back to the city with a snoot full. Examples of this kind of mindless approach to life are many and varied.
Bill Walker, the Progressive Conservative MPP whose riding includes the stretch of Highway 6 in question, has called meetings with the OPP, ministry of transportation and others to try to push for lifesaving improvements to the highway and presumably to the way it is patrolled.
Perhaps they will come up with some solutions. But here’s the problem. In all these kinds of situations, you can’t fix stupid.