SUBMITTED BY KASPAR POLD, NOTL.
OPINION

Dear editor:

I do agree with the writer of the past week who foresees an accident on Niagara-on-the-Lake roads because of so many bicyclists and the competing automobile traffic, “Cycling tourists are an accident waiting to happen.”

However, the writer sees the situation quite incorrectly.

The bicyclists I see every day make an effort to remain in single file and use bike lanes where possible – unfortunately such lanes are few, and even where they exist they are very narrow, close to the vehicular traffic and skirting a deep ditch.

The real problem is that drivers feel they have a god-given right to pass cyclists by using the opposite lane, regardless of any oncoming traffic.

Now the Ontario Highway Traffic Act is quite clear on this point: it is an offence to be in the wrong lane if there is any oncoming taffic.

I see idiot drivers, however, failing to slow behind the cyclists to wait for a passing opportunity: instead they pass illegally and force oncoming cars, which are in their own lane, into the ditch. 

It is those abjectly bereft drivers who are the real danger, and who will one day soon kill cyclists or people in an oncoming car.

The few extra seconds it takes to wait for a clear passing lane are too much for such people and they risk becoming killers.

Kaspar Pold

NOTL