Dear editor:
Recent tragedies involving pedestrians and cyclists in Niagara-on-the-Lake should prompt us to ask a difficult question: what will it take before we decide that preventing these collisions matters more than saving a few seconds on our journey?
Driving is a privilege, not a right. Every driver is entrusted with a licence that can be revoked because operating a two-tonne vehicle carries enormous responsibility.
Pedestrians and cyclists, as vulnerable road users, have no steel cage, airbags or crumple zones to protect them. They rely entirely on drivers exercising due care and attention.
A cyclist cannot be banned from cycling and a pedestrian cannot be banned from walking. They have an inalienable right to use the available transport infrastructure system safely.
When a pedestrian or cyclist is killed, the consequences extend far beyond the crash scene. There is an empty chair at a family’s dinner table that will remain empty forever. Parents lose children, children lose parents, spouses lose partners, and neighbours lose friends. That loss is permanent.
More than 180 years ago, Friedrich Engels used the term “social murder” to describe preventable deaths that society comes to accept as inevitable. While the context was different, the phrase challenges us to consider whether we have become too accepting of road deaths as simply the price of getting from A to B.
We know that lower speeds save lives. We know that distracted driving and speeding remain leading contributors to serious collisions. Yet too many drivers resist slower speeds and become impatient when asked to share the road.
There is even a name for this mindset: motonormativity — the tendency to view the risks and harms caused by motor vehicles as normal or unavoidable while expecting everyone else to adapt.
We readily wait 15 minutes in line at Costco or for a coffee, yet some drivers become frustrated by waiting a few seconds to pass a cyclist safely or to yield to a pedestrian.
Yes, cyclists who ignore stop signs or traffic lights deserve criticism. Every road user has a responsibility to obey the law. But a bicycle cannot inflict devastation on the scale that a motor vehicle can. That is precisely why drivers are licensed, insured and held to a higher standard of care.
As someone who regularly cycles the roads of Niagara-on-the-Lake, I want to emphasize that the vast majority of drivers are courteous and respectful.
Unfortunately, on a typical 100-kilometre ride, I still experience one or two illegally close passes. It only takes one mistake, one moment of distraction or one act of impatience to change a family’s life forever.
Cyclists are not obstacles. They are fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, neighbours and friends. Pedestrians are, too. Every person on our roads deserves to return home safely.
We cannot expect police officers to be on every corner. Lasting change will come only when every driver accepts that sharing the road safely is part of the privilege of driving — not an inconvenience.
So perhaps the question for all of us is this: what kind of community do we want Niagara-on-the-Lake to be? One where arriving a minute sooner matters most, or one where everyone gets home safely?
Frank Hayes
NOTL
