Editor:
After reading Jason Wilkinson's letter regarding cyclists ignoring traffic laws in the Aug. 18 Outlook, I decided to do a quick survey of my own over a couple of days.
On Thursday afternoon (Aug. 18) I watched as a cyclist had to jam on their brakes in the middle of a crosswalk to stay out of the way of a car cruising through either oblivious or intentionally ignoring crosswalk laws. On Friday (Aug. 19), three cars in front of me turned right at a red light at an intersection with two signs clearly stating right on red was not allowed.
A couple of hours later, I saw two full-sized motorcycles driving on the pedestrian/cycling path along Bow Valley Trail. Every trip I made through one of our traffic circles revealed at least a couple of drivers wholly ignorant of the rules for negotiating them. All this on top of innumerable cases of speeding, rolling stops, and lane-changing without signalling.
Maybe on top of sending all cyclists back to Grade 1 to be retrained, we can send all vehicle drivers back for a road test every couple of years, then we'll all feel a great deal safer on the roads.
Bill Praught,
Canmore
