CRD is allowing speeds that are dangerous
It is apparent that speeding on Capital Regional District trails is leading to accidents that cause significant injury to occur.
Calgary, which has the largest bike and pathway trail system of any city in Canada, has a 20 km/h speed limit. Why can the CRD not do the same?
Highways have speed limits, so why not trails?
Going 32 km/h with a massive weight bike is too much. Probability of injury in case of collision much higher on a e-bike.
I am glad I am old (77) as technology has ruined my lifelong, formerly very enjoyable, sport of bike riding.
Stephen Decarie
Langford
Enforce bells on bikes for greater safety
If you have used any trail in the Capital Regional District as a pedestrian, you’ve experienced a near miss, or worse yet, a hit by a cyclist.
When my wife and I were out for a walk one beautiful afternoon, three bikes came racing by from behind and scared the heebie jeebies out of us.
We met up with them shortly when they were stopped and taking in the views. They said they were visiting from Europe.
When we brought up the frightful experience, they were apologetic saying that their bikes were rentals and “were not equipped with any device to warn of their presence.”
They said a bell would have been nice.
In their defence, they did say they announced their coming up behind us, but they all had quiet voices and we certainly did not hear anything.
The CRD should make a bell mandatory on all bikes and e-bikes, even bike rental and sales shops. They are cheap and highly effective.
Oops, and then there are people with earbuds and riders who won’t use them even if they have them. Ahhh. C’est la vie!
But hey, it would be a smart move forward.
Have a safe day out there.
Chris Mayhew
Sooke
Cyclists, let others know you are about to pass
I am a year-round cyclist in Victoria. I’m also a pedestrian around town.
My suggestion in the ongoing tug-of-war between these two modes of transport: the city needs to have an information/rules of etiquette campaign for cyclists. Cyclists need to call out “passing” when silently speeding up behind someone. Simple! My nerves can’t take this anymore!
What’s so hard about calling out? How can it be that others aren’t suggesting this?
And while I’m at it, how about speed limits on trails?
Patricia Millet
Victoria
The heavier the bike, the lower the risk of theft
Regarding bike theft and bike security, I am reminded of the “Larcenist’s Law of Locks,” which states that:
“A 5 kg bicycle needs a 10 kg lock. A 10 kg bicycle needs a 1 kg lock. And a 25 kg bicycle doesn’t need a lock.”
(Obviously, this law predates e-bikes.)
Stu McDonald
Gibsons
About City Hall flags: At ease, gentlemen
Re: “More ideas to increase equity in Victoria,” letter, June 7
As a prostate cancer survivor, I heartily endorse the letter writer’s brilliant suggestion that a penile equity flag be flown at half mast at Victoria City Hall to reduce the stigma around erectile dysfunction.
The real beauty of the idea is that members of the military and our emergency services wouldn’t have to stand at attention while saluting the diamond-shaped blue banner.
At ease, gentlemen.
Earl Fowler
View Royal
A stranger at the till paid for my groceries
A very generous, good-natured gentleman made my day at the Gorge-Tillicum Fairway location.
On Sunday afternoon I had selected lots of groceries, which the cashier processed at the till and announced a total of just over $80.
Before I could open my wallet to pay, a stranger tapped his credit card on the screen and said “My treat.”
I was incredulous. When I asked him why, he replied he just wanted me to have a treat. I laughed and thanked him profusely.
The cashier rang in the purchases of the next customer and my benefactor did it again! Of course, I was grinning when I left the store.
I was amazed and amused by such a lovely thing that had never happened to me before.
Outside I encountered a woman begging for change so I gave her $20 to partly “pay it forward.”
I’ll never know that man’s name or figure out why he was so kind but I’ll always remember the experience.
Valerie Sullivan
Saanich
Strawberry fields not forever, so support them
Appreciate we still have land available to grow local strawberries or other forms of produce and urge people to support local farmers.
With the endless demand for so called affordable housing nothing is safe anymore.
Glen Rogers
Victoria
Get tough with drug use on UVic campus
Re: “UVic president admits ‘mistakes were made’ after student drug death,” June 8.
More than one million students have successfully attended the University of Victoria without overdosing on drugs, until the recent tragic event that took the life of a young woman likely to have a brilliant future.
The difference between then and now: Then hard drugs were illegal and stigmatized, and students caught with hard drugs on campus would be arrested and either put on probation or expelled; now the public health officer has “de-stigmatized” (that means normalized) possession of drugs and open hard drug use.
The NDP government even gave $200,000 to lawless activists in Vancouver (the Drug User Liberation Front) who have been handing out hard drugs for free to young people.
It is the public health officer’s normalization policy that enables curious students to try hard drugs, and then possess and regularly use them on campus with impunity.
The Public Safety Ministry has released a report showing the death rate from hard drug overdoses among people ages 17 and 18 rose from three in 2014 to 28 in 2023.
It is a catastrophe. Our focus should not only be trying to reduce the deaths among long-time drug addicts, but we must also prevent young people from falling into the addiction cycle.
Training a thousand people how to perform CPR and how to inject naloxone is not going to help the addicted students who overdose on a ski trip, or in the washroom at a bar, or at a party off-campus.
The public health officer must admit the ill-advised experiment with the normalization of hard drug use is a failure, and UVic needs a policy warning students that if they are caught with hard drugs, they will be arrested and expelled. It worked for 60 years.
Mike Muret
UVic engineering class, 1991
Victoria
Let’s stop forcing views on others around us
With wars raging in Ukraine and Palestine with horrendous casualties, with democracy threatening to crumble in the most powerful nation in the world and with climate change threatening ever more destruction everywhere, what is it we here in polyannistic Victoria fret about?
Traffic on the Galloping Goose, loss of peace and tranquillity of neighbourhoods with the introduction of pickleball, bike lanes in class of their own, dogs leashed or not, and now Pride becoming not a Day or a Week or a Month but according to today’s news “Pride Season”!
Victoria will never again be the warm welcoming village of just a few years ago, but can’t we all just get along without groups forcing their views on everyone?
P.G. (Phil) Leith
Victoria
The gift from ICBC comes at a high cost
Due to the “strong performance this past year” I have just received my ICBC rebate.
Thank you, Premier David Eby and your government, for making me (and all B.C. drivers) complicit in the theft of funds that should have been available to people like Tim Schober (story May 19, 2024) and many others like him.
It is absolutely shameful; I didn’t and don’t want to be a part of it but it appears I had no say in this deceitful decision. Where I will have a say is at the polls.
Lianne Peterson
Victoria
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