Ready for rumble strips
Dear Editor:
This summer I had the opportunity to travel over four provinces and seeing the work that has been done through the government road incentive.
It’s quite a change from a few years ago and the patching job that was done then. As you drive in Ontario with its rocks and lakes you have to look at the cost of road construction to even have a good two lane with increasing passing lanes being added. As I drove over many miles of the Trans Canada Hwy in other provinces I was taken by the miles of straight road where one could look back for miles in the mirror and ahead for miles and wonder does this road ever end.
I was surprised to see our Ontario Government has come to the conclusion that rumble strips might be a positive in preventing road accidents. I was ready when I got home to send them a message about them and lo and behold I read it in the paper. I watched them placing the rumble strips on the pavement in other provinces. To me it was no harder than marking the yellow strips that are laid down. A simple machine that leaves imprints in the pavement as it moves along. It sure lets you know when you drive over it, that you are out of bounds. A noise that brings you back to reality if you cut a corner too wide, if you let yourself be lulled after endless miles. So I hope to see many miles in Northern Ontario use this devise.
I was somewhat taken back to see a fatality on the newly construction on Highway 69. It just goes to show that accidents happen on the best of roads whether it be fatigue, medical, speeding or lack of keeping your mind on your driving or road conditions. One thing that really bothers me though, is the miles of worn out highways that we Northerners have to drive on, in the populated areas we live in, as we travel to and from our towns in our daily life.
It seems like our local driving doesn’t matter and to get the last mile before replacing is their object. We are instead pushed to buy new vehicles to replace those worn out by poor roads to keep our southern neighbours happily employed. I may be out to lunch but that’s the way I see it
Douglas Edwards
Englehart