When you are driving on a traffic-calmed road that includes speed humps, what’s your first instinct?
Is it to speed up so you fly over those speed humps like Steve McQueen in Bullitt? Or do you do the smart thing and slow down?
A reasonable person slows down in a traffic-calmed area.
Ratrunners are not reasonable people.
They are insanely impatient people. They have turned off of a main road so they can ratrun through a bunch of side streets in their lust to save a few minutes.
But they put lives at risk by doing this.
Case in point, cyclist Kate Stevenson, who tagged me in a video she shot on Burnaby’s Delta Avenue in the sleepy Capitol Hill neighbourhood.
Stevenson was riding her bike, which is equipped with a read camera.
Take the dang highway not a neighborhood street if u wanna speed. It's a 40 K max zone & traffic calmed road so WHAT'S THE RUSH?!! I feel like half of Surrey cuts thru here & they don't care @shinebox44 #Burnaby #cycling pic.twitter.com/natonOa9M3
— Little dying leaves (@katiepeheakoe) September 27, 2019
As you can see from the video she shot, a couple of ratrunners get impatient with her. Delta is a narrow road when there are vehicles parked on either side. It also has speed humps, which means efforts have been made due to the street’s history of speeding drivers.
One driver in particular can’t stand that they can’t get around Stevenson’s bike so they start honking their horn and flashing their lights.
“Take the dang highway not a neighbourhood street if u wanna speed,” Stevenson tweeted.“It's a 40 K max zone & traffic calmed road so WHAT'S THE RUSH?!! I feel like half of Surrey cuts thru here & they don't care.”
If drivers do take these side roads, they need to obey the speed limit and take their time. It’s not about the drivers, it’s about the families who live in their quiet neighbourhoods. Their safety is more important than a ratrunner’s time schedule.
If you don’t like it, stay on Hastings you damn fools.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
