The Heights in North Burnaby is my absolute favourite place in the world.
I grew up here and am now back decades later and loving it.
All except for one thing - bad drivers who keep doing the same bad thing. There is a stretch of Hastings - roughly from Boundary Road to Rosser Avenue – that continually horrifies me because of the way drivers take chances entering it from the side streets.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve witnessed drivers careening into Hastings traffic, nearly causing crashes
I thought I was along in thinking this until I spotted a short video on Twitter demonstrating that exact problem.
Lily Hui was kind enough to email me the dashcam video - you can view it below - that was shot while she was driving through the intersection of Hastings and Rosser.
She’s driving in the left lane and heading east on Hastings when on her right a driver pulls out of Rosser trying to turn left onto Hastings. Lily takes evasive action and the other vehicle manages to stop before hitting her.
It’s one of those brief moments that gives drivers a heart attack and shakes them to their core.
“It was a quiet Sunday morning so I was totally not mentally prepared for that,” Lily told me. “My heart sank at that moment because my daughter was sitting next to me and she could have been hit.”
Other people have not been so lucky at that exact intersection. Last October, a pedestrian was seriously injured after being hit by a driver.
I’m sure this stretch of road isn’t any worse than, say, Kingsway in Burnaby – it’s just that I drive it a lot because I do so much of my shopping and dining in the Heights.
There are traffic lights at some of these cross-streets, but I’ve seen impatient drivers not wait for them before screeching out into traffic.
There are parking areas behind the businesses all along this strip of the Heights. People park and then walk to Hastings to shop and eat. But when they get back into their vehicles, they go to the nearest intersection, often trying to turn left or right into traffic.
What I do is take the back roads – Pender or Albert – to the one with a traffic light because it’s too dangerous to swing into traffic without a light.
I think the City of Burnaby has done all it can. It’s really up to drivers to stop being so stupid.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
