Editor:
At 7 a.m. this morning, my day began with me applying my brakes so hard that my purse and lunch bag flew off of my seat and the contents were sent in all directions throughout my car, and I could smell my brakes all the way from 264th to 200th.
This is not the first time that I have experienced this, nor is it the first time I’ve seen someone else experience this. Why? Because the on ramp to Hwy. #1 westbound is a very scary and dangerous area.
If you are coming from south Aldergrove (south of the Trans Canada Hwy.) onto Hwy. #1 it’s a straight shot once you yield and merge in with the traffic exiting the Hwy. and by the time you are ready to merge, you are looking to your left, as you are merging into 100 kmh Hwy. traffic.
If you are coming from north Aldergrove (via 56 Ave.) onto Hwy. #1, you have to yield to South Aldergrove Hwy. entrance traffic, before you merge with that lane and then immediately after merge onto the Hwy.
I drive this route, at least five days a week. The majority of traffic coming from north Aldergrove does not yield at this yield sign – and a good portion of those vehicles are tractor trailers. Knowing that this happens has allowed me to be prepared for a vehicle doing 100 kmh to come at me out of nowhere, but because of where the two lanes join you barely have anytime to do anything about it aside from stand on your brakes and hope you don’t get hit. But, in all honesty, if the traffic coming from north Aldergrove were to actually yield as they are supposed to, there isn’t enough lane for them to get up to a suitable speed to merge in with the Hwy. traffic anyway. It’s a real problem all around.
This morning, there was a small car in front of me and we were both accelerating to match Hwy. traffic speeds (there were several rigs in the slow lane at this time so timing is of the utmost importance), a cube van coming from north Aldergrove cut off the car in front of me without yielding, and then a new model Ford F150 did the same to me. Because there were rigs on the Hwy. and the cube van wasn’t matching their speed, he slammed on his brakes and so did the two vehicles in front of me – but the place where the two lanes join and the Hwy. merge lane happens are all at the same spot, so this happened within a five second window. I was very, very close to hitting the F150 that cut me off, as was he to hitting the vehicles in front of him and we were driving fast – so it would have been a bad accident.
While this is only one incident, I assure you that this happens at least a couple times a week that I personally see – I can only imagine how many times it happens the rest of the day. I have talked to many people in the community and people that visit the area, and I have heard so many people talk about how dangerous that area is.
It’s time that someone did something about this, before someone gets badly injured in an accident.
Tanya Hamel, Aldergrove
