Editor: At 7 a.m. recently my day began with me applying my brakes so hard that my purse and lunch bag flew off my seat, and the contents were sent in all directions throughout my car.
I could smell my brakes all the way from 264 Street to 200 Street.
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 Highway 1 westbound is a very scary and dangerous area.
If you are coming from South Aldergrove onto Highway 1, it’s a straight shot once you yield and merge in with the traffic exiting the highway. B y the time you are ready to merge, you are looking to your left, as you are merging into 100 km/h traffic.
If you are coming from North Aldergrove (via 56 Avenue) onto Highway 1, you have to yield to South Aldergrove highway entrance traffic before you merge with that lane and then immediately after merge onto the freeway.
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 km/h to come at me out of nowhere, but because of where the two lanes join, you barely have any time to do anything about it, aside from stand on your brakes and hope you don’t get hit.
Even if the traffic coming from North Aldergrove were to actually yield as it is supposed to, there isn’t enough lane for them to get up to a suitable speed to merge in with the highway 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 highway traffic speeds. 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 highway and the cube van wasn’t matching their speed, he slammed on his brakes and so did the two vehicles in front of me.
I was 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 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
