We lost our cat recently, He was hit by a car. It was hard to keep the little guy inside as he loved to hunt and lay in the sun. We always brought him in at night, fearing the coyotes might take him, and we tried to keep him away from the road.
Living on Okanagan Avenue, with our house set back and the Commonage as our backyard, we thought he had half a chance. We were wrong. It’s not that Okanagan Avenue has a lot of traffic. It’s the traffic that uses it.
We live on a straight stretch that has a solid line down the middle, yet we continually have vehicles pass us as we slow to turn into our driveway. I would say that 75 per cent of the traffic exceeds the speed limit and 30 per cent could have their vehicle impounded.
There is one motorcyclist in particular that would probably lose his licence for a long time if he were ever caught.
Just minutes before losing Steve, my partner was passed by a jacked-up truck speeding past her, right in front of our house. She followed him to get a plate number, but she couldn’t keep up.
When she returned and parked in the driveway, Steve bound across the road to greet her and was hit by a car going over the speed limit. The driver kept going without even touching the brakes.
Okanagan Avenue is narrow with no shoulders. It runs parallel to Okanagan Landing Road, but has no lights or school zones so it is used mainly as a bypass to get to town quickly.
It is also used by walkers, joggers, cyclists and school children (both elementary and high school). Did I mention that it has no shoulders?
We have complained for years about it to the community policing unit, the police and to the auxiliary police that monitor speeds with radar guns.
We were told it’s not worth their while to sit on a road with such a low volume of traffic. One official even suggested that, “people should have known that this would be an issue when they bought on this street.”
All we are asking is to occasionally have radar set up to show that there is a police presence and that there is a risk of getting caught.
I just hope the next time I have to call someone, it won’t be an ambulance.
Michael Poirier
Vernon
