Well Bonnyville, with the white stuff finally falling from the sky at intervals over the past week, I guess we had better accept the fact that winter is now upon us. And with that, I'd like to take this time to discuss the treacherous conditions of roads in town last week and the changes people need to make to their driving habits to ensure there aren't literally hundreds of accidents on a weekly basis.
On Nov. 3, I had an early start to the day as my U12 soccer team was playing in its first games of the new indoor season at the Centennial Centre early that morning. As I left my apartment, there was something noticeably different about the climate, and something noticeably different about my mood. Everywhere I looked, there was snow and all I could feel was a viciously cold breeze slapping against my face as I made the long, arduous trek from my building to my car.
Here is where things started to get worse. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed the roads hadn't been plowed and instead resembled the shiny surface of an ice rink. As I slowly approached the stop sign immediately to the right of the parking lot, my wheels buckled and car started to slide. I was going maybe six or seven kilometres an hour and already I had lost control of my vehicle.
Instead of turning around and going back inside, I decided to go on, managing to turn from 42 Street to 48 Avenue, before coming to another skidding stop at 41 Street. As I made my way down 41 Street, going 25, maybe 30 kilometres an hour, I noticed a truck gaining on me quickly. I get that trucks are supposed to be able to handle the winter weather better than a regular car can, but in those conditions with the roads like they were, I couldn't help but shake my head.
As I approached the corner of 41 Street and 50 Avenue, I once again experienced a similar skidding motion, only this time my vehicle showed no signs of letting up. No, instead it seemed as though it was ready to just go flying out into traffic. As I swerved to hit the snow bank, avoiding what would have been a certain collision by skidding out onto 50 Avenue, I noticed the truck behind me doing a similar thing – only difference is, they hit a combination of my vehicle and the snow bank.
Luckily there was no damage and everybody was fine, but this sort of thing really shouldn't be happening within town limits. After telling my story to Andrew Mendler, the other reporter here at the Nouvelle, the following day, he told he a very similar story with a very similar outcome had happened to him too.
Granted, the roads are fine now, and I know there was very little warning when the snow finally fell last week, but I think the response has to be better in situations like this. People are busy, especially on the weekends – I wonder how many people who get out to attend church ran into problems Sunday?
I also think people need to drive to the conditions when roads are obviously in such bad shape. That's something my grandparents used to preach to me on an almost daily basis back in Ontario – drive to the conditions and be safe. I've been involved in a serious car accident before in the snow, and it was my own fault, so I'm really speaking from experience when I say be careful. It's always better to arrive at your destination five or ten minutes late than to not arrive at all.
