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editionap.ca
Worried mother wants speed zone slowed down
GREGGCHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
ROCKLAND | Michelle Lanouette wants the brakes put on some of the leadfooted drivers who speed past her home on the western edge of Rockland. Now she has a chance to convince both the city and the counties council to agree with her pro- posal. “The speed limit is too high,” she said during a phone interview July 16. The Lanouette family have a riverfront home along County Road 17 a short dis- tance from theCanaan Road intersection on the Rockland side. They’ve lived there for eight years and are quite happy with almost everything about the location. Except for the highway traffic and the 90-kilometre-an-hour speed limit allowed for cars and trucks through what Michelle Lanouette described as “a residential neighbourhood with a restaurant”. It all came to the breaking point for her last month when her 16-year-old son es- caped by a miracle from a serious traffic accident right in front of their home. The following details are from the email report she and her husband, Bob, sent to the counties. On June 29, around 8:15 p.m, their son was stopped on County Road 17 in the eastbound lane, waiting for a break in the westbound traffic so he could make a left turn off the road and into the driveway of the family home. Another eastbound dri- ver came up behind him, sped up and then made an illegal right-hand pass around him on the gravel shoulder and then back into the eastbound lane and sped off for Rockland again. “Unfortunately, a second eastbound dri- ver, who was tailgating the first, did not have time to react and slammed into my son’s car at a speed of at least 90 kilometres an hour. My son’s car was pushed into onco- ming traffic and was hit by a pickup truck travelling westbound.” The weather at the time of the accident was clear and, the email report noted, there were no other distracting factors for any of the drivers. The tailgating driver who first hit the Lanouette boy’s car was charged with following too close. “Somehowmy son walked away with only a sprained neck, back, stomach, and a ban- ged-up knee,” the report stated. “Physically, he should recover. The psychological reco- very for all of us will take much longer. The car, as per the attached pictures, was a com-
Photos Michelle Lanouette
Michelle Lanouette believes it is a miracle that her son escaped with just sprains and a wrenched knee after his car was wrecked when a tailgater slammed into him while he was stopped and waiting to turn left off of County Road 17 into the driveway of his own home.
plete write-off.” Lanouette noted that over the years that her family has lived along County Road 17 there have been other serious accidents on that section of the highway. In one case, the air ambulance was called in to transport one accident victim. “This 1.5-kilometre stretch of the road is very dangerous and it is mainly due to speed,” she said. “The speed limit on County Road 17 from the Canadian Internatio- nal Hockey Academy to in front of the OPP detachment just west of the Walmart is 60 kilometres an hour. But it is 90 from in front of the detachment onward.” She described the situation as “unaccep- table” given there are several homes and a restaurant located along that corridor be- fore the Canaan Road intersection. “There are many vehicles turning left. Safe ingress and egress is critical for residents and patrons of the restaurants. Drivers who must stop at the traffic light at Canaan Road, as well as westbound drivers, rou- tinely speed excessively over this stretch, pass on the double-line, pass on the gravel shoulder, and pass recklessly at the passing lane.” Michelle Lanouette noted that the situa- tion becomes even worse in winter with the icy road conditions. The Lanouette family, with support from their neighbours, hasmade a formal request to the counties to reduce the 90 kph speed
limit along their section of the road to 60 km/h up to theCanaan Road intersection. They also want large bilingual signs posted along the eastbound traffic lane warning drivers that there are left-turning vehicles ahead, and removal of the passing lane for that stretch of road.
The Lanouettes will have a chance to make a personal plea for changing the speed limit. Their case is now on the Aug. 5 committee of the whole agenda for City of Clarence-Rockland council and the Aug 13 agenda for the counties council and its advisory committee.
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