A History Of Safety Concerns

One islander shared that his late wife, suffering from progressing dementia, voluntarily gave up her car keys after frightening a fellow islander by "coming too close" near the store. She said, "If I harmed a fellow islander, I could not live with myself."

Another islander has had her mailbox along Guemes Island Road taken out TWICE by distracted drivers who admitted to texting while driving before plowing through her mailbox post. This post could have EASILY been a pedestrian or bicyclist - very scary!

Additional tales from the non-motorized crowd include:

• driving a bicycle into a ditch to avoid being struck by a vehicle

• standing on the edge of the road, hoping the traffic will go around (forcing traffic to cross the center line) instead of risking the ditch

• criss-crossing the road to avoid oncoming traffic

From drivers' perspectives, a pedestrian may or may not be seen, depending on what they are wearing. Bicyclists are often unpredictable on the road, especially in groups. Some drivers have said that non-motorized traffic should not be on the road at all. At night, the situation for both motorized and non-motorized traffic is even more dire.

The increasing volume of people on the road, both motorized (in vehicles) and non-motorized (on foot, bicycles, strollers, etc.), is a recipe for disaster.