Safety

Bike riders need to consider others

This letter is to address a serious safety issue on our fair island.

After an interesting day of marine patrol training at the Bainbridge Island Police Department, I put on my other hat as a mom. I was looking forward to an afternoon with my daughter after school, looking for additional Halloween apparel and a few hours together. I waited for her school bus at the corner of Country Club Road and Toe Jam Hill in my private car, appreciating a moment of quiet.

As her bus approached, the driver did all the right things: yellow warning flashers, red stop lights, paddle out and the gate across the front. As my daughter got off the bus, movement caught my eye as a bicyclist approached the bus. At the high-rate of speed the bike was traveling, there was no way he would be able to stop in time.

I watched in suspense as the bike rider decided to run the stop paddle and pass in the oncoming lane and realized that my daughter was crossing at the exact moment the rider would cross her path.

I honked my horn wildly for the rider to stop, but to no avail. Thank God my daughter had the common sense to see a problem and stopped. As the rider whizzed past her, he continued his very important mission up Toe Jam Hill. As recalled by my daughter, “He looked at me like, what the hell are you doing there?”

I know from experience what carnage would have resulted had she been hit.

I followed the rider up the hill and was admonished for making him stop half-way up. (This was after identifying myself as a police officer.) I found a flatter place to stop and address this little problem. The rider kept trying to mitigate his behavior with nothing that made sense and finally admitted to passing the bus with the red lights on. But, he said, he was passing slowly. He offered no apology or responsibility.

After explaining to our spandex hero about the cost of the ticket and putting children at risk, the coward decided to flee, literally, and left the scene saying, “I’m not continuing this conversation” and rode on with his nose in a fully upright position.

A conversation with the Bainbridge Island School District transportation manager (a retired state trooper) left me further disgusted. Apparently this is commonplace, according to bus drivers. It’s also common that when troopers have tried to stop bicyclists heading to the ferry (even to warn them of oil spills, etc.), a common reply is F-you.

I’ve seen repeated running of stop signs, the non-use of helmets and a flagrant disregard for the welfare of other people. The attitude of the rider I encountered is symptomatic: it’s all about me; I don’t care about you and you are in my way, so move!

You, bicycle rider, in your quest to conquer that hill and make yourself feel so superior, endangered the most precious thing I have; my daughter. But it’s not just about my daughter. There are lots of daughters and sons out there who, at the end of their busy school day, just want to cross that street and get home safely.

To our bus drivers, I commend you for making that so under the circumstances, especially with the cowards out there among us and those who are too harried to care.

Mo Stich

Baker Hill Road

City

Was tree removal imminent after all?

While I appreciate that the thrust of the article in Saturday’s paper concerned the slow bureaucratic process that delayed removal of a Douglas fir at Sun Day Cove, two facts were lost in the story:

First, no matter what rating system is used to determine risk, high-number rated trees don’t always have to be removed to abate the hazard(s). Sometimes pruning, cabling, bracing, propping, modifying site conditions or snagging a tree can reduce risks to an acceptable level.

Second, though it took two years for the fir to be removed nothing happened in that span of time to threaten life or property. Although it is unclear what hazard rating system was used to determine the risks posed by this tree, the International Society of Arboriculture (who use a 12-point hazard rating system) points out that, “Hazard rating cannot strictly define a numerical line for action between either removal and retention or treatment and no treatment.”

In the Sun Day Cove case, removal proved not to be as imminent as it may have been suggested two years ago.

Katy Krokower

Baker Hill

Library

Encore! Encore! for Living Books

It is no understatement to say we have been submerged in fierce debates, pros and cons and “gotchas.” We seemed to be trained to battle and batter.

In contrast, Living Books, held at the Bainbridge Island Library on Oct. 25, brought an opportunity to reach across barriers and to learn to listen. Within the safety of the library, we had opportunities to meet and converse with “someone not like us.”

Yes, I agree, “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,” as Atticus Finch said in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” We had that opportunity, and I do add a corollary. We can come to understand and find a place in the middle, a “common ground.”

A special tribute to the Kitsap Regional Library for supporting this program and to all the folks that made it happen. Let’s plan an encore.

Please note: several phrases quoted are from “No Walls in Living Library,” Bainbridge Island Review, Oct. 22, page A6.

Mary I. Piette

Bainbridge Island