First snow: Nov 7th

We knew it was coming. At first they predicted more rain than snow, but that switched over as the day progressed.

I thought this would be a good time to do a black and white. AC always does a good job on that, but my wee petunias... We have a bit of a microclimate on the front porch. It faces south. They are hanging in.



Off JB went for his daily walkies. You see our shed on the right? That's where the shovels lie. It's not sticking, so this is just a warm up. I knew I should have made a list of things to do.



On Lot #2, the grasses fell over in disgust.



The meadow. It was wet snow, and the branches are heavily laden.



The frog pond was frozen, just a tad.



Back on up to the house. I am reminded about that story about the weight of snowflake.s..



These berries are gone. (Happy birdies!)



These berries are waiting for unsuspecting raccoons.

It was fun in Ottawa. Drivers fail to respect driving conditions. The poor cops!

And so another winter driving season begins...sigh... I can’t stress this enough: SLOW DOWN. There is no reason for you to end up in the ditch like this. Please, please adjust your driving for this kind of weather. 🚔🚔 @OPP_ER @OPP_COMM_ER @OttawaPolice @Ottawa_Traffic pic.twitter.com/Djt4bt65jo

— QueenswayCop (@QueenswayCop) November 7, 2019

92% of all road deaths are preventable

Operation Impact traffic safety initiative, which kicks off Friday and runs over the Thanksgiving long weekend. Police will be out in full-force on both roadways and waterways targeting the “Big Four” factors.

An OPP report says about 92% of the 1,507 deaths on provincial police-patrolled roads in the last five years were preventable. This came out just as I had to travel 328 km to Toronto, returning on Friday of the long weekend.

city driving from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Before I left Toronto, I checked Google and there were 7 traffic incidents across the 401 highway. It was stop and go everywhere.


I made a bad mistake coming home. First, the 401 was bumper-to-bumper to Oshawa.  Then, I used the toll road, 407. It isn't complete, but it was very busy. Where it ends, EVERYONE was driving on CR 3, which had stop signs. There must have been 100 cars in front and behind. In hindsight, I'd use highway #7.


Canadian Thanksgiving is this weekend. We do a lot of daycation driving. We see many incidents of aggressive drivers, as well as those who would risk our lives to hurry to their next destination. Life is too short. The attitudes of these cavalier drivers shocks me.

On one highway, I think 401, or perhaps 115, I had just passed a slower truck. A guy pulls up behind me, passes me on the right, just as I was about to go back into that lane. He passed me, passed another car on the right an then pulled in front of him with little room. I couldn't find the dashcam video of him, though.

I was driving 80 km/hr, the speed limit, here, highway #7.

being passed from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The Don Valley Parking Lot, as people call it! It wasn't bad on Friday afternoon on my journey home!
Don Valley Friday Aft from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Hubby drove into town last month. A woman behind him passed two cars behind him, on the 5 km to town limits, and then passed him. He pulled up behind her at the stop light. This is dangerous, stupid and puts us all at risk.




What can civilians do?

• Tell your family, refuse to drive with those who would risk you or your loved ones. 
• Slow down, someone out there loves you or your victim.
• Call dangerous drivers out. 
• Report dangerous driving.

Between 2011 and 2015, 1400 deaths (92%) were caused by the big four:
distracted driving, impaired driving, aggressive driving, and lack of seatbelt use.

• inattentive driving was a factor in 408 deaths
• speeding in 336 deaths
• failure to wear a seat belt in 335 deaths
• alcohol and drugs contributed to 321 deaths.

Highway 401...it never stops. #DriveSafe pic.twitter.com/eRTeJROCQL

— Sgt Kerry Schmidt (@OPP_HSD) October 3, 2016

Press release

We need to slow down, peeps

Driving at the speed of stupid! This concerns me, as we do our fair share of driving on rural roads. I like to research them to figure out how to protect myself. Today, we have freezing drizzle, on top of 6" of snow.

The roads are terrible. We are going to hunker down until the roads are cleared. They canceled JB's Meals on Wheels deliveries yesterday. Good thing.

Hubby did most of the snow yesterday, but konked out, as I did. We'll finish it today.

Another death on the highway

Officers were called to the scene at 8:21 a.m. Wednesday.

Lanark OPP lay charges in Carleton Place fatal crash | CTV ...

ottawa.ctvnews.ca/lanark-opp-lay-charges-in-carleton-place-fatal-crash-1.2...

Lanark OPP have charged 64-year-old Gordon Sarles of Richmond Hill, ... charge after 29-year-old Elizabeth Harris of Smiths Falls was hit. She is the mother of three. He went through a red light. The speed here is 60 km/hr.

 Highway 401 driver was watching movie at 160 km/h, police say

Then there is Greenbank Rd. (County Rd. #13). A long, straight stretch, through the government-owned NCC greenbelt, where drivers like to pass in unsafe conditions.

Fatal Christmas Day crash came weeks before couple's wedding date

Last May, a 54-year-old man was killed when his car left the road as he tried to pass a truck pulling a trailer.

Opinion: Fatal crash hard to comprehend - CNews

cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Canada/2015/09/29/22557203.html

 In January 1996, Matt Brownlee, with more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream, was racing another car on Greenbank when his car crossed the centre line and rammed into an oncoming vehicle. Brian LeBreton-Holmes, 12, died at the scene. His mother, Linda LeBreton, 35, died in hospital the next evening.  Brownlee didn't stop at this: he violated parole.

Matt Brownlee, now 27, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal negligence causing death and was sentenced in July 1997 to six years in jail. An additional year for breaching his bail conditions was added. Matt Brownlee, who had an atrocious driving record, was also seriously injured in the collision and spent 21 days in a drug-induced coma. He has permanent brain damage.

Barrhaven councillor Jan Harder says it’s time to consider widening the long two-lane portion of Greenbank, given it’s a main road for as many as 85,000 residents who live in that ward.

For some, it's simply Affluenza: too much money, no values...

Texas ‘affluenza’ teen arrested in Mexico

Ethan Couch, the Texas teen who was spared jail time over a deadly drunk-driving crash by claiming he suffered from “affluenza”, went missing earlier this month.

Sleeping dove, Virginia, driving incidents,

Mourning dove from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
It may be a means of reducing parasites and/or feather conditioning, or it might just feel good. This is called "sunbath". One of my favourite moments!!! I have all birds indulging in this through the season. They sit in full sun- open a wing and maybe the tail feathers and just drink it in! They often go into what I call a 'rapture'! The eyes close, the beak opens and they are GONE!!! It is such bliss!

She's so pretty, sharing the milkweed with a wood nymph and ants.

Virginia came to visit from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
This video is about Virginia came to visit


Driving at the speed of stupid from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
First he passes us, we were in the right lane. The lanes merged,and he moved over to the right, and passed these people on the right. It's no wonder there are road incidents. You can't call them accidents.

Another driving incident

Who do you suppose is at fault?

• The woman who parked in a no-stopping/fire route zone (just beside a crosswalk), 
• or the person who backed up into her? 

People stop here all the time. Tons of parking spaces, but they can't be bothered to park in a legal parking spot. I'm sure you see it where you live!

Cars running, wasting energy, important people who cannot park and cannot walk 50'.  Now, I'm a hospice volunteer and I empathise with those who have physical issues, but there are very few medical issues where mild exercise, say walking 50', is precluded or unwise. More often than not it isn't someone with a physical issue, but just lazy!

Either way, what a sad incident. So needless.

Drive safely out there –someone loves you or your victim

On land, water or in the air. Speed kills, as does alcohol, and carelessness, and incidents are on the rise. Thank goodness for universal healthcare and our EMS crews.
We had a long weekend, with our holiday following on the Tuesday. Many people took Monday off, too.
There were busy times on the lakes.

During this time, officers across the region issued :

• 968 Speeding Charges
• 17 Racing Charges
• 85 Seatbelt Charges
• 55 Distracted Driving Charges
• 87 Hazardous Moving Violations
• 142 Other Highway Traffic Act (HTA) Charges
• 37 Liquor Licence Act Charges
• 33 Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act Charges
• charged 21 people with impaired/over 0.80 charges.

Deaths are increasing: carelessness, lack of attention, alcohol, speed

ORILLIA, ON, OPP June 23, 2014  - Highway deaths with speed as a causal factor have doubled in 2014. According to the data, speed-related deaths are currently in the lead when compared to collision fatalities in which distracted or impaired driving were causal factors.

Statistics on OPP-patrolled roads in 2013:

• Of the 113 people killed, speed was a factor in 33 of those deaths. 
•  Distracted driving is in second place at 24 fatalities 
• Impaired driving related deaths are at 12. 
• Last year speed was a factor in more than 11,000 collisions 
• Officers laid nearly 300,000 speeding charges across the province in 2013. 
• Almost 3,000 of those charges involved the motorist driving 50 km/h or more over the posted speed.

The OPP have reported 11 Ontario boating deaths this year, (5 by the same date last year –2013).

• According to the Canadian Red Cross, more than 160 water-related boating fatalities occur each year. In 90% of the cases, the victims were not wearing lifejackets.
  
• Accounting for 56 percent of these deaths are men aged between 15 and 44, with alcohol consumption involved in over 50 percent of the incidents.
• OPP investigators revealed that nine of the victims were not wearing a personal floatation device (PFD) or lifejacket and that alcohol was a factor in at least three of the incidents.

June/July incidents

1. From Muskoka NewsWatch: Tragedy on Hwy 60 near Huntsville; local man dies

Published June 25, 10:55pm: Huntsville OPP is investigating a head on crash this afternoon that killed a 66-year-old local man on Highway 60 near Grassmere Lake Road.

2. 2 Ottawa men charged after serious crash with RCMP vehicle

1. 

   3. One dead in car crash near Stouffville golf course

   CTV News-Jun 19, 2014Share

   Police said the car may have been travelling at high speed as it approached a roundabout. The car, police say, became engulfed in flames.

1. 
   

   4. Rising star in Mother's Pizza chain killed in Kitchener crash

   Hamilton Spectator-Jun 29, 2014

   Bandurka was sitting in the back seat when the crash occurred around 3. He died. The SUV driver was a drunk 21-year-old Kitchener-Waterloo resident ...

Toronto Star

5. Mayor Hazel Scallion in second car crash in last five weeks

durhamregion.com-Jun 11, 2014

According to police and paramedics sources, it happened in late afternoon as the mayor was turning from Ontario St. onto Queen St. Her car ...

6. Seven year old girl suffers serious injuries in boating accident on Lake Rosseau
by Norah Fountain June 30th - A 7-year-old girl who fell from a boat and was hit by the same boat on Lake Rosseau was airlifted to Toronto hospital with a serious leg injury yesterday. Skeleton Bay on Lake Rosseau.

Very dangerous

7. Friday, June 27, 2014 officers responded to a fatal motorcycle crash near Denbigh that took the life of 60-year-old Kenneth Leach of Whitby.
8.  Saturday, June 28, 2014 Umana Gonzalo, 47 of Toronto died while swimming in the Trent River in Frankford.
9.  Saturday, officers responded to ultra-light plane crash near the Frankford airport. The lone pilot was transported to hospital with serious injuries.

Incidents waiting to happen

10.  Saturday, June 28, 2014, Lanark officers attended a serious ATV crash on Tyron Road near Sharbot Lake. The 45-year-old male operator received serious injuries.
11.  Monday, June 30, 2014 A fatal crash on Calabogie Road near Renfrew. An adult male died at hospital. The investigation is continuing.
12.  Tuesday, July 1, 2014, a female diver, 49 from Mississauga lost her life after being removed from the St. Lawrence River 5 km’s from Brockville.
13. Markham man, 52, faces dangerous driving charges  Shortly after 8 a.m. on Canada Day police began received complaints about a black mini-van travelling at very high speeds northbound on Hwy. 69. The vehicle was also reported to be on the wrong side of the road and forcing oncoming traffic to take evasive action. (This happened before, in Muskoka, a number of years ago. The guy was high on cocaine.)

14. Kiteboarder, boaters rescued from Ottawa River
15. Water rescue teams warn boaters of Deschênes Rapids | Body of missing boater Mykhaylo Novikov found in Ottawa River

Slow down, people, someone out there loves you

Another traffic incident — A 34-year-old man is dead after he lost control of his car in Rideau Lakes Township and crashed into a ditch Thursday night. Timothy Whitney, was driving north on Rideau Ferry Road around 11:30 p.m. Police said Whitney failed to negotiate a turn and lost control of his vehicle before it crashed into a ditch. 

Update: The driver was ejected from his vehicle. Police say he was deceased when he was found. No alcohol was said to be involved.

Man killed in Rideau Lakes Township crash

OTTAWA — A 34-year-old man is dead after he lost control of his car in Rideau Lakes Township and crashed into a ditch Thursday night.

Evidence of those who worked to remove the car.

A memorial

I cannot imagine the scene in the dark.

Thank goodness for our early responders and volunteer firefighters. EMS & First Responders are our heroes.

We come across crazy drivers everywhere.
Is it testosterone, alcohol, stupidity? Why pass in these terrible conditions, rainy, foggy, slippery, on a curve?

I see it all the time. My friends and colleagues who work in Perth complain about this section of road. Many pass in unsafe conditions. Several times, while people pass one another, 2 or 3 cars in a row, hubby has had to get onto the shoulder and the gravel, when an oncoming car is in his lane.