Ghost bikes – Yes, the city should limit them

I hate passing them, every time we are in the city. The driving is horrible, 90 minutes into the hospital for regular cancer tests. Then we have to pass Dussault's memorial, as well. Then there are people passing us, speeding to some important meeting or appointment.

It is a bad corner, no question. Lots of traffic. They are ubiquitous. They are terrible reminders of death and dying. This doesn't celebrate where they lived well, but where they died.
Yes, limit them to being there for only one year, if people must place them at all. To decorate them with flags, pumpkins, mini Christmas tree? No.

 Ridiculous distractions. People shouldn't need a memorial to remind fellow cyclists to cycle safely. Drivers should slow down, check blind spots, but they don't and won't, unless it is a good habit. The garbage truck ran into poor Dussault. Cyclists have to drive with utmost caution. It's win-lose, for sure.

 Egan: Should city limit roadside memorials, ghost bikes?

COLUMNISTS MAR 5

In life, Meg Dussault was well-loved and, in death, expressively remembered – with spokes and wheels, ribbon and a rosary, with a small tree, a planter, a photograph, an ice sculpture.

Op-Ed: Ottawa won't pay for bike safety

LOCAL NEWS MAY 16, 2014

Her name was Danielle Naçu. On Tuesday October 11, 2011, she was doored on Queen Street. She was knocked into oncoming traffic, was struck and died. Thursday morning, another cyclist was doored, this time on Somerset Street. The cyclist suffered serious, yet relatively minor injuries. It is dark irony that Thursday's dooring came a day after the city celebrated the one-millionth trip along the Laurier bike lanes.

Cyclist killed in fundraiser ride identified as hospital official, 40

LOCAL NEWS SEP 8, 2014

Laurie Strano was engaged to be married and in the best condition of her life when she died in a tragic accident during this year’s Ride the Rideau fundraising event for cancer research.

38-year-old cyclist Mario Théoret

Ghost bike honours cyclist killed at busy intersection

By CTV Ottawa @ctvottawa

Another ghost bike has been set up in the Capital to solemnly mark the intersection where a cyclist lost his life. Friends and members of the cycling community placed the bike at West Hunt Club and...

1. 1. Ghost bike has appeared at spot where cyclist 27 yr old Krista Johnson was killed last week. #Ottawa #cbcott

      
      

      
2. Ottawa News ‏@OttawaTopNews  3 Oct 2012

   Kelly Egan: Across sea of asphalt, ghost bike reminds us a life was lost: Here died David Tyler Br... http://bit.ly/Vj79uw  #Ottawa #News

Slow down drivers, somebody out there loves you -and your victim

Scott Millar's memorial: From Ontario Memorials

I found a new one. It's on Highway #7, near Kaladar, Ontario.

Slow down, people. Someone out there loves your victim.
The obituary:

Winchester Press - obit - Scott Millar

Scott John Millar of Almonte, aged 36, was tragically killed the morning of Aug. 16 on his motorcycle at Kaladar. He is survived by his wife of five years, Sharon Toop-Millar, who, also on a motorcycle, was slightly injured. He was the loving and cherished father of a two-year-old son, Wyatt.

The sentencing:

Driver who hit motorcyclist gets 4 years

7 May 2010 – A man who claimed he had fallen asleep while driving when his van veered across the centre line on Highway 7 and killed a 36-year-old Almonte motorcycle enthusiast has been sentenced to four years in penitentiary. William Spears, 47, of Port Perry, Ont., who was found guilty of criminal negligence, was banned from driving for 15 years during his sentencing in Kingston. Spears drove his GMC Safari across the centre line on Highway 7 near Kaladar and slammed into Millar's Harley-Davidson motorcycle on Aug. 16, 2006. ...They were driving to Niagara Falls for their fifth wedding anniversary. Millar's motorcycle bumped into his wife's bike causing her to fall on her back on the pavement. His motorcycle slid across the highway and he was engulfed in flames when the gasoline ignited.

Spears has 22 convictions under the Highway Traffic Act and after his conviction in December, he was charged twice with speeding.

Millar, a stationary engineer at the Carleton Place and District Memorial Hospital, fulfilled part of his dream after the couple purchased a two-acre Almonte-area property in 2000 and, a year later, married.

In Muskoka last week...
News | Oct 15 - One person is dead and three others were injured after a...

One dead in single-vehicle crash near Kirkwood and Merivale

A man in his late 40s was killed in a collision Wednesday afternoon on Cavan Street, not far from the intersection of Kirkwood Avenue and Merivale Road. Paramedics said they took the 911 call for the single-vehicle crash on Cavan, between Raven and Larose Avenues, at 4:11 p.m.

Here are all of my memorial photos:

Lanark County Roadside Memorial

Local, Roadside Memorials
In my drives around the province, from Ottawa to Muskoka, to southern Ontario, I have spotted quite a few.

There is controversy surrounding one near our home in Lanark County. It is quite large, with cowboy hat, and two crosses.


The farm landowner doesn't like it. S/he has added some bales of hay and a trailer to try and minimize its sight. Those selling property nearby find it difficult to see.

Perth Courier

The mother of the dead youth, Cindy Whyte, claims it is her right to put up the memorial. I disagree. Again, to focus on the place where the young man died is truly negative, especially to me, a stranger who drives by. I deal with death every day, on my own time, in ways I can handle it. For parents who have lost children, knowing this young man lost his life there, may be too difficult to bear on a daily drive to work, or shopping. This is a difficult thing to pass while driving.  Focus on a life, not a death. Of course, those, like me, who decline to complain about it, including the property owners, our voices are not heard. It is time to speak out.

As one mum wrote in Australia:

Bens Mum

08/11/2010

My son has just been killed on his motor bike and if anyone puts a cross at the place he died I have vowed to kick it over and destroy it. I do not want to have to drive by this place and have to see a lonely white cross. It says nothing about the son I had at all...it morbid ..way too sad..for myself and everyone who knew him. I just drove back from the city to our home town and passed cross after cross and each one hit me in the heart and was distracting me from my driving....dangerous too.

A quote from an officer who attended to the Newtown shootings:

Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site

One detective, who was driving with his wife and two sons, passed a roadside memorial on Route 25 two weeks after the shooting, and began sobbing uncontrollably. “I just lost it right there, I couldn’t even drive,” the detective, Jason Frank, said.

Roadside Memorials - they creep me out

Ghost bikes will have a time limit in Ottawa

Cole Howard

Roadside memorial, highway #15

Driving around the province, from Ottawa, Wawa, Toronto, Muskoka, Lanark County, we've seen quite a few. A loving tribute to a loved one who has passed over.

Perth Rd.Lanark County Roadside Memorial

ghost bikes

Skootamata River - bridge
roadside memorial near Tweed

Trip to Ottawa Hospital

The message in the bottle

Add caption

Jacques Leblanc 1990 - 2013
 Ottawa, ON – Jacques A. LeBlanc, 22
motorcycle