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Niagara Falls
Friday, March 29, 2024
Letter to the editor: Cyclists already getting hurt on NOTL’s roads

SUBMITTED BY ELIZABETH MASSON, NOTL.
OPINION

Dear editor:

Re: the letter to editor, “Cycling tourists are an accident waiting to happen,” July 11.

Unfortunately, accidents to cycling tourists are not waiting to happen; they have already happened.

 I, personally, have seen cyclists lying in the roadway on Queen Street and at Niagara Street and East-West Line.

In each case, an ambulance appeared and they were taken to hospital. Similar incidents have been recounted to me many times.  Last year, the intersection of Concession 2 and Line 2 was closed down for hours due to a cycling accident.

Why don’t our three local papers report these accidents?  Do the editors consider them so commonplace that only when a cyclist is killed is it worth writing about?

When one rents a car, one has to provide a driver’s licence. When one charters a boat, one has to provide proof of passing a boat safety course.  Shouldn’t bike (and especially e-bike) rental agencies in NOTL have to require renters prove their ability to ride a bicycle/e-bike as well as their knowledge of Ontario’s rules of the road?

Elizabeth Masson

NOTL

Editor’s note: The writer asks a good and valid question. The Lake Report will report on these sorts of mishaps whenever we are aware of them. Unfortunately, one frustrating hurdle to doing so is the lack of information made available by the Niagara Regional Police. While many police forces readily share complete, newsworthy details of major occurrences with the media (names, ages, circumstances of the incident, extent of injuries, hospital the injured are taken to, etc.), the Niagara police’s practice is to withhold most of such details from the media, and by extension, from the public. That is not going to stop us from reporting on such incidents, when we are able to obtain sufficient information to publish a story, but it might help readers understand why sometimes you don’t find such stories in The Lake Report. By all means, we encourage readers to let us know immediately when incidents happen. Then we can pursue the details with the police and let everyone know what happened.

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