Dear Editor:
I am writing to applaud Chris Kautzky's insightful letter Roads Are for All, Including Longboarders, North Shore News, May 15.
The experience of longboarders, cyclists and pedestrians who face bullying by automobile drivers is too frequent a reality on the North Shore.
Last week our son had an incident while longboarding in North Vancouver whereby a driver of a vehicle in one of the more reactive neighbourhoods went out of his way to follow our son, cut off his path by slamming on his brakes and then threatened his intent to hit our son with his vehicle and then sue him for damages.
Vehicle ownership and "driving everywhere" has become a disturbing hallmark of post-war North American culture that has instilled a deep sense of entitlement at best and homicidal rage at worst for many who sit behind the wheel. Not to mention the environmental and economic damage that is an undisputable reality for our planet.
For many, using mass transit is seen as being for children too young to drive, seniors who have lost the privilege of a driving licence or for those too poor to own car.
Riding a bicycle is seen by many as a way for children and youth to get around or a recreational pursuit subservient to and posing a nuisance to the automobile.
Longboarding is very often viewed as aberrant behaviour and in a suburban neighbourhood immediately elicits suspicion and disdain. The larger glaring issue to me is the isolation of individuals and lack of community in our automobile-obsessed culture.
The "longboarding menace" on the North Shore is your child, your grandchild, your friend's child, your neighbour, your student, your fellow human being and citizen.
Share the road and you do more than save lives, you start to rebuild a fragmented community.
Joanne McNeil-Leitch North Vancouver
