The Editor,
I find it disturbing when you combine really bad driving behaviour with poor parenting.
On my morning commute, I pass through three school zones that have a few four-way stops. What was once an anomaly has now become an epidemic of drivers taking the stop signs as mere suggestions rather than obeying them.
The worst offenders are at Rochester elementary in Coquitlam. I’ve seen drivers rolling through these stop signs even though there are little children standing on the corner waiting to cross. Worse yet, these parents driving have children of their own in the car.
What are they teaching their children? What if it were their child waiting to cross and some dimwit drove through without stopping?
On the flip side, we have parents teaching their children really bad pedestrian behaviours. At the same school, there are parents who drive their children to school.
Now, instead of walking their children to the crosswalk, which is only five to 10 m away, they dart across the road between parked cars. What do these parents think their children are going to do when they are without Mom or Dad? This has got to be the most dangerous practice a parent can teach a child.
You read about it all the time, children getting struck down by cars after they have run out on the road from behind a parked car.
Neil Swanson, Coquitlam
