Yesterday

Yesterday morning, a man went out for a run and didn't come home.

Our village is a small one, and this loss is more than a tragic incident, it's a grief that is carried by the entire community.

He was a husband and a father, 43 years old, and headmaster to a private school that overlooks Rosseau bay. Everybody knew him as a good, kind man.

He was hit by a car near the edge of the village. He was out running with three fellow teachers on Highway 141 when he was hit and killed by an impaired driver. Just like that, his life is gone.

The route that he runs is my usual route, the two kilometres of the highway that necessarily have to be covered in order to get to a safer, quieter sideroad.

The speed limit is 50 until you reach the limits of the village, but on this stretch of straightaway, the 80 sign is visible for a long way out, and pretty much nobody heeds the 50. Whether you're a contractor in a hurry or a cottager in a fancy sports car, it's an invitation to hit the accelerator and go.

In my couple of years of running this road, I've seen just about everything, and when I am running along the shoulder, it's akin to being in a giant game of pinball. You see vehicles coming towards you and you prepare to dodge.

Many drivers are courteous and generously move over as they can. But nearly every week there is a fright or a close call. Just outside the village, the bridge over the Shadow river is under construction, and the one-lane temporary bridge is regulated by a stoplight. So traffic comes towards you in packs, conga-lines of four to eight, and if the first vehicle in the line can see you, likely as not the followers cannot, not until the last minute, so closely are they bunched up on one another's bumpers.

Do you want to know how many drivers I see with a phone glued to their ears, even though that's illegal?

More than a few times, when I've been running against traffic, on the shoulder, I've been suddenly caught in the slipstream of a vehicle travelling in the same direction as me, hell-bent on passing another, slower vehicle because said vehicle is obeying the speed limit and therefore holding them up.

I've had drivers lay on the horn, hard, as they draw even with me, letting me know that I have no right to be on ''their'' road. They treat cyclists with even more venom than they do runners.

I've had vehicles purposely drive through slush or puddles to soak me when conditions are already bad.

Three times in the past six months I've had vehicles veer onto the shoulder at me and I've had to head for the ditch.

If you've ever been speeding through the village; if you've ever tailgated another driver to the point that you can't see the road ahead; if you've ever been distracted by your phone or anything else, You OWN part of the tragedy that occurred yesterday.

And to the agencies and overseers and policers of the roads in and around this village, who have ignored the pleas of residents about speeding and road safety, and punted the issue among themselves, you also own part of this tragedy. It was bound to happen, and now it has, and it has taken one of our own.

Yesterday morning, a man went out for a run and didn't come home.

Remember that.