Time: a weekend evening, venue: just outside a fast-food outlet. A woman in roller-skates is walking with difficulty as she tries to usher a young girl, (probably not older than four years of age, likely her daughter) on a tricycle, to the other side of the road, a busy one, with vehicle traffic having come to a halt in both directions.
As they try to cross the road with tiny steps, a queue of vehicles is quickly built up on the road.
Then the woman and the young girl enter the fast-food restaurant, purchase their orders and leave in the same way as they came.
Anything wrong here? Depends probably on how you look at it: “Oh this is an innocent breach of rules, come on, it is only weekend, give them a break” is one way of interpreting the incident; “This is not acceptable, allowing that little girl to ride a tricycle on a road open to vehicular traffic is jeopardizing lives, and doing this when the adult is on roller-skates is even more outrageous, that can not be tolerated” is the opposite argument. Of course there may be tones and shades of each position.
I don’t know how a peace officer, or an RCMP officer would approach this scene, but I, for one, definitely support the latter one, and a rather strong shade of it.
When it comes to life threatening experiences involving vehicular traffic, tolerance should never be part of the assessment.
Rules are rules and they are put into effect to ensure that we lead our lives without endangering others and without being endangered ourselves.
Tolerance is not the avenue to follow when it comes to observing the rules of safety and security.
As the schools open next week, we will see another kind of attempt to push the limits of tolerance on the streets surrounding the Stettler elementary school: We will see many parents use their driver side doors to help children get off the vehicles and walk to school.
As they do this, they will be adding significantly to the possibility of a crash, no matter how small.
When the snow begins to fall, this will get even worse, because it will be harder for vehicles to brake on the slippery ground.
It is as if I am already hearing objections asking if there has ever been an accident or incident because of parents using the driver side doors.
I have no way of knowing if there has been one, but I do know that using the passenger side doors do not pose any threat of a vehicular accident involving children getting off the cars or vans.
Again, rules are there to be observed and we should not allow rules to become exceptions and exceptions to become rules.
Because that is the stepping stone to chaos.