My Journey With Health And Fitness – Where Has Common Sense Gone

I’m sorry I didn’t post last week, I was up at the trailer and hadn’t taken my laptop with me. You know how much I hate trying to type my blog on my iPad. Then of course Tuesday I got myself so busy that I completely forgot to do a blog. I’ll try to do a bit better next week.

Last Wednesday was ‘Wings Over White Rock’. Our Canadian Forces aerobatic team, The Snowbirds, did a 45 minute demostration flying over our water front. I have seen this many times and it is so impressive. While I wasn’t home normally we can just sit on our front stoop and watch the show. My husband said he truly enjoyed watching it from our back deck.

The following day there was a post on Facebook saying the City and Federal Government should have stopped a train coming along the tracks at the end of the show to protect public safety. Now first of all, neither the City nor the Feds have any jurisdiction here. Those tracks, and the area surrounding the tracks, are owned by an American railway. Our Railway Act gives railways full jurisdiction as to what happens on the tracks and the surrounding easement. Still I thought, why was it an issue of public safety?

Well it turns out it was actually an issue of stupidity and lack of common sense. Several years ago a bunch of people living on the waterfront lobbied to have the area declared as a quiet zone (QZ). Eventually the railway agreed to do this but with a caveat, no longer would people simply be able to cross the tracks wherever they wanted. Rather, the tracks would be fenced off with several controlled crossings over the tracks (you know the ones where lights flash and arms come down). That itself caused an uproar as people felt they should have unfettered access to the beach but the railway stood it’s ground and said it was either trains be allowed to blow their whistles or that the fences and crossings be put in. Eventually the QZ was established and all along the fencing it clearly states being inside the fencing or on the track was trespassing and is a Federal offense.

Back to Wednesday. Hundreds of people decided to get on the tracks or stand between the tracks and the fencing. The problem was as the airshow was ending a passenger train was coming through and all those people were trying to get out of the area to get to their cars. The train slowed to an absolute crawl as the train driver violated the QZ by constantly blowing the whistle (good for them for doing that) and yet people still decided to cross in front of the train. I have seen the video and am disgusted that many parents put their children at risk by allowing them to be part of this.

I thought after I had seen the video, where has common sense gone? Let’s analyze the situation, you and your children get struck by a train, how do you think that is going to go? Even though this is a small passenger train, you cross in front of it and it cannot stop on a dime, it needs several hundred feet even if it is going at an ultra slow speed. Seriously, was seeing those planes in the sky worth risking your and your children’s lives? My common sense says no. And to say because people were violating the law that the train should not have been allowed to come through is absolutely ridiculous.

So I ask all of you, run your life with common sense. Don’t expect a train or anything else to adjust because you want to do something dangerous, stupid and quite frankly illegal.