Open Letter to this lawnmower owner

Tara Beverly Vanneste | Oct 08, 2015

I don’t know how your wheelbarrow, lawnmower and boards came to be in the middle of the eastbound lane of Highway 7 between Arden and Sharbot Lake at 8:15pm on October 4.

My parents and I were returning home from visiting family in Newmarket and Peterborough. Highway 7 was dark and the transport trucks were zooming along with us. Narrow shoulders, blind curves and abundant wildlife make this a treacherous stretch of highway.

Suddenly, inexplicably, your equipment lay on the road in front of us. We hit the first item, a board of some sort. My mother was able to maintain control of the car while swerving to avoid the wheelbarrow, the largest obstacle. We thank God that in that moment there was no oncoming traffic. The lawnmower was unavoidable and became lodged under the car and we skidded off the road, grinding to a halt just short of the ditch and rock wall, but with our back wheels not quite off the road. The car could not be moved due to the pile of gravel that had accumulated in front of us. We were stunned and panicked, unable to exit the driver’s side due to the transport trucks barrelling past us, seemingly within inches of our vehicle.

We put the hazard lights on and exited the vehicle on the passenger side and huddled on the narrow strip of gravel between the car and the ditch. Above us rose that rock wall that we were so lucky to have avoided. No injuries. I am sure you will be relieved to learn this. We saw that you had pulled over maybe a hundred metres ahead of us. “It’s okay” I told my parents, “he pulled over, he stopped.” Just then you drove away and continued on your journey, without your equipment. Leaving us at the side of the highway in the dark.

I called 911 and they were able to locate our GPS coordinates. We could smell gas. We told ourselves that we were okay and help was on the way; how lucky we were that we had not crashed into another vehicle, the rock wall or the ditch. We were safe. I am sure you would want to know that.

A passing pick-up truck did a u-turn and pulled over. Two men and a woman jumped out to check on us. We are so grateful for these kind people. They parked behind us with lights and hazards on, another beacon to warn those speeding transport trucks that we were not quite off the road. They quickly got out our jack and lifted the car up and pulled out the lawnmower so we could get the car safely onto the shoulder. They insisted on waiting with us for the 40 minutes it took the police to arrive. They were especially concerned about my disoriented, elderly father. We will always be grateful for their help.

I am sure you will be relieved to know that we eventually got home safe, after midnight. The damage to my parents’ car will be fixed but because it is technically a “single car collision” (we don’t know who you are), my parents must pay the $1000 deductible. We are grateful that the cost to our family is only time and money. We are grateful that the kindness of strangers meant that we were able to get safely off the road. We are grateful that we did not lose control and crash into the rock or another vehicle. We are grateful that there was not a transport truck behind us at that moment, because it would certainly have driven right over us.

In the future we hope that you will secure your equipment properly in the back of your truck. We hope that you will never again endanger the lives of those who travel the road behind you. And we hope that if you ever again make such a mistake, you will stop and check on those behind you, and make it right.