Sir: Thanks to you and the staff for The Chatham Voice. I find it very interesting to read each week.
My wife and I were away from Chatham for approximately 20 years and we have been back here for the past 5.5 years to retire. I must say that many things have changed during our time away, but for us it is still a pleasure to be here, and to stay in touch with current and past events as introduced through The Voice.
During the past few weeks I have noticed that there has been some indication that people would like to see Highway 40 expanded to a four-lane highway.
My wife and I drove to Sombra recently and obviously we took the 40 from Chatham to Wallaceburg at 9 a.m. As I was driving I thought I would just set my cruise control at 85 km/h just to see the reactions of other drivers. Even though the speed limit is 80, it is generally acceptable to exceed that by a bit, and so I did.
Even at 85 km/h I was constantly tailgated by other drivers, and when the opportunity arose to pass, they would speed up to at least 95-100 km/h.
I also noticed that people driving from Wallaceburg to Chatham were experiencing similar results.
The major reasons for wanting to expand the highway to four lanes appeared to be the fact that there had been a lot of accidents on this highway in the past few years. That is something very understandable as we watched how people drove even on a Sunday morning. I can only imagine how that negative manner of driving would increase as people are late for work or in a hurry to go someplace.
The road itself is not an issue. It is one of the smoothest riding highways in the area. Perhaps that is also a reason for drivers wanting to increase their speeds.
Expanding highways from two lanes to four can be a very expensive project. There must be other ways of assisting drivers on this beautiful road.
One of the ideas would be to set up a few radar stations in order to control the speed limits. If this was done in a successful manner, we would see a decrease in accidents almost immediately, and it would certainly cost a lot less.
Even as I mention this idea, the very thought of the speeds noticed on Highway 401 would be a reason to ignore expansion ideas.
The other thought would be to add a few passing lanes along the highway because there are often slow-moving vehicles on the road causing people in a hurry to speed up and crash.
Passing lanes are frequently used in busy areas and would certainly be more cost effective as well.
These are just a few ideas I would like to suggest rather than spending millions of dollars on a huge expansion project.
Bert Zantingh
Chatham
