Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Going Door-to-Door

It's not very neighbourly, not at all a good idea, and definitely a hostile move for parents of young children to place basketball hoops with their great cumbersome bases not on private property, but on public property. Those basketball devices meant to be placed in a driveway may be attractive to young children to practise their shots and have fun together, but these activities should take place where they do not impact on others.

A neighbourhood group in Manor Park, Ottawa, has assembled signatures on a petition in response to having been informed that someone in the neighbourhood lodged an official complaint with the municipality at the practise of parents placing those heavy bases adjacent their properties, but verging on and over onto the road. On the street in question there are no sidewalks, and people walk on the road.

An elderly woman who had lived in her home in that neighbourhood for 60 years had taken umbrage that her walks, particularly at night, when ambient lighting is dim, have been complicated by the presence of these basketball bases. If she walks close to the curb and cannot adequately see the dark base in the dim light she stands the risk of suffering a fall; not a pleasant prospect for the elderly.

But it is not just the elderly walker who is at a disadvantage, for anyone driving along the street where these bases verge out onto the road is similarly affected. The roadway should be clear of distractions and impediments to any who use it for the purpose for which it was designed. In addition, it is illegal for anything like the basketball bases to be stuck out on the road.

In their defence, the parents of children who use the hoops and who have placed them in such a manner as to interfere with the free flow of traffic, claim that their children need the exercise, and because their lawns slope it is difficult to place the base effectively; it would require hard physical work to dig it into place.

A poor defence, one that abrogates personal responsibility and pleads for special accommodation when none is due.

Several of the mothers who defend their right to have the city allow the presence of their children's sport equipment on the street took their petition from house to house in their neighbourhood with the intention of discovering just who it was who had lodged the complaint. When they came to the house of the individual who had lodged the complaint she willingly offered the information that it was she.

It was the danger that the heavy, wide bases represented to her in her walk-abouts that caused her to complain. She does not feel apologetic about her complaint, nor should she. The women who live on Lonsdale Road who feel it is their civil right to endanger the health and well-being of others because they are too lazy and feel entitled to do as they wish, should apologize to their neighbours.

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