Foothills Trail letter to the City Council

I am so angry about the blatant disregard for the STOP signs on the trail that I fired off an email to the City Council and Mayor detailing my experiences with the cyclists. If anyone else has problems with this issue I encourage you to help push this to the forefront so nobody will have to deal with an accident involving the injury or death of a pedestrian. Here's my letter and experiences.


Dear Madam Mayor and Council Members,

I am writing to you out of frustration with regard to the bicyclists on the Foothills Trail and their blatant disregard for the stop signs. My wife and I live in Whitehawk and today was the last straw for me as I came within 5 feet of running over 2 cyclists with a 3/4 ton truck. We, as drivers, have been called all sorts of nasty names, have had the middle finger given to us, I almost dropped an $18,000 motorcycle on the ground all because of bicyclists ignoring the stop signs and literally doing 15 -20 MPH through the intersections without slowing. My thank you for making emergency stops for these people is usually an obscene gesture. I remember a time when my 2 oldest sons (now 20 & 23) were stopped by Orting's finest because they rode their bikes through an intersection instead of walking their bikes. My boys were chastised at home for not obeying the law and doing something stupid!
At what point does this become a viable issue for the Mayor and City Council? Someone is going to get seriously injured or killed at one or more of these intersections! When will the police start handing out penalties for "running a stop sign" on the trail? My boys were stopped!
What has happened to the rule of law? When will it be enforced?
WHEN? WHEN? WHEN?
I am tired of being called obscene names & being "Flipped Off" by people that are causing the problem. I AM NOT THE PROBLEM!

I will be making this a mission of mine if this is ignored. These people (bicyclists) do not own the road and certainly do not set the laws governing them. We have built these people a wonderful trail to ride on and they seem to think they can do whatever they want. I guess this is the way they say 'thank you'!

I for one am angry at all of you for ignoring this issue. It has been brought up before. I have even watched our Chief of Police sit at a Village Green intersection while bicyclists just blew through the intersection in front of him without stopping. Did he do anything about it? NO, HE DID NOT!
Last summer, I had a father point his index finger at me while he was still on the trail and I was almost ready to turn into Whitehawk. He kept jogging into the intersection with his young son in tow. He was telling me to stop because he didn't want to. What was he teaching his son about obeying the traffic signs? I can't wait to see what happens when his child starts driving! I was so angered at that point that I drove through Orting looking for an Officer. When I found one, he told me that he's noticed the problem and even brought it up to his superiors before and they told him it wasn't a problem they have ever noticed. Are they blind or just turning a blind eye? I am certainly not the only one having a problem with the cyclists and you all know it! And yet nothing has been or is being done about it.

All I want is for the pedestrians to realize they will probably die in a collision with a vehicle and that common sense would dictate that they give the motor vehicle the right of way when they are in the lane of travel. I for one don't want to hurt a cyclist or anyone else, but I will not be held responsible for a cyclist that chooses to pull out in front of my vehicle and gets hit.

I hope I have made my point and that you act according to common sense in this matter.

Bill & Sharyl Wilkinson