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LETTER: Experienced trucker says colleague who ran into cyclist was wrong

‘Everyone … knows that bicyclists are holy, inviolable, never to be questioned or damaged, no matter what’
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Screenshot of video posted on Facebook of a trucker accused of a hit and run of a cyclist in Vancouver on Feb. 6, 2022. (Facebook)

Re: “Trucker fired over cyclist hit-and-run caught on camera,” Chilliwack Progress Feb. 11, 2022.

READ MORE: VIDEO: Chilliwack trucking company fires driver over cyclist hit-and-run caught on camera

That driver went thoroughly off the reservation, so to speak. By this, I mean to say that he failed as a professional driver in a series of ways.

First, unauthorized use of company equipment, which is an egregious breach of protocol, and not defensible from any but a criminal point of view.

Second, he appropriated the reputation of all other safe drivers in Van Dokk’s employ, of which I am one. I do not approve. My safe progress was negatively affected for a couple of days by people who, presumably, had seen the video and wanted justice. Thank goodness their memories are short: That phase of their response has ended, I think.

Third, at that intersection in that video, he was clearly without a clue as to how to proceed in a civilized manner, when confronted by a snowflake with a bicycle. It could be that the driver has less than my 45 years of experience upon which to draw, for tactics.

Everyone in the greater Vancouver district knows that bicyclists are like pedestrians, holy, inviolable, never to be questioned or damaged, no matter what.

Especially by a dirty motorist, of which we truckers are just the very worst.

I could go on, but I will finish by wishing all parties, however currently sanctimonious, wisdom and peace. Let me pass, please.

Mark Zambrzycki

Chilliwack

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