Letters: Here's how to make South Bend roads safer

I was saddened but not surprised to read about the recent hit-and-run killing of a Catholic priest riding his bicycle on Western Avenue. I have lived here for three-and-a-half years, and the South Bend area’s roads are the most dangerous I have ever experienced. Reckless driving is the norm; excessive speeding on surface streets is routine, even among neighbors; and the constant tailgating would make a lead-foot Frenchman blush.

I have never seen so many unlicensed vehicles as I have since moving to Indiana. No plates of any kind. How are these allowed on the roads at all?

Our local police have plenty on their plates but the obvious lack of traffic enforcement contributes to a Wild West hellscape on the roads. This is a car-cultural problem but a couple easy reforms would offer a start.

First, vehicles without tags should be routine, everyday targets for traffic stops and impoundment. The legislature should also require both front and rear plates, and lawmakers should pass laws allowing communities to install speed cameras.

South Bend and its neighbors should then install these cameras and begin issuing tickets in bulk.

Brett McNeil

Mishawaka

Power and control

In March 1776, while the Continental Congress was hashing out the birth of American independence, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, asking him to “Remember the ladies … Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.”Despite this plea from Adams, men were given virtually unlimited power over the ladies with virtually no representation for 150 years.

Consider this quote from "Women, Enterprise and Society," a publication from the Harvard Business School:"During most of American history … marriage and property laws, or "coverture," stipulated that a married woman did not have a separate legal existence from her husband. A married woman, or feme covert, was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings, except under very specific circumstances. When a husband died, his wife could not be the guardian to their under-age children.”

Only in my lifetime have women across this nation been allowed to marry whom they choose, to obtain contraception on their own accord, to obtain an abortion, to serve on jury duty, granted the right to work during pregnancy, afforded protection from sexual harassment and protected from discrimination at public schools.While I respect the sincerity of my friends who are strongly against abortion, the June 24 decision certainly reasserted power and control over women, without their consent.

Stephen Barber

Plymouth

Our journey

We are certainly living in a hostile environment.

Everyone of us knows that our life began when a sperm from our father, united with an ovum from our mother to begin our journey in life in our mother's uterus. From that Union our mom was pregnant with a unique human being. She was going to have a baby. So we continued to grow through many stages until we were born alive. We are here. Our journey continues.

Abortion does not kill a potential human being, it kills a human being with potential, it stops a beating heart and causes death. It is a violent death.

Violence begets violence. Look around.

It is a slippery slope. We are in the midst of it. We can stop this and we should.

No matter the rhetoric, the truth is abortion stops a beating heart and ends a human's life. It is wrong.

Marilyn FortinPlymouth

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Navigating South Bend roads a dangerous affair