E-bikes have real value, but regulations needed for safe navigation on our pathways | Opinion

E-bikes need regs

While driving on Highway 278 recently, I noticed two boys under age 10 zipping along the bike path on e-bikes. I did not think much of it until my daughter pointed out they were keeping pace with our car – at 40 mph.

While I understand the allure of e-bikes, a sustained speed of 40 mph on a pedestrian path seems reckless for children that age and especially dangerous for anyone using the path as intended. I watched the boys swerve around a couple biking with small children without slowing.

I would love to see more regulation by the city before the trend gets out of hand.

Lyndsay Rouzer, HHI

Traffic pole woes

Many places are replacing their traffic signal telephone poles and wires across the street with heavy steel poles and arms with lights attached directly to the arms.

There are no dangling wires.

This is the best for high winds, hurricanes, etc.

When Walmart on Lady’s Island was built, the intersection at the Sea Island Parkway entrance had the steel poles and arms. Now the steel poles have been taken down and wooden poles with wires stretched across the street have been erected.

I guess Hilton Head or Bluffton needed the newest poles and traded Lady’s Island for junk poles.

Gary Werkheiser, Beaufort

Yemassee needs help

I write to you today to express the deep frustration and fear gripping the Fennell Hill community in Yemassee, where justice seems to be a distant dream.

Our neighborhood has endured 16 reported incidents of stray bullets causing property damage, some perilously close to causing serious injury or worse.

Imagine a bullet whizzing past your head, another lodged in your car door, one interrupting your dinner, and another shattering the peaceful moment of handling a vase.

This is our reality.

The response from law enforcement and legal authorities has been, to say the least, disappointing and bewildering.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) dismissed these incidents as mere misdemeanors, unworthy of investigation.

The 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, after offering a conflicting opinion, has remained silent, even ignoring our request for a meeting to discuss our concerns.

Local law enforcement, both the Yemassee Police Department and the Hampton County Sheriff’s Office, cite jurisdictional boundaries as a reason for inaction.

Our community is left stupefied and frustrated. How many more close calls must we endure before our plight is taken seriously?

If justice is truly colorblind, then why does it seem blind to our plight?

Justice delayed is indeed justice denied, and for the people of Fennell Hill, that delay has been all too real and all too dangerous.

Ben Fennell, Yemassee

Books open minds

The Beaufort County Book Review Committee has almost finished reviewing the 97 books removed from school shelves last year. Four books have been removed from school shelves.

The book “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult concerns a school shooting. A major theme of the book is what young people will do to be accepted and popular.

It is a multi-layered book that has themes of bullying, peer pressure, pressure to submit to the demands of a boyfriend who is perceived to be in the popular crowd, and, finally, what happens when the target of continual bullying acts for revenge.

These issues are all worthy of thoughtful discussion among students in middle school and high school.

The only positive outcome of the book banning movement is the emergence of the DAYLO student group that is active at several Beaufort County schools.

It is encouraging to hear these thoughtful students speak to the school board and elsewhere on the value of academic freedom. I am sure they have learned a lot through their exploration of this issue and their experience of public speaking.

Why does a small group of adults get to decide what other people’s children get to read at school?

Please, School Board and Superintendent Rodriguez, allow students to read about and discuss real world issues and focus your efforts on creating more effective schools not censorship.

Kate Joy, Beaufort