To the editor:

What happened to the “waves”?

They used to be there — friendly smiles and waves from strangers in cars giving me some room on our narrow rural roads.

I thought about this recently after reading the article about the “road rage driver” whose aggressiveness was disturbing and over the top.

As an avid runner, I have noticed an increase in seemingly distracted or just plain rude drivers unwilling to give me more than a few feet of space as they zoom by in their two tons of rolling steel.

I do my best to stay out of the roadway and always run against traffic, but as we all know, most of the roads here on South Whidbey have no sidewalks and very narrow shoulders. These shoulders are often grassy, uneven and slanted — ankle sprains waiting to happen.

There’s a grim statistic provided by the DOT describing a pedestrian’s chance of death as 85 percent if hit by a motor vehicle traveling at just 40 mph. I think of this often and watch each approaching car carefully looking for that hint of awareness in their eyes.

And now that Bayview road has been “improved,” 50 mph-plus speeds are unfortunately all too common. The DOT doesn’t bother to tell us what the survival rate is at that speed, but if the declining wild turkey population is any indication, the odds don’t look good.

I can’t do anything about the general decline in friendliness, but I do wave to those drivers who move over and understand the “yield to pedestrian” rules of the road. I can’t always see your faces due to glare, but I imagine a smile and nod as we mutually respect each others right to coexist in these narrow spaces.

For those that “don’t get it,” well — I believe that in the end “karma never looks the other way.”

So go ahead, feel free to wave at those bicyclists and runners you share the road with, and remember that moving over a few feet to give a little room costs you nothing and can potentially save one of us our life.

Jack Healy

Langley