The Bookless Club: The beloved candy dish. Do you have fond memories?

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Canada’s House of Parliament doesn’t have such a tradition. Do you know why? Because we’re sweet enough, as is.

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Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist who lives in Vancouver. She writes The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun. For more of what Jane’s up to, check out her website, janemacdougall.com

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This week’s question for readers:

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Question: Ahhh, the beloved candy dish. Any fond memories?

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Send your answers by email text, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at [email protected]. We will print some next week in this space.

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Previous question for readers:

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Question: Is traffic getting more treacherous in the city?

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• I live in the neighbourhood near Homer and Pacific. Driving is definitely more challenging because bike lanes, one-way streets and e-scooters have become more prevalent downtown. It sometimes feels like the Wild West. I am an avid walker, often sharing the sidewalk with e-scooters and bikes which don’t follow any rules and other walkers with their faces buried in their phones. The lack of any enforcement over the use of e-scooters is shocking — no helmets, kids under 16, two riders. You need eyes in the back of your head these days when you are out and about.

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Patricia Barzycki

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• All I can say is to try it on a bike. Bike lanes to downtown are a boon and safe if all the special bike lights are honoured. Safer than in a car, but mistakes on a bike are more fatal. At 85, my balance is not as good as it once was, so I am super careful, but unpredictable motorists and now flying scooters are a problem. After biking the length of France years ago, not much scares me, but my most death-defying trip is biking to Jericho Beach every summer.

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Lesley R. Bohm

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• Who is the problem here? You are the one driving the big monstrous machine that can kill people and you have the entitlement to victim blame? In the Netherlands, car drivers are at fault by default in collisions with vulnerable road users. As it should be. Their cycling fatality rates fell 81 per cent over two decades following the implementation of that rule — among other road-design improvements. Cars take up more than 20 times the space of any other mode of urban transportation. They are the reason our roads are so wide, crowded and difficult to navigate.

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Ron van der Eerden

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• As a pedestrian in the city, I never step off the sidewalk these days without ensuring that cars have actually stopped when they are supposed to. I’ve seen too many drivers run a red light. Also scary when cars are trying to turn right and are busy looking left for oncoming traffic instead of who is standing on the sidewalk wanting to cross in front of their hood. I have had to wave at the drivers so they know I am there. But kudos to drivers who do stop to let me cross at busy streets that do not have lights. I always give them a thank you and a wave.

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Claire Robertson

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• I must give you my opinion of today’s drivers. Dangerous! Terrible! Frightening! Aggressive! Rude! Impatient! Poor judgment! You have to be extremely defensive when behind the wheel of a car today, not only because of other vehicles, but because of pedestrians using their phones and other mobility methods with no concern for anyone other than how fast they can get to where they’re going.

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Caroline Duncan

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• The problem is not the number of motor vehicles so much as the explosion of pedestrians detached from the real world because of their “devices” and the scofflaws “rolling” on scooters and e-bikes.

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Jan Carr

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• I wholeheartedly agree that traffic and drivers are getting worse in Vancouver. I commute from New Westminster to Mt. Pleasant several times a week, and I have many gripes. First of all, drivers in general have gotten much more aggressive. One of my biggest pet peeves, which makes it almost impossible to turn right in the city sometimes, are pedestrians who cross the street when there are only a few seconds left in the countdown. Most people do not know that you are actually not supposed to leave the sidewalk once the countdown begins. You are not being challenged to see if you can cross Kingsway in six seconds. I shudder to think how much worse things will get now that the learner’s test is offered online.