Where the rubber meets the road
By Sheri Monk
Most Fox Valley residents are hoping the worst is over and that the streets will be quiet after an ongoing ordeal.
The problem? A handful of young hot rodders tearing up the newly-paved roads which escalated into an eventual conviction of one man who went too far trying to take back the streets.
Tom Hitchen, his wife Kathleen and their two young children moved to Fox Valley from a town outside Calgary in February of 2007, and Tom says he noticed a problem right away.
“The things we saw go on, they just basically did what they wanted in this town,” he said, describing sleepless nights due to reckless drivers.
The Hitchens live on a corner lot, butted up against the busiest street in town, fed by the No. 21 Highway.
Tom says he called the RCMP several times, only to realize it seemed to make the problem worse.
“Unbeknownst to us, you don’t do that around here because then you become a target. That’s what young people do this town, we’ve been told that on several occasions and everybody looks the other way. Well, I don’t look the other way. I don’t need people doing break stands in front of my house, I don’t need people going by my house at 90 – 100 kph when the speed limit is 40. And dragging, they drag side-by-side right down Railway Avenue, right in front of my house. I’ve got two little kids and we don’t want them to walk out the door one morning and not come back.”
Tom says even when another resident calls police, his home is the one that seems to be targeted as a result.
“They have no respect for the law,” he said.
One night, in June of 2007, a loud party in town was disturbing the Hitchens.
“There must have been 50 people out on the street yelling and screaming and they were ripping and tearing by the house here and I went out to try and get some licence plates with my big spotlight, trying to confront some of these people,” he said, explaining that anyone he tried to stop just drove away. “We phoned the police the night of the party because it was so noisy and we had just moved here.”
Tom says youths in the back of a truck had taunted his wife from the street the day before the party.
“They called her a fat bitch. You know, I’m her husband and as her husband, my anger was starting to boil and boil and boil and then within that same time period, this young fella was going back and forth with his truck up and down the street just roaring. This particular night (the night of the party) I was in a foul mood and I’d had enough of it. I took my truck out and was going to confront him.”
The confrontation Tom was planning went awry when the driver wouldn’t stop and his anger overcame him.
“I went ripping after him and as things progressed, I ran into the side of him. I ended up running into the side of him. I side-swiped him.”
Tom was charged with dangerous driving, but he hired a lawyer and pleaded to the lesser offence of driving without due care and attention. That enabled him to hang onto his licence, which he requires for work. He says the incident cost him about $5,000, including repairs to the youth’s truck.
That same young man, 21-years-old now, appeared in Leader court last week and plead guilty to an offence related to a break stand in Fox Valley which created deep ruts in a patch of gravel road.
Tom says the altercation caused a great deal of tension in the town and he was largely ostracized by many residents over the incident and he has been told several times that ‘kids will be kids.’
.On Oct. 13, 2008, the Hitchens home, truck and fence were vandalized with spray paint, and other homes were also targeted with graffiti of several penises. On the Hitchen’s truck, the words, ‘I kill you” were scrawled on with spray paint. The vandals were never caught by RCMP.
Twice the family has listed their home for sale and Tom still isn’t sure whether they will remain in the community. Tom ran for town council and lost last month, but did win 49 votes out of a possible 124. He says the votes prove a silent minority exists that want to stand up to the few thugs behind the wheel.
Fox Valley is served by the Leader RCMP detachment and Tom says as soon as a patrol car is spotted in town, youths begin texting one another.
“The whole town becomes quiet for about 15 minutes until the police are gone and it starts right back up again,” he said.
Bob Gardiner, along with his wife Alexis, are also relatively new to Fox Valley. The couple publishes a newsletter serving the areas of Fox Valley, Richmound, Golden Prairie and Liebenthal. Within the pages of the newsletter, the tension between residents over the controversial issue exploded.
“Young kids around here drive crazy along Railway Avenue and in particular in front of the house at the corner of Railway Avenue and Fourth Street, the home of Tom and Kathleen Hitchens,” Bob explained.
Bob says he and Alexis were also bothered by the noisy streets, but not to the extent the Hitchens were, because of the location of their home.
“So we started writing about it and saying this was just unacceptable, that the town could be held hostage to this kind of behaviour. So we wrote two or three articles about it.”
Bob and Alexis decided to tackle the issue with the use of pointed satire.
“We announced a contest and in order to win the contest, you had to be of driving age, you had to be inconsiderate, you had to squeal your tires and you’d get a jerk or a jackass badge. That really stirred things up. Four people wrote to us, two saying that something had to be done about this. And we got two really ugly letters, which we printed and one from Corporal Fraser from the RCMP which said ‘You gotta keep on this’.”
Bob says the streets had settled down some until recently.
“I was walking down the corner and a young kid comes barreling through the corner and does a 180º (turn) to talk to somebody on the street. I’m walking right beside him and when he’s finished, he just floors it and lays a big strip of rubber right in front of me. So I pressed charges and he got some big fines.”
Bob agrees with Tom that some people dismiss the driving habits of local youth too easily.
“That was definitely one of the attitudes in town, but from my point of view, mostly the attitude came from people living outside of town,” said Bob, an observation Tom also shares.
Bob says last year, a crew was staying at the motel in town and were scheduled to stay for one week, but vacated after just one night due to the street noise.
Now, Bob believes he is seeing a major improvement and the streets are largely silent in comparison to recent history. He also feels tension over the issue between community members has mostly dissipated. He’s happy the issue may finally be coming to a close, because they moved to Fox Valley for a reason.
“There are a lot of people here that will say, ‘You know, they’ve been doing that forever,’ and our attitude is we moved here – along with a few other people – and we want to live in peace. I don’t care what happened 10 years ago or 20 years ago, I don’t have to put up with crazy driving at the corner of my street,” Bob exclaimed.
Bob says the majority of Fox Valley youth are responsible and not affiliated with the handful of troublemakers.
“We’ve got some great young people and this is a just a wonderful community to live in and I really would feel badly if the community as a whole was tarred because of this. But there are four or five party guys who don’t give a rat’s ass for anybody else. And in fact, they once told Tom, ‘We own this town’.
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Found your publication in todays mail, and couldn’t believe it when I saw the front page story (“Where the rubber meats the road”). I had almost exactly the same experience in a somewhat smaller village in Alberta. I found the place almost by accident…it’s way off the grid..
and happily bought a lot, moved my mobile there, and was ready to start enjoying small town life after many decades in Calgary. In no time the locals started performing exactly as Mr. Hitchen describes. I too called the RCMP several times, but one constable had to cover many such towns and was at least 45 minutes away. And, of course, when he did eventually arrive the place was quiet as a tomb. I too chased after one particularly evil pair, but my poor old truck just couldn’t make it. In that regard I guess I was luckier than Mr. Hitchen, although I’d happily have run them off the road at the time. I too encountered the “boys will be boys” attitude from the locals. In fact the town manager told me to ignore them so that I could feel free to do the same things! At that point I started to look elsewhere and found a little house here in Shaunavon. Selling my place in “The Village Form Hell”, as I will always think of the place, I knew would be a problem, but I think they were as anxious to get rid of me as I was to leave. So a local made me a slightly insulting offer which I gratefully accepted. I too was the target of hostilities, although the only damage was a couple of thrown eggs, and the odd bit of garbage dumped on my yard. These young idiots know that the residents are in fact afraid to complain because everyone knows each other and they dare not offend a neighbour, or indeed a relative as most were related one to the other. In that regard Mr. Hitchen, I’m afraid you’ll always be looked upon as an outsider, but I really hope the truce lasts for you. I wish you well.
Sheri;
How are you? I guess I just wanted to take a bit of exception at the use of the term ‘Hot Rodders’ in the article about the bad driving and rubber tracks in Fox Valley. I’m about as HardCore Hot Rodder as you might ever see, and I have laid miles of rubber in my life, even down that same street in Fox Valley some thirty odd years ago… The issue I have is I would never, ever abuse someone who merely wanted me to stop tearing up the street, my tires, and his peace of mind. I don’t speak for all ‘Hot Rodders’ here, that isn’t my place, but most HardCore HotRodders have too much time and money invested in their equipment to be doing that sort of thing. Also, as club members, we have to build a reputation for being somewhat responsible. All Hot Rodders want to play with their toys, I hope we don’t do it in such a way as to hurt someone such as the Hitchen family…
Respectfully
Joseph Hancock..
Hey Joe,
Thanks for the comment.
I had no idea such a term would cause offense – that’s one of the downsides to hobbies and subcultures – the rest of the population doesn’t have the same knowledge of lingo.
But thank you for bringing it to my attention and apologies to all who may have been offended.
I think, looking back, I actually picked up the term from my Dad who used it to describe crazy drivers. But I had no idea it was an official term for those like yourself.
Thanks again for letting me know! We may include your comment in the print edition of The Badger if you are comfortable with that in order to let people know about it. (And maybe most do and I am just the moronic exception!)
Sheri
I’m not offended at all, I love your paper and feel free to use my comments if you wish…:-)
There are two sides to every story and unfortunately there is only one side that has been commented on in the paper. Mr. Hitchen is by far the community man you seem to think. I just want to comment on his side swiping he did to some young guy that made him mad. The person driving that truck was a young lady who was driving to pick up a pizza. She had not been drinking nor has she ever spun a tire in her life. When he decided to sideswipe this truck that he was having a problem with, he was not even smart enough to look first who was driving it as it was quite a while later. What would have happened if he would have caused bodily damage to this innocent girl because of his uncontrollable anger and stupidity. He deserved to lose his license for driving like that and not just get a fine. Justice certainly was not served in this case.
Hmm. Cant help it. I have to comment in Aggravated…
**I am calling the ones who were driving like maniacs “kids” because I don’t know how old they are, but they don’t have the maturity for the “adult” status yet…**
“He deserved to lose his license for driving like that”
-my response…Those reckless drivers should lose their license for driving like that and maybe jail time and hopefully some hefty fines…
“What would have happened if he would have caused bodily damage to this innocent girl because of uncontrollable anger and stupidity?”
-my response… What if those kids would have killed someone due to their complete arrogance and stupidity? How would you feel if those idiot kids would have killed one of his young children? How would you feel Mr. Hitchin would have called this girl a fat bitch? How would you feel if your property was vandalized with spray painted dicks (and it should be because that’s what these kids are).
Just for the record… the actions of the people in this town are completely unacceptable. Shame on those who were sticking up for these senseless reckless drivers. I don’t care if you’ve been in this town for 5 generations EVERYONE deserves respect and EVERYONE has human rights. I am so disappointed in Fox Valley right now. I would NOT be proud to live there after this unless the appropriate action is taken to fix this situation. I hope these kids get jail time for this…
Don’t you honestly believe, if these people who had problems with the youths would have handled this in an adult matter instead of just getting mad and taking police issues into their own hands, that all this injustice that they are talking about might not have happened, If someone is speeding by my place and squeeling tires does it give me the right to side swipe them, then after that complain about bad drivers who might, and I say might hurt someone just after I rammed someone I dont even know just cause I was mad, and then also the person that I rammed and could have killed was a young girl, who is probably affected from this for the rest of her life. Yes I can understand if someone is harassing them, or causing them immediate danger that they have to react, and it sometimes is not the best decision that they could have made, But if they have time to think and then just one night blow up and chase someone down, then there are other issues that we need to look at here and wonder if it is a safe place for them free in the public. Some one commented earlier that youths squealing tires should get jail, then I think if somenone has the intent to injure they should get life. If they have to take the matter in your own hands, why aren’t they writing letters of the poor policing in these towns, Cause that is what they are saying without coming right out and saying it, That they have to save this town, I feel the police in this area are doing an excellent job with the amount of staff that they have to work with, and taking time to work on important situations. I think in everyones best intrests that if all this media would stop, I bet the problem with all the people in question would stop. But if this is what you need to write in order to get people to read your paper than good on you.
Thanks for your comment.
This article has now been viewed 225 times. I’d say the reader interest is there to warrant the media’s attention.
And, just as a way to highlight everyone’s diverse views – this story was brought to The Badger’s attention by several sources – none of whom are quotes in the article.
In this business, you can never make everyone happy, but you always manage to make a few angry. All we can pledge to do is our best and that, (after being awake for 30 straight hours to put the latest issue to bed) is something I can absolutely guarantee we are going.
Thanks again for the feedback, it is most appreciated. Above all, it shows people are engaging in our content, which is very gratifying and humbling.
Like this is news. People from Fox Valley have acted like this for decades. Whoever had the newest Firebird, Mustang or new truck was always the coolest – it’s part of a narrow minded rural ideology. People on both sides of these stories are crazy and not impartial to the events and I wouldn’t take what either side says for real if another article is published. I feel bad for this family but it sounds like there are sides to the story not being presented.
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