Aggressive Driving

Left lane hogs were back in the news again this week. The CTV Vancouver news story that I watched complained that drivers were not being held to account by police for failing to move out of the left lane and letting other drivers pass. The report claims that based on ticket numbers reported by ICBC the number of drivers ticketed for failing to keep right fell from 799 in 2016 to 699 in 2018.

More space equals more time. Think about that carefully for a moment as it should be a constant consideration for all drivers. Driving should be an action, not a reaction and the best way to make it an action is to give yourself time to think, plan and execute your decisions safely.

Q: I managed to stumble upon this website after I had an encounter with a dangerous driver. The driver of the vehicle drove dangerously, passing me on a double solid line in a 30 km/h playground zone.

Unfortunately, my direction of travel coincided with this driver's.

The theme last week among those that I follow on Twitter seemed to be "doesn't play well with others." Whether the subject of the Tweet was a driver, cyclist or pedestrian the behavior highlighted was either thoughtless or selfish. Add an over the top example that I witnessed on Saturday and I wonder why should I behave when I use the highway?

I happened to be on the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway #1) on Vancouver Island during the big snow storm just before Christmas, travelling from Victoria to Parksville, and there were some occasions where I wondered about the sanity of pick-up truck drivers.

More and more often when I drive on a busy highway I'm finding much of the traffic jammed into the left lane, each driver trying unsuccessfully to get ahead of the others. One would think that this situation would be akin to being the proverbial kid in the candy store for anyone in traffic law enforcement, violations everywhere! Slower traffic failing to keep right, following too closely, unsafe lane change, cross single solid line, failing to signal lane change and, depending on your point of view, the root cause of much of this: attempting to exceed the speed limit.

This case begins with a street race that took place on August 4, 2008 in Delta. The race ended with one passenger dead and one driver injured. Madam Justice Burke decided liability for the crash on March 24, 2017. She found the driver of the second car involved in the street race 10% liable even though he was not part of the collision and was in police custody when it occurred. What remains to be decided is the amount of damages that the parties are entitled to or will have to pay.

There was an interesting post on Twitter this week showing drivers interacting with pedestrians at the intersection of Cambie Street and West Broadway in Vancouver. The photo showed 3 cars facing a green light trying to turn onto Cambie from Broadway, 2 eastbound turning left and one westbound turning right into their respective lanes on Broadway. There was a steady stream of pedestrians crossing Cambie against a red don't walk signal.

This is another instance of where most drivers would shake their heads and ask themselves “Just what were they thinking?” I’m speaking of a video of two drivers on a freeway using the left lane during an instance of congestion. The pickup noses up the the rear end of the car and the car driver spikes the brakes resulting in a minor collision. I’ll venture to suggest that in this case, neither driver was thinking at all.

I'm one of those odd drivers who tries their best to drive at or below the posted speed limit. I include the word below here as sometimes there is a need to slow down to less than the posted speed limit for safety reasons. This often has consequences for me when I have to share the road with other drivers who do not subscribe to my philosophy on road safety. A good example of this is looking in my rear view mirror and finding the Volvo logo on the grille of a heavy transport truck following me closely enough that I could count the bugs stuck to it.