Unsafe Driving Practices

I saw it again the other day, a driver who was stopped at the beginning of an acceleration lane patiently signalling and looking for a large gap to join in with the passing traffic. Before you make a comment about gray hair, this could just as easily have been a new driver. I couldn't tell as I drove past at 90 km/h.

While out for a walk the other afternoon I approached a driver who had stopped in his lane, in a corner, to talk to a couple of pedestrians on the other side of the road. Normally, this is a relatively quiet street but the driver is still making a poor choice. His action was unsafe due to poor sight lines for approaching drivers.

Some incidents encountered during a career in policing stick with you for life and sometimes resurface later on as lessons learned. This memory involved a mother dropping her young son off for a birthday party by pulling over and stopping on the right side of the street. He exited the car and excited to join the festivities, ran to the back and darted across the street. He was struck and killed by a passing vehicle.

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. One noses up the the rear end of the other and the front driver does a brake check resulting in a collision. I’ll venture to suggest that in this case, neither driver was thinking at all.

I received a excessive speed ticket while on my motorcycle. I stated to the police officer that I was attempting to elude a tailgater, which he had not seen of course. The tailgater positioned himself behind my bike 3 times in 3 kilometres before I sped off to go to a public venue with cameras should the tailgater cause me trouble.

If you watch one of Canada Post's community mailboxes for a day you will probably see someone drive up and cross over to the wrong side of road to get out and retrieve their mail. If the driver's arm is long enough they don't even have to get out to open the mailbox! Who cares about this sort of behaviour? After all, the mailboxes are often on quiet residential streets and doing this doesn't hurt anyone.

Unless you are the only vehicle on the highway (and one cannot ever be entirely certain of that) you are one piece in a two dimensional puzzle that must fit in with all the other pieces. Put simply, before you do something, you must consider how that will affect you and all the others around you before you do it. If your intended action will negatively impact on someone else, you must not do it. How often do you see the road users around you relying on chance to keep everyone safe?

For the last ten to fifteen years I have had drops put into my eyes to dilate my pupils yearly. Many years ago I was advised to bring my sunglasses to the appointment with my optometrist and / or my ophthalmologist. Since then I always have my sunglasses with me for these appointments.

The topic of choice in the DriveSmartBC e-mail box this past week has been about drivers who pass you in the left lane of a multiple lane highway and then immediately change lanes back in front of you. This action leaves less (sometimes much less) than optimum following distance between you and the driver who passed you.

I first wrote about drivers whose behaviour in the "no zone" around heavy trucks left much to be desired back in 2004. Little seems to have changed since then as when I listen to the trucking radio channels the most common complaint involves drivers who jam themselves in front of a truck and then slow down.