Aggressive Driving

A good definition of aggressive driving is "an individual committing a combination of moving traffic offences so as to endanger other persons or property." Do you fit this definition? Due to our built in optimism bias, the answer to this question is most likely "no."

Questions: How is "street racing" defined? How do the courts recognize street racing as opposed to, say, speeding? And why are the rules currently on the books for things like speeding, reckless driving and endangerment alone not harsh enough to apply to street racers?

I had an interesting conversation with a driver at the roadside one morning. I had stopped him for driving at 107 km/h in the posted 80 km/h zone entering a high collision area on Highway 4 east of Port Alberni. Speed is a particular problem as a primary contributor to collisions there.

"Why are you writing me a ticket for this? I wasn't driving dangerously." was his response to my request for his documents.

A reader explains that several times they've been on the highway and had someone, usually in a big truck or old car come right up behind, so close that they can't really see the front of the vehicle. The reader drives a small Toyota and is frightened by this bullying behaviour. The question is, what do you do when you find yourself in this situation?

It appears that drivers in Mumbai, India decided that if they all honked their horns the traffic signals changed to green faster. The resulting cacaphony results in sore eardrums, increased heart rate, added stress and contributes to traffic chaos. Something had to be done to preserve health and sanity.

This is a road rage incident that occurred near Saanich starting on McKenzie Avenue near Glanford Avenue and proceeding westbound. It ended at the red light on Burnside Road near the TD Bank when one driver decided to spit on the other and the police were called.

This must have been Following Too Closely Week in British Columbia. I received the story of an incident in Sooke, an analysis of a video from Richmond and was subjected to this dangerous behaviour myself. You might be able to get away with ignoring the Motor Vehicle Act, but the laws of physics will eventually prevail.

The following article is a study of tailgating from a 26-second video of Highway 91 submitted by a North Cowichan resident who visits Richmond often to get treatment for the brain injury he suffered after being rear-ended.

If you go by the Two-Second Rule, 79% of drivers were tailgating. And 26% were recklessly tailgating with less than one second separation. In this video, one driver is only 1.5 car lengths behind.

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.