Behaviour

A recent poll by Insights West found that 50% of Canadians feel that drivers in their city or town are worse than they were five years ago. The two top groups of bad drivers identified by three of every five of us were youth and seniors. To top it off, most of us have witnessed dangerous and illegal behaviour on our roads in the past month. Wow! Time to have a look at ourselves in the rear view mirror.

I grew up in a small town where there were no sidewalks unless you counted 4 sides from 3 blocks downtown. As children, we didn't pay much attention to the rule that required us to walk on the left facing oncoming traffic but we did make sure that we were on the edge or even off of the pavement when a vehicle drove by.

When we think of distracted driving, most of us immediately consider cell phone use. While this might be the most common example used in distracted driving campaigns, it is certainly not the only one. Any action that takes the drivers attention off of the driving task is distracting and is to be avoided.

Have you ever met anyone who would admit to being less than a better than average driver? Those of us who are completely honest may say so but our behaviour behind the wheel could indicate differently. It's called optimism bias and it is something that we are all affected by. We are all optimistic about our personal capabilities and that includes our driving skills.

Driving should involve co-operation, not a contest. There is no doubt that my point of view has been influenced by four decades of driving experience, 25 years of collision investigation and daily observation of what goes on around me when I drive. Yes, I am one of "those drivers." I use the right hand lane, do my best to follow the speed limit and feel like a rock in the stream. I have come to expect to see constant examples of sloppy, selfish driving and am pleasantly surprised when I see someone extend courtesy. It should be the opposite.

What do I do about a dangerous road situation? The person asking this question is referring to a stretch of city street where two lanes become three when the street is joined by a freeway off ramp. This 3 lane street is about half a block long before it reaches a T intersection where it is popular to make a right turn.

I've just finished reading Eliminating Serious Injury and Death From Road Transport and find myself in agreement with much of its content. The time I've spent in traffic law enforcement and the investigation of a large number of collisions has shown me that many of them are suffered by people just like you and me.

Positive role modelling by parents of 5 to 12 year old children has the potential to have a significant influence on their child’s future driving behaviour.

This is a very interesting book about distracted driving. Interwoven with the story about Reggie Shaw and how he caused a double fatal collision by texting while driving is information on the research and researchers who are studying how our brain deals with the distraction from mobile phone use while driving. To put it bluntly, we are incapable of driving safely while using a mobile phone, hands on, hands free or texting while driving.

The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure has announced changes to the Motor Vehicle Act to make it easier for police to prosecute slow drivers using the fast lane on B.C.'s highways. The promised changes will occur later this spring according to Todd Stone, but there does not appear to be any indication of this in current first reading bills. Perhaps the first question that needs to be asked is whether or not this is really a significant cause of collisions and deserving of increased enforcement.