Unsafe Driving Practices

I live near a section of Highway 19 that travels through a built up area. The highway changes from 4 lanes divided by a barrier with a posted speed of 90 km/h to 4 lanes that is not divided posted at 60 km/h. So few people slow to 60 that I often hear long time locals asking new residents if they have gotten a speeding ticket there yet.

Before the median barrier was installed, this 60 km/h zone was part of the highest collision zone policed by Central Vancouver Island Traffic Services.

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.

The following video is part of the Western Cape Government's Safely Home initiative. The It Can Wait campaign hopes to discourage drivers from using their cell phones while operating their vehicles. For those of us who think that we can safely multi-task while driving the site has this to say:

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 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 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?