BC drivers. Don't mind the grumpy ferret.

[Selkit]

Ladies and gents, just a silly question. Have you noticed road behavior getting worse over the past few years, or is it just me? I moved here from Alberta as of 2004, and in my entire life in Alberta, I had precisely one road incident as a pedestrian (Got bumped lightly by an elderly gent who was quite apologetic. No harm, no foul, that time). I can remember over half a dozen near misses in BC now where I've either nearly been run down, or exposed to near criminal stupidity (One was a lady wearing a goddamn bingo visor on her face upside down, as sunglasses. No joke). The reason I ask, is because I've now experienced yet another fit of stupidity; I was nearly run down along with two other people, *again*, last night, by a moron passing a stopped vehicle through a marked crosswalk (He wasn't even passing on the road either, he was passing on the yellow paint marked sidewalk at a crosswalk, on the right, through a three way stop, around stopped traffic).

What the hell, seriously.

[Van_Fox]

*tries not to be racist*
But I can say this, damn old ladies. >.<

[Vanilla Skunk]

Yes, it is getting very retarded.  I've seen a whole lot of swerving in and out of traffic on the #1 in front of me EVERY TIME I go for a drive with my sister.  Literally, every time, I'm calling in dangerous drivers because I'm the one in the passenger seat.

Everyone, if we want this to stop, we need to give the police people to chase that deserve it.  That's what they're there for.  Even if a lot of us consider them a gang hired by the crown.

[Selkit]

*tries not to be racist*
But I can say this, damn old ladies. >.<

The idiot I just had an encounter with was a male who didn't look any older than 30.

[Blue]

and old ladies aren't a race. Last I checked, anyways.

[Renwaldo]

. . . Not to be rude, but I find Albertan drivers tend to speed a lot.  :-X

It's ironic to me that I should find this thread. Last night on my way home from the bank I was nearly run over by a woman running a yellow light. I'm assuming the pedestrian lights have a quicker reaction time than the traffic lights, my light had the little picture of the white guy crossing the street, the traffic light had just turned yellow. She thought she could blast through in time, but I got in the way!  ;D The silly thing had to slam on her brakes in the centre of an intersection.

[Runix]

*tries not to be racist*
But I can say this, damn old ladies. >.<

The idiot I just had an encounter with was a male who didn't look any older than 30.

worse drivers are Albertans dude! xD get behind one of them, your sure to get into an accident.

[Vanilla Skunk]

When did you  get in an accident behind an alberta driver? :P

Alberta drivers speed because all their roads are straight.

Still, living in edmonton for two years in the 90s, there were aggressive drivers, but not so many stupid drivers.

[twotailz]

i think its mostly the city, way too many drivers in onve plave not to mention all the immagrants and what not, not to be racist either but this is just my interetion of it, being not from the city, the last time i had  to go to richmond were all doing between 120 and 140 on the free way and i noticed alto of drivers (yes i looked just about everyone was asian but they would just pull into a small spacve ahed of you and slow down to almost 80 once the were infont of you. PRETTY FUCKING DANGEROUS if you ask me, again not trying to be racist but we just have too many people from too many parts of the world driving as they would in their home countries its just not safe, partially our fault i think we should have mandatory drivng schools and stuff for people thatcome over from other countries especialy the ones that alredy hold a drivers lisene from another country/provience if neeed be just my 2 cents

[Van_Fox]

and old ladies aren't a race. Last I checked, anyways.

I never said they were O.o

[mediar]

I don't think it's the high Asian population we have here in BC... just avoid Burnaby and Richmond. :P

Eh, I've been driving for just over 11years now in both BC and AB, I think everyone has their bad drivers, and I can't really say if there are worse here or not... I think it's more of a different kind of bad driving... AB seems to have a lot of speeders, where as BC has the "fender bender while trying to park" people.. I dunno, I just drive really defensively and so far have not had an accident.


p.s. if my post makes no sense, it's because I am sick D:

[zenia]

I haven't had a license or driven in several years... but when I first got it, I was driving along one of the short streets in Qualicum Bay (LOTS of retired people there btw) and almost got hit THREE TIMES within 10 seconds by people backing out of the diagonal parking stalls without looking behind them. >_____<

[Jimfoxyboy]

I have also notice that a lot of people completely disregard speed limits. Regardless of how fast you drive, there are always a bunch of those that still want to go 20km/h faster than you.

I can tell you of two recent cases involving 'clueless' drivers. One in which I personally saw, the other my room mate just told me about the other day.

Dad was driving me south bound on King George. We were slowing down for the red lights just in front of the Best Buy, at the mall. The thing to note about that intersection is that both directions on King George have left hand turn signals. Just as we were about to pull up, the lights turned green for going straight through. A box van, one lane in and slightly ahead of us, had just starting to accelerate as it had been stopped at the red light. A car in the other direction, sitting in the left turn lane suddenly took off and got in front of the box truck. It then ended up getting rammed and spun around across the intersection right in front of us. My dad managed to come to a controlled stop, so we weren't hit. Left turn signals do not turn green when opposing traffic already have a green light, so she had jumped her light for whatever reason.

The other account has something of a better ending, as told by my room mate to me a few nights ago.

The road we live near is on a long, moderately inclined hill. It flattens out at the bottom for a bit before coming to four way stopped intersection. Seems one person in particular has this rather nasty habit of flying down the hill in his car, then blowing through the intersection like it isn't even there. My room mate told me that almost every time she goes out, she is nearly hit by this person's car. Several days ago she was walking along, the same car goes down the road. At the intersection was a stopped unmarked police car. The car that was flying down the hill, slows down just a bit before going through the intersection, but still blows the stop sign. The driver must have realized the cop was there, stopped in the middle of the intersection. Then, for whatever reason, decided to take a turn down the other road in front of the cop. The cop pulls a quick J-turn and pulls the car over.

On the way back, my room mate sees two cop cars sitting where they had pulled over the guy's car.Their lights were still flashing. She went over to thank them for pulling the car over. Told them the story of, whenever she goes out for a walk down the street and this car comes by, she would almost get hit ever time. Turns out, the other cop was there because he had given that same person five other tickets earlier that day. Then as my room mate was walking back up the hill, the same car came flying down the hill again. Only this time, the driver saw the flashing police lights and decided to do a u-turn.

[ScaredSacred]

What the f*** happens in Penticton at 4pm?!?  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I've encountered some of the worst, most laughably terrible driving since moving to this town. 

I mean, after a couple weeks, I noticed pretty quickly that people here just run red lights and stop signs when they don't feel like stopping.  They just... go through.  No slowing.  I've never seen that phenomenon nearly as often anywhere else.

But when the sun goes down, people just start driving as if they were f***ing Superman, and everyone else are the useless meatbags that keep his days full of endless annoyances.  Left turn only lane? Naaahh, I'll go straight ahead! Thirty kph speed limit? I'm in a hurry, man, I'll just do seventy.  Oh, look, a bike lane, that will make it SO MUCH EASIER to get to that red light so I can slam on my brakes!

[Selkit]

Anyways, sorry for the bitchiness, you lot. I'm just... really peeved that people seem to forget that they are not whipping around in a two thousand pound pile of fluffy pillows, they are riding around in something very capable of ending a life or worse, maiming someone for life. Then again, I'm grumpy with humanity in general occasionally, for being so utterly blind to anyone outside their immediate circus. Bleah. In somewhat related news, I picked up the electronic parts I was looking to get in the first place, elsewhere. The howling demon nerfgun now runs at 24v.  :evil: