A 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.
For the first time, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has tested and rated vehicle headlights. Of the 31 mid-sized vehicles examined, only one, the Toyota Prius, received a "good" rating. All the others rated acceptable, marginal or poor in roughly the same proportion. If you've wondered about glare from oncoming vehicles or thought that you weren't seeing well driving at night, the proof may be here.
You may be interested in the number of distracted drivers nabbed by police in the Comox Valley in a recent 5 day campaign. They caught 91 drivers including one who received 2 tickets in one day - likely the same bad habit as the lady in Vancouver with 14 tickets.
Every once in a while a visitor to DriveSmartBC will pose a question that makes me go “hmm...” This week brought one of those moments with the query “Does a driver supervisor have to be sane?” Without thinking, my response was that of course a supervisor would have to be sane, but after I thought about it, the only thing that a supervisor requires is a minimum age and a valid driver's licence.
I'm just wondering if there is something in writing that states that the person who is being the supervising passenger, that is of age and holds a valid licence, is also required to be of sound mind and body. This meaning, specifically, that if the supervising passenger is drunk and unable to drive, they can still technically be the valid passenger, and the person with the "L" can still drive them home.
Question: What advice do you have when driving in heavy traffic that is averaging 25 to 30 km/h over the posted speed limit? I was crossing Lake Okanagan bridge a few days ago in the right lane and if I went 15 to 20 km/h over the posted 60 km/h limit I was still the slowest vehicle there.
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.
This video was produced by the Trucking Advisory Group of the BC Forest Safety Council. The introduction states "Log truck driver, Adrian Sunduk, shares his story of how a seat belt saved his life. Before attending an Anatomy of a Rollover session, he had never worn a seat belt off highway because he had always planned to jump out of the truck if ever he got into a situation … See what convinced him that he was wrong and how wearing a seat belt saved his life."
ICBC is the provincial agency responsible for driver licensing. The corporation maintains related information and if you need a driving record for your employer or to serve as a volunteer you can download the driving record from ICBC's website for free.
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.