Give Me a Sign

Two Lane Left Turn SignDuring one of my Elder College presentations I work through a module on traffic signs and lane markings with the students. Driving examiners tell me that this is one area that older drivers have trouble with if they are called in for a re-examination. Based on discussions in the forum on the DriveSmartBC web site I can truthfully say that older drivers are not the only ones having difficulty with signs.

Sure, we see stop, yield and speed signs every day and are quite confident about what they mean. If you are a middle aged driver who lives in rural BC and is visiting the lower mainland area for the first time, there may be all sorts of signs and signals that you have never seen before. Trying to decide what to do as you pass them is probably not a good method for dealing with the issue!

You are expected to know what the signs mean even if you rarely encounter them. Keeping up to date is something that we rarely feel the need to do because we all know how to drive, right? The only time that we may have looked at the provincial driving manual, Learn to Drive Smart, is if our teenage children are learning to drive and then it may only have been out of curiosity or to confirm something that they have told us.

Paper copies of the manual are still free for the asking at any Driver Service Center in British Columbia. If you have a computer, smartphone or tablet it can be downloaded in PDF format from ICBC's web site. If you're really feeling brave, you can even take the on line practice test for new drivers. It never hurts to be ahead of the game.

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