Aggressive Driving

The left lane is so popular lately that when I keep right I often find myself behind fewer vehicles at the next red traffic light. In fact, at one particular intersection on my commute many times I can be first in line. Everyone else seems stuck in the left lane trying to get ahead, fuming, following too closely and making sudden lane changes.

The theme last week among those that I follow on X seemed to be "doesn't play well with others." Whether the subject of the post was a driver, cyclist or pedestrian their behaviour showed that they had no intention to behave properly.

We've all seen it and I'll bet that we all talk about them, drivers who race us to the next red light. Here they come, weaving through traffic, going over the speed limit and pass by us just in time to stop for the same red light that we do. These drivers put us all at risk to gain nothing and demonstrate their inability to plan ahead.

I have a concern about the road between Port Alberni and the West Coast. When they redid the slow vehicle pullouts, they dressed them up to look exactly like passing lanes. Now everyone travels in those lanes. The only difference between the pullouts and passing lanes is that the pullouts don't have signs telling drivers that the lane is ending (why would it, it's not a travel or a passing lane - it's a slow vehicle pullout).

The case of R v Gray arises from an incident that occurred on the highway near Round Lake, B.C. A police patrol that was southbound on the highway observed 3 vehicles abreast approaching. The highway was only two lanes wide for northbound traffic so the third vehicle was being driven between the widely spaced solid yellow lines marked in the center of four lanes.

A good definition of an aggressive driver is "an individual committing a combination of moving traffic offences so as to endanger other persons or property." Do you fit this definition? Due to our built in optimism bias, the answer to this question is most likely "no."

An incident that took place in Surrey on March 26 was headlined as street racing, which brings to mind the following questions:  How is "street racing" defined? How do the courts recognize street racing as opposed to, say, speeding? And why are the rules currently on the books for things like speeding, reckless driving and endangerment alone not harsh enough to apply to street racers?

Joseph Munden and Ephrahim Barnett used to be neighbours, did not care for each other and were not on good terms. May 8, 2019 found the two at the intersection of 4th Avenue North and Proctor Street in Williams Lake. Mr. Barnett was riding his bicycle southbound on 4th and Mr. Munden turned from eastbound on Proctor to northbound on 4th.

I had an interesting conversation with a driver at the roadside one morning. I had stopped him for driving at 107 km/h in the posted 80 km/h zone entering a high collision area on Highway 4 east of Port Alberni. Speed is a particular problem as a primary contributor to collisions there.

"Why are you writing me a ticket for this? I wasn't driving dangerously." was his response to my request for his documents.

A reader explains that several times they've been on the highway and had someone, usually in a big truck or old car come right up behind, so close that they can't really see the front of the vehicle. The reader drives a small Toyota and is frightened by this bullying behaviour. The question is, what do you do when you find yourself in this situation?