Behaviour

I'm sure that you have heard by now that the BC government has announced penalty points to go with a violation ticket for talking on a handheld device while driving. This new penalty, which also covers infractions like watching a DVD, programming a phone’s GPS, and operating hand-held audio players, is being combined with the $167 fine already in place and is now consistent with the three points and $167 fine currently given to drivers for texting.

This minor collision turned alcohol fuelled road rage incident occurred on May 31, 2008 on Beach Avenue in Vancouver. Enrique Pacheco had stopped his car in the middle of Beach Avenue. A car driven by Tesfay Degife approached from the rear, sounded the horn and drove around the stopped vehicle.

I glanced at the driver stopped beside me at a red light today. He was busily chatting with someone via the cell phone that he was holding to his ear with his right hand. A marked police vehicle pulled up to our right and stopped to wait for the red as well. The driver beside me noticed, put his phone on speaker, held his hand below dash level and kept on with his conversation.

I hear many drivers these days talking amongst themselves how they stay in the fastest lane when the traffic is backed up. To avoid the line they then attempt to merge by getting as close to the lane as possible and to the vehicle in order to intimidate the driver to let them in.

I was walking to my vehicle after work yesterday and watched the woman on the sidewalk ahead of me approach the intersection. She did not hesitate to step into the crosswalk even though a vehicle on her left had stopped halfway across it waiting to enter traffic. The driver was watching intently to her left waiting for a gap in traffic. The pedestrian checked her stride and I thought that she was going to wait for the driver to notice her before she crossed in front of the vehicle.

You may have seen the road rage video on social media lately where a woman doing the speed limit refuses to move out of the left and lane and a man driving a pickup wants by. He eventually passes and then drops back to wave a single digit and yell at the woman. He finally accelerates heavily and gets back into the lane in front of her, losing control and crashing in the median. She stops to laugh at the outcome.

Traffic Calming in my opinion is a good idea on paper but mostly ineffective in reality. Many municipalities are starting Traffic Calming measures however few are successful in achieving what is effective.

This short cartoon from Toyota and TED explains why distracted driving is a bad idea. Our brains really do not multitask, they focus on single tasks and when we try to do more than one thing at a time, break these multiple tasks into single tasks totally focused on for short periods of time.

One of the most common responses that I received having stopped a driver for a traffic violation was a rationalization or justification for the behaviour I observed. The driver clearly knew that what they were doing was against the traffic laws but in their minds they were still being safe. Exceeding the speed limit, slowing down for stop signs, or even driving on the wrong side of the road could be excused because "No one else was around."

This 34 minute documentary on the perils of texting and driving was created by Werner Herzog, an award winning writer, director and producer. According to the documentary description, Xavier, Chandler, Debbie, and Reggie all know the horrors of texting & driving firsthand.