Still Driving

Yes CJ, its storey time with Gerry again.

And now, back to the regularly scheduled victims, Torontonians. Toronto drivers are, for the most part, extremely frustrating in their lack of attention. I remember stories on the news of commuters on the DVP getting into fender-benders as they were reading the newspaper. I have personally seen drivers reading a book in crawling traffic. I can just imagine today (I left Ontario in 2002), with the profusion of texting and e-mailing, how much more dangerous it would be.

Driver memory in Toronto is very sketchy & scary. When the first winter storm hits, people have usually forgotten how to drive in snow. You end up with lots of headlights pointing at you from the ditch. Once they remember, you get odd disconnects. I have been stuck in crawling traffic in a gentle drizzle, and 2 days later, the 401 is bombing along at 120 through a snow storm. And then 6 months later, the complete reverse; crawling through a gentle snowfall, and barreling along above 100 in driving rain.

And finally, the use of horns. Torontonians love their horns. I think this is an indication of a short fuse, and leads to the some of displays of rage I have seen. I have seen wronged drivers (in their worlds) race down residential streets after someone who had the temerity to pass them on the highway, just so they can wave at them. It can be a scary city to drive in.

Next on my Cross Canada sojourn was Calgary, followed by Edmonton. On pain of being disallowed to re-enter either city, I will lump Albertans together. Albertans like big; they think they’re Texans on a number of levels. Pick-me-up trucks are rampant; mostly oversized, with supercharged engines, and king-cabs. For the gentry, there is the SUV. The bigger the truck, the smaller the…. Wait a second, my mom reads this.

Albertans love to drive fast. Unlike Québecers, the fast is alone; it does not get appended with well. Fortunately, the highways of Alberta do not have the volume of Québec, Ontario, or BC. QE II highway (formerly Highway 2), between Edmonton & Calgary, is usually wide open for traffic, and people routinely do 130 K/H on a road whose limit is 110. I have seen people doing 125 and getting waved at from others wanting to go faster.

Once again, with my personal safety as a concern, I will state that of all the provinces, Albertans are too often the lamb being led to slaughter. Too often I have heard Calagarians whine about the Deadfoot (Dearfoot), or Edmontonians bitch about the Whitemud, without them being the least bit interested in finding another route. Perhaps their concern is that without taking either crawling freeway, they couldn’t complain about it. I know dozens of ways to traverse Toronto without using the dreaded 401. And I have learned many alternate routes through Calgary & Edmonton.

I will take one last shot at Edmonton, and their road planning (or lack thereof). The Whitemud freeway has level intersections with traffic lights. Yes that is correct; a freeway with traffic lights. They liked this idea so much, they have recreated it for the Anthony Henday. This is the new ring road. It also has level/light controlled intersections. The real head-shaker comes when you look to the side at these intersections and see they have built up the earth in preparation for overpasses. The reason they did not build the overpasses initially? It would have been too expensive, so they will build them later. Trying to reason this out makes my head sore.

I really do have to complement Albertans on their winter driving skills. I have seen none better. Mind you, I have never driven in Saskatchewan. The winters in Edmonton are, as I have stated in a previous blog, colder than anywhere else I have lived. When they start talking about wind chills in the -50’s, you would think it would keep people off the road, but not so. Obviously, the abattoir is open daily.

This has turned into a 3-part submission on driving, so I will close with BC on my next post. I hope I can get BC into 1 post.

Cheers folks!