For almost a decade I lived along one of the BC roads featured in the reality show “Highway through Hell”, and it seems they need to switch their filming location and focus on the roads and drivers of this otherwise wonderfully enjoyable city. Here are some tips for you select loco local drivers from a west coaster who has regularly driven through hell’s highway.
1. Buy winter tires even if it isn’t mandatory. I tried to rent a car my last visit and was shocked that only one company offered them at an additional charge because it ‘wasn’t mandatory’. Does it really take a law, a costly accident or worse, a life, for winter tires to be obvious in this weather? Be responsible and get them on your vehicle in early October.
2. Drive relative to the weather conditions. Heavy rain? Slow down, leave extra space and use your headlights. Snow or icy conditions? Slow down, leave extra space and use your headlights. Heavy fog? You get the picture.
3. Don’t drive. Plan ahead! Read the weather report and when it looks to be bad top up with groceries, fuel your vehicle and stay at home until the roads are safer. Mid blizzard is not the time to run out of TP.
4. Don’t act so surprised. You live in Halifax. It is winter. It’s the season that comes between autumn and spring every year. Every single one. Since… the land bridge from Asia. It predates any human settlement in the area by thousands of years. This literally has happened every year for all of local human history. Figure this shit out already.
5. Finally, if all else fails, give up your licence or move somewhere else and leave the roads safe for others who know how to drive. If you are an ignorant, unprepared and oblivious winter driver you could easily kill yourself or someone innocent. Don’t be that ultimate of an asshole. —Cant Risk Another Scary Haligonian
This article appears in Dec 26, 2013 – Jan 1, 2014.
It won’t take long for someone to tell you to fuck off back West, not me, I agree with your suggestions.
TESTIFY!; brotha or sista!
I’d like to add that IF you’re someone who is a nervous driver especially in snow, leave your car where it is and get a cab; at least have a plan B.
I think the past few winters have made people start to believe in global warming, and that “We don’t get snow anymore in NS”
and what makes this idiocy unique to halifax??? all your suggestions should be followed anywhere, and these poor driving habits are not limited to halifax or hrm.
1 inch of snow shuts down vancouver and the entire lower mainland. skytrain shuts down leaving thousands stranded. buses stop. many people in vancouver don’t even own snow boots, although given the winters of the past 20 years should have gotten the message already that it snows a lot there every year plus freezes in place for 2 weeks.
i worked in kits and lived in langley, a 45-60 minute drive in usual traffic (25 minutes at 3am ahaha!) when it snowed on valentines day one year. it took me 5 1/2 hours to get home. police cars were sideways (no snow tires – no snow knowledge) cars every which way across the road, stopped dead, people weeping in their cars unable to figure out that gunning the motor or slamming the brakes makes it worse. i had to drive like a slalom.
comparing the hope-princeton/coq hwy area to halifax is not valid. halifax weather is more similar to vancouvers, which is why i made that comparison. hope-princeton/coq is comparable to the cape breton highlands. 20 feet of snow, sheer drop offs and all that. not just snow tires, chains b’god!
every place has idiot drivers. my clients in calgary complain daily about idiot drivers there who drive too fast for conditions, don’t use snow tires, don’t use their blinkers, slide through stop signs, don’t know how to work a 4 way intersection, and on and on. calgary is another area of changeable weather.
the one thing i have noticed about hrm drivers that seems to be more prevalent here than anywhere else i have lived is the widespread habit of driving on or over the yellow line. i believe when two of them meet up and can’t swerve quickly enough, you get a head on collision. and the report says ‘drifted into the oncoming lane’. i don’t believe anyone drifted, i bet they drove like that all the time, and their blind luck finally ran out. it is completely avoidable, and a damn shame.
WHAT IS THE REAL MESSAGE HERE?
“Don’t be that ultimate of an asshole.” Can’t Risk Another Scary Haligonian
Superficially the poster has posted a list of po-faced recommendations for winter driving. Surely this cannot be his real message. Then a subtext of his message is that he wants us all to know that he lives in British Columbia, something in respect to which he is proud and we should envy.
But I think the real if unintended message is his lack of proper grammar. Is an “of” necessary in the quoted sentence here? I don’t think so!
New Avatar Alert!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I’m baffled that you’re baffled BC
Screw other people…
I just don’t want to risk my car.
In bad weather, I don’t even bother trying to drive…
and in weather that shuts down Metro Transit, well,
If people who get paid to drive for a living shouldn’t be driving than fuck that noise.
I’m staying put.
We have some of the worst drivers I’ve seen. Canada’s Worst Driver did a study and released the results on one of their shows last year that Nova Scotia is the most dangerous place to drive in Canada.
I agree with OP. For some reason people have lived here for 20+ years and still don’t know how to drive in the winter!!!!.. In fact in any weather. If you’re afraid to drive, just stop driving!!!!
I for one love driving in snowstorms/blizzards and have been driving in them for over 30 years.
OB , if you lived way out here in the boonies , you’d see that winter roads have a way of shedding the idiots off them …or that’s what I consider is going on from all the cars i see in the ditch.
But even though I own a 4 wheel drive full sized truck c/w new studded winter tires . That last storm that hit us , came with LOT’s of Warning …so I stayed home & except to go out to my woodpile for another arm full of firewood. I spent a warm day snug & fairly safe in my home.
PS- its days like that which makes me feel bad for the people on the streets aka homeless, as opposed to those who make a conscious decision to place themselves at risk.
Randomness, in the eight season that Canada’s Worst Driver has been on, only one person from Nova Scotia and she was from Cape Breton.
And… fuck off back West!
Dykab Wallace Love tiy
we could go splits on one of these http://previewcf.turbosquid.com/Preview/20…
So.. those of you who “hate drivers” as a rule do not hate them as much as people who aren’t from halifax. Study complete. Results: as predicted.
Per 100,000 Population 2009
Fatalities
Canada 6.6
N.L. 6.3
P.E.I. 8.5
N.S. 7.7
N.B. 8.8
Que. 6.6
Ont. 4.1
Man. 7.1
Sask. 14.7
Alta. 9.6
B.C. 8.4
Y.T. 20.8
N.W.T. 11.4
Nvt. 6.2
here’s the link. http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety…