Nova Scotia, I’m quite fond of you, but we need to talk about your driving habits.
Let’s start with the tailgating. You should always keep at least a two-second following distance in the best circumstances, more in adverse circumstances. Some adverse circumstances are environmental (like bad weather or fog), some are mechanical (like balding tires, older brakes, larger and heavier vehicles that take longer to come to a stop), and some are driver related (you are tired, prone to road rage, impaired due to substances or age, inexperienced, over-confident, distracted by a phone, distracted by having a lot of other stuff going on in your life, whatever). Now, I know that you know how to tell distances in terms of time— know you can deal with “it’s a 15 minute drive from here”, for example. And I know you can count “one one hundred two one hundred” to estimate how long two seconds is. So put them together: Choose a point along the side of the road to count out the time between when the car ahead of you passes it and when you pass it, to check that you have a safe following distance. And stop tailgating.
Yeah, inevitable dude in an expensive black car (or the occasional dark blue station wagon) who NEEDS to go at least 20 over the speed limit getting on to the 102 outbound on Monday mornings, this applies to you too. You may be an exception ass, but the rules of the road and the rules of physics still apply to you.
—If you’re that impatient even with me going 10 over, maybe you have a problem
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2018.
Good post! I think tailgating on the highway should be treated as road rage by the law. I usually set my cruise on the speed limit. Often when I pull into the passing lane to go by a slow moving vehicle someone comes screaming up behind me at 130 to 140km and sits right on my back bumper until I get by the slow vehicle and pull back into the right lane. I’m not going to break the speed limit just because someone is too impatient to wait 10 seconds until I am “out of the way” and thinks they can somehow bully me into speeding. .
My other pet peeve is lane jumpers. The other day while driving in town a gal in a big SUV came tearing up behind me, zipped into the right lane, passed me, zipped back into the left lane and then stopped at the next light just in front of me. Lane changes are major causes of accidents on city streets. Was it really worth it to be speeding and make two lane changes just so she could be one car ahead at the next light?
Tailgaters can suck my exhaust pipe. I just flip on the cruise control at the posted speed limit just to watch them fume & spaz over not being able to drive over my vehicle. Tough shit, get over your stompy-stompy lead foot, I ain’t budging.
And you lane-changing arseholes who don’t use signal lights. No one can read your fool mind so here’s hoping you get an arse full of fenders.
Don’t even get me started on the morons who refuse to drive for conditions.
Having lived and been in and across Canadian cities they are by far the biggest rule breakers and uneducated to the rules of the road than anyone. Simple yield sings become merges and of course this causes accidents. Stop signs in most cases are suggestions. Four way stops are as dangerous as can be and cross walks are the least respected painted safe zones on the road.
Bluenosers are so bad at driving they have no idea they are bad at driving. The anger and disdain for a driver who lets someone into a long lineup is just as scorned as someone who truly does something bad. It makes no sense and EVERY SINGLE day I see an accident from someone rear ending someone else. It is simply astounding. I am the most defensive I have ever been because accidents are a mobile phone text away from happening right in front of me.
PS- I was conducting traffic after a pedestrian and car accident this past week on Baker Drive and there were drivers (several) trying to weave their way through the fallen young man and the truck that was involved in the accident!! I literally had to yell at cars to stop and go the safe and proper way. I had my safety vest on and I am well over 6ft tall so I was easy to see waving my arms but the ignorant drivers forged ahead causing more and more tension at the site of the accident.