I’ve seen some bad snow driving lately. We don’t get much snow in Victoria, and for some reason that causes people to be totally mental when it comes to driving. Driving too fast, too close. Braking and turning hard.

In the past few days I’ve seen no less than 4 vehicles driving with chains. On nearly bare pavement!

I’ve seen people cut each other off. Pull out in front of other drivers causing hard braking.

I’ve seen u-turns in the middle of Oak Bay Ave in front of traffic, and I’ve seen people gun it out of snowy driveways to try and make a break in traffic.

I’ve had people turn into my lane as I was almost passed them, nearly hitting me, yet there was no traffic behind me.

What takes the cake was I saw 2 vehicles, a sedan and a pickup, street racing today while it was snowing hard and the snow was starting to stick to the road. They were going the opposite direction, and by the time they passed me they must have been doing close to 80 KM/H. It was enough to make my truck rock which is only something I feel when highway traffic passes me.

Lunatics!

It’s amazing how quickly a pretty decent day can go downhill.

I had a great day at work, accomplishing more than I had intended. I was in a great mood when I left, the sun was out, and it was warm out. Perfect.

Driving home I approached Douglas and Pandora, and my light was green. I was doing about 40 KM/H through the intersection when some druggy looking idiot and his two pals, walk right out in front of me. They were wanting to cross Pandora and didn’t feel like waiting for the light.

I slammed on the brakes and layed on the horn (out of instinct). Dipshit looks at me and continues walking. As he walks through the next lane I notice he is holding up a bottle of some sort of pills and sort of waving it at the cars in the lane beside me.

The three of them continue on like nothing happened, seemingly stoned out of their minds. Morons.

This put me in a foul mood, and I am still feeling it now.

I rode my bike into work today. I got dressed expecting it to be as chilly as previous mornings, but I got less than a block from home and realized I was over dressed. I unzipped as much as possible, and enjoyed the sunshine on the ride.

Until the morons emerged.

The first dipshit passed me while we were approaching the train underpass right before the blue bridge. It is a 30 km/h zone, and I was actually doing 40km/h. Dipshit passes me, barely gets in front of me, then slowed down. Grrr.

Across the bridge I made my way over to Fort street, went up there and turned right onto Blanshard. I was going to turn left onto Broughton, but there was some traffic so I opted to keep going to the next street. Until dipshit lady came into the picture. She wanted to turn right onto Broughton, so she passed me, slowed down with her right turn signal on, then stopped and looked at me. She was still in the right hand lane of Blanshard.

I hate, hate, hate it when people do this so I stopped, unclipped, and looked back at her, waiting for her to leave the scene. Aargh, why do people do this weird shit?

A perfect day for a ride ruined by dumb drivers.

More morons spotted.

Tuesday Sox was driving me to work. After crossing the blue bridge we could see a taxi double parked dropping someone off. There was no traffic, but as we approached, it pulled out cutting someone off.

Another guy, learning from example, put on his hazard lights and stopped in our lane. Sure enough he wanted to let someone out of his vehicle. As Sox passed she honked at the guy for blocking the lane.

He then honked back a few times at us. Then without turning off his hazard lights he pulled back into traffic, nearly hitting a couple cyclists! Revoked!

Then, on my way home yesterday, I had an advance left turn light. As I was making my turn, I could see a guy in the opposite direction turning right, which happened to be where I was headed. It wasn’t close, but he was looking the wrong direction for traffic. I layed on the horn to scare him, and scared he was. He jammed on the gas and had a very surprised look on his face. Once he was straightened out, he put on his signal and pulled off to the side of the road. It was all I could do to not laugh too hard.

People are weird. I know this, and take it as a common truth.

While riding to Ultimate last night I was reminded of this. I was riding up Bay St, and was reaching Richmond. I wanted to get over into the left turn lane, so I shoulder checked. Since it was clear, I made an arm signal and moved over. At the red light I was behind a VW van. I also held my arm out to show people behind me I was going left.

When the light went green the van took off and I followed. After rounding the corner, I immediately moved over to the bike lane.

A couple seconds later, some guy in a small blue car (a Honda Fit sized car) passed me, and shook his finger at me angrily. Confused I turned up one hand to indicate to him that I didn’t know what he was talking about. He continued shaking his hand at me.

I was confused. I really have no idea what he could think I did wrong. Perhaps I didn’t clear the intersection fast enough? I was in a pretty hard gear and should have been one lower. I know I didn’t cause him to miss the advance left turn. Truly weird. Maybe he thought I shouldn’t have been on his road.

Maybe he is just an ignorant driver. I’ll go with that one. After wagging his disapproving finger at me and continuing on he approached a crosswalk with people waiting to cross. He started to slow down, then let go of the brakes and gunned it around a corner. Smooth move loser.

Driving to work this morning, I witnessed a complete brain-dead move on the part of another motorist.

As I drove up the street from my house I saw a firetruck coming from a couple blocks away. I pulled over to the side of the road, with my turn signal on, and waited. A mini van coming the opposite direction didn’t see it for a while, and when they stopped, they were on the opposite side of the road from me.

The problem is that the road is not that wide, and firetrucks are. Firetrucks are big. Firetrucks move fast. Nimrod didn’t think about the fact that he just constricted the road for a big, fast moving emergency vehicle.

Shaking my head I moved my truck forward so there was more than enough room for the firetruck.

Revoked!

To The Dipshit in the Nissan Sentra yesterday morning:

Hey, you set a great example for your family while driving. Remember the construction zone downtown on Johnson near Douglas? Well, the lane I was in was closed and I was merging over. That is why my truck was headed for your lane, AND I had my turn signal on to indicate this. I thought it seemed pretty obvious I was on my way to the left lane.

I suppose you thought otherwise and this is why you continued to advance, almost hitting my truck, then honked at me. WTF dude? Try paying attention and respecting the rules of the road. I don’t care if you are in a big hurry (as evidenced by the rest of your drive to Oak Bay), you don’t have the right to be a jerk.

I know some people think I provoke or attract bad drivers to me. I don’t think that is it, but maybe I am just less tolerant of stupid and bad driving than most? Maybe I pay more attention than most? I don’t know, but this week I saw some yet more Morons while driving.

The first set of incidents were the red light runners. Through multiple red lights along the way home I saw people obviously running them. The worst was when I was making a left turn. I was in the intersection as the light turned yellow. The oncoming car turned right, and as I was about to make my turn, the car behind him went through the intersection. I avoided them, and honked at them with displeasure. Pay attention people! It’s not that hard.

Downtown I saw someone make an illegal turn onto a one way street, and ended up going the wrong way on that street.

The last Moron of the week was just yesterday. There was a Sonoma driving, just ahead of me, in the lane to my right. As we were driving along, nimrod suddenly hits the brakes, flicks on his blinker, moves over to me lane (causing me to brake hard), then half pulls off the road, but half bocks my lane. This was right downtown in the middle of rush hour. He stopped. I honked at him, then had to pull around him.

I had to go downtown today at lunch to get something from my old workplace. I found a parking spot on a one way street that I wanted, so I pulled to the side with my blinker on, and put my truck into reverse. There was a car coming, but he was half a block away.

Some clueless pea brain then pulls right up on my bumper and waits for me move. Hmm. I know that when I drive, and I see someone with their reverse lights on, their blinker on, and they are next to an empty parking spot, I assume thay are going to park in that spot. Pea brain didn’t. It turned into a waiting game which I eventually won! Dim bulb backed up enough so that when I went to park, I had about 6 inches to spare on either side of my vehicle.

Of course I screwed up and bumped the curb. I paused for a bit for traffic to pass, but this numbskull was just sitting there. I waved him past me, and sloooowly he inched past. Aaargh.

Is it really that hard to be aware of what people are doing around you while you drive? Shouldn’t we all be trying to anticipate what people will and will not do? Is common sense and courtesy really dead? Just think while you are behind the wheel. It’s not that difficult.