Morons in our Midst

The ride to work today was a normal ride. It was quite cloudy out, and since all my gear got soaked last night, I had to wear my riding pants.

Some time in the afternoon the sun came out and it warmed up a little. The ride home was actually quite pleasant, but I was on the verge of overheating.

Unfortunately I came across a few morons.

The first was a near car collision as I was about to get on the bridge. I saw an older mercedes approaching the yield sign, but it showed no signs of slowing down. I slowed down but the car in front of me didn't really slow down. The Mercedes cut in front of the car in front of me then suddenly hit the brakes and stopped. All traffic was stopped and I had to jam on the brakes to avoid running in to the cars. Watch what you are doing people.

The next moron was right as I neared Tyee while riding up Esquimalt Ave. It is a decent hill, and this douche guns it to get past me with his right turn signal on. This guy wasn't paying attention though. I saw it before he did, but the right turn lane was full since the cross traffic had the right of way. The gunner had to slam on the brakes and just managed to not rear end a porsche. This meant he was blocking my way up Esquimalt Ave. I gave him the thumbs up as I rode by slowly.

The last idiot was a real dork. As I was climbing the final hill near my home a guy in a minivan passes me then honked at me. Quickly he made a right turn in front of me, not using his right turn signal. Nice maneuver. Why the honk though? Don't do that.

Yesterday it was a cold and rainy day. I had to work, so it wasn't a total loss.

On my way home I was leery of other drivers (like normal really). I had passed a Mercedes doing 45 in the 50 zone along Esquimalt Ave.

As I approached Catherine St, I saw a Volvo come down Catherine to turn right onto Esquimalt (the same direction and lane I was in). The Volvo had a red light, and they stopped, but as I got close to the intersection, they suddenly started pulling out.

Suddenly this Volvo was halfway into my lane. I reacted instantly by hitting the horn, cranking the wheel in an emergency maneuver, and slamming on the brakes. Instinct. I felt the truck's front wheels skid a bit with the hard turn.

I suddenly remembered that Mercedes and glanced in the rearview and was lucky to see it far enough behind me that I wasn't going to sideswipe it. I recovered enough to end up in my lane, but my legs and arms were pretty jittery.

I couldn't believe how close it was. Why do I attract the morons?

This is a sad story I came across a while ago. The gist of the story is that some parents are concerned that so many cars are speeding through school zones that they essentially have to deal with the problem themselves. They are going to drive pace cars through schools zones, and these pace cars will stick to the speed limit.

It is disheartening that it has to come to this. Why can't people just chill a little bit. Speeding through a school zone is stupid, dangerous, and won't save any noticeable time on the commute. Try waking up 10 minutes earlier. Try taking a different route. Try relaxing. It is up to the driver to get out the door on time if there is a place you need to be at a certain time.

I know that kids and other circumstances can throw a hige wrench in to your plans, and that sometimes being late is not an option, but a school zone is no place for dangerous driving.

I think pace cars are an an ingenious solution to a rather bad problem.

One of the exciting moments (Yoshi puking in the truck doesn't count) during the Ikea trip came on the drive back to the ferry. I narrowly avoided colliding with another car at high speed in the rain. The near miss gave such an adrenaline kick that I needed to pull over and let the muscle tremors wear off.

What happened was some idiot cut us off. Said idiot had cut me off once before when he merged onto the highway right before the Massey tunnel. For the first incident he was in the right lane, and just moved into my lane without checking. I layed on the horn while slamming on the brakes. That was no big deal.

After the tunnel highway 99 exits onto highway 17 which takes you to Tsawwassen. Jerko was in the right hand lane of the 2 exits lane. It is raining quite hard and as we take the exit and round the corner he starts to drift toward my lane.

I was keeping an eye on him from the first incident to avoid him. Slowly he moved back to his lane. Partway around the exit ramp a left turn lane opens to go North on 17. Dipshit then decides he wants to go left and crosses my lane to get over to the left turn lane.

Our vehicle bumpers were definitely overlapping. Instantaneously I was on the brakes, on the horn, and cranking the wheel to avoud hitting him. All I could see was the front right corner of my truck aiming for the left rear wheel. Somehow I avoided him, and I was lucky there was noone to my left.

The other driver continued on like nothing happened, but I had to pull over to regain my composure. It was way closer that I am comfortable with. I estimate that I was within a couple feet of his car, but Sox felt I was closer. Either way, I was proud of my situational awareness, my reaction, and my defensive driving.

I do wish there was a way to report drivers like that. Maybe there is, but I don't know it, and I certainly didn't write down the other guys plate number.

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!