Your Driving is Dangerous to My Health

What is it that turns seemingly normal people into brainless boors when they sit themselves down in a moving mass of some 3,000+ pounds of fibreglass, rubber, plastic and (a little) metal known as a vehicle?

I live in Manitoba, Canada. We get winter - for several months every year and, more often than not, winter comes with snow which turns our streets and highways into skating rinks. Actually, try and picture a demolition derby on ice.

But put most anybody behind the wheel of a car and they act like they've just polished off a 40 of Five Star and gotten tasered for their efforts. But Manitoba drivers live by four simple beliefs each and everytime the get on the road.

Number one - they continue to drive at least 10 km/hour (6 mph) over the speed limit. These speed limits were designed with ideal driving conditions in mind. With the shape of our driving surfaces here, we never have ideal driving conditions even when the weather is perfect. Afghanistan has better roads. And the Manitoba government in all its wisdom is going to raise the speed limits on selected four-lane roads to 110 kmh (65 mph) because our neighbours (who have real roadways) are doing it. Yikes!

Number two - who needs to see? Why bother clearing the snow off the side or back windows? I'm driving an SUV and I can get through everything. And if I do hit something, it'll likely be smaller and the people riding in it will get hurt worse than me. Many people here think clearing the snow and ice from their cars means running the wiper off the front window. Great for the peripheral vision...

Number three - those signs aren't directed at me. Just the other day I had the misfortune of driving down one of our major two-lane highways just outside of Winnipeg. It was so foggy you could not see three car-lengths ahead but this young man in his Chevy Econobox pulls out to pass across a double-solid line. Guess he did not see the No Passing sign. Manitobans also can't interpret the signs with symbols indicating No Right Turn, No Left Turn, etc.

Number four - so what's this little lever on my steering column for? People here haven't learned to signal. There is nothing worse than getting ther green light and the person in front of you waits there almost until the light turns orange to make the left. It's like they're in the Bourne Identity and they don't want give any hints about where they're going to the people chasing them.

The Bourne Identity was shot partly in Paris. I've been there in traffic and they don't signal because they barely have time to take a breath while driving. Cabbies refer to motorcyclists in Paris as 'future organ donors' because of the traffic chaos with high speeds and poorly marked lanes. Montreal is almost as bad - their unofficial motto is 'if you don't like how we drive stay off the sidewalk.' And in New York people park by touch. London is sane, compared to those places, in spite of the reverse traffic flow.

Winnipeg has no excuse. We are not a big city. We're not even Calgary where there are more vehicles than people. There is no need to hurry here. Be like the weather and chill...