Tag Archives: driving

Traffic flow

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I’ve had a couple days of long highway drives in Los Angeles and despite significantly more traffic than in Vancouver or Toronto, I have to say that traffic here flows very well. Two things make the flow here unique compared to what I see in Canada. First of all, highway speed limits here are more of a suggestion than a limit. When the traffic opens up the speed goes up. Tonight, at one point I was going in excess of the speed limit and for about 10 minutes and many cars passed me, while I didn’t catch up or pass any. Even when traffic is heavy it seems every lane will travel at speeds seldom seen on highways I’m used to driving on back home.

Another thing that works far better here are lane changes. There seems to be an acceptance of lane changes here that is far more polite and efficient compared to anywhere else I’ve driven. I’ve seen, and in one case actually been, a car needing to cross 2 lanes to get to an exit in heavy traffic, and with indicators on, cars make way for the move.

In Vancouver, that would be responded to in two very different ways. First of all, there would be an angry horn blast and/or the person in the lanes you are trying to get into would speed up to squeeze you out of the lane change. Here, I have seen countless lane changes with neither horn beep nor accelerated blocking.

After hearing about the driving here, and stories of road rage in LA, I’d say, ‘Don’t believe the hype’! The reality is that I’d rather drive here than on any busy highway in Canada. Maybe I’m just in the honeymoon stage and living here would be different, but my sister has been here for 20 years and she’s often told me this is the case. Sounds a bit weird to say, but Vancouver and Toronto drivers could learn a thing or two from spending a little time in LA traffic.

In Transit

Sometimes there are trips inside of trips, and that was the case for me these past 12 days. I returned my rental car earlier today. I drove just over 1,800 kilometres while visiting my mom in Oakville, Ontario. Even if you consider that I averaged 100 kilometres per hour, which I didn’t, that would mean that on my 12 day trip I spent 18 hours driving.

Basically a full (awake) day of my holiday was in a car, and most of that time I was alone… Well not really alone, but in the good company of an audio book or conversational podcast. Still, that’s a lot of time (and distance) to spend travelling in a car while travelling away from home.

How much time do we spend in transition, going from one place to the next? I started writing this at the airport in Toronto, wrote the next bit on the plane over western Canada, and am now finishing it on my couch in Coquitlam, BC. With driving, flying, and wait time, I spent 10+ hours today in transit. So much of our vacations are spent in transit, it’s a bit of a reminder that we are always on a journey.

Double dipping

Had 2 long drives today, the first one was 2.5 hours and the second one was 1.5 hours. Of the 4 hours, about 45 minutes was spent on the phone to my sister, and most of the rest of the time I was listening to a book. I love solo drives now that I mostly listen to books rather than reading them. The road becomes an endless stretch before me, and time drifts away as I listen… my only interruption being Siri’s voice occasionally giving me commands from Google Maps.

I love to double dip and both enjoy a drive and also enjoy listening to a book at the same time. The drive becomes a pleasure rather than a chore, and the kilometres disappear… time passing faster because of my involvement in my book.

Now I’m where I need to be, and the journey was both effortless and enjoyable.

Aware of blame

Today I was driving and I missed a light because the person in front of me was too slow to follow traffic speed. I yelled a profanity or two as I watched the yellow light turn red and the car before me finally crossed the line into the intersection. 6-7 minutes later, and one light from my turn-off the car in front of me was driving the speed of molasses on a cold day, and while cars in the left lane sped through the light, I was left yelling profanities yet again, while me and the slow poke in front of me slowed and stopped in our lane… while the light hadn’t quite switched to red from yellow yet.

It took this second over-the-top-loud-yelling-in-a-car-just-to-myself swearing of profanities to make me realize that I wasn’t that upset at the other drivers. No, I have been suffering back pain for two solid weeks and this is what was really getting to me.

It wasn’t bad driving, it was a bad back. Neither traffic event warranted my overreaction. Both were minor inconveniences rather than major affronts to common sense or to me personally.

It makes me wonder:

How often do we discount how much our mood can affect our reaction to events?

In this case I made a proverbial mountain out of a couple mole hills. And recognizing where the blame lay allowed me to rebalance myself so that I didn’t continue doing this for the rest of the day.

Snow dump

It amazes me how a big snowfall can shut down the Vancouver Lower Mainland. My parents were visiting and returning to Toronto last night, and while many flights were cancelled, theirs was just delayed an hour. That meant that last night after shovelling my driveway for an hour I got to sit in traffic all the way to the airport and back.

I saw cars parked sideways, stuck on medians, and stuck on hills. I was detoured by a fireman then followed a set of cars into an alley that was too steep for the car 3 ahead of me and had to reverse into another snow-filled alley. And I also ended up waiting 6 lights to turn left at an intersection on the way home.

It’s not like the weather was unexpected, yet it seems local drivers were caught unprepared. It happens at least once every year here. This region never seems prepared for large volumes of snow. Drivers seem to think they are better in the snow than they are, and people get stranded and cause major delays. It’s a winter ritual, and while I usually avoid most of it, being fortunate to live very close to my work, last night I got to see the chaos of ill-equipped cars without snow tires, and ill-experienced drivers without common sense first hand.

Hopefully most of the roads are clear this morning, and people take it easy on their way to work and schools. Be safe out there!

Let’s be careful out there

For the last couple days the roads have been snowy, icy, and very slippery. My advice to my kids regarding driving in snow is to go slower than they think they need to, and leave more room than they think they need to. With both kids, part of teaching then to drive was having them feel the vibration of ABS breaks, because if you don’t know what that feels like, the initial response to the feeling could be to release the breaks because something feels wrong.

I grew up in a pre-ABS era and was taught to pump the breaks in a slide on ice. The first time I was in a car with ABS breaks, I still pumped when I felt a side, and a friend in the car asked me, “Why are you doing that? The car does it better and faster than you.”

Our city is hilly, and I’ve seen a lot of people skidding and sliding over the past couple days. Most slides that I’ve seen have been little fish tails as people pull out of driveways and make turns. My wife was heading up the big hill to her school yesterday and the person in front was actually going too slow, which can be a problem going up hill, but more likely to get stuck than the idiots who feel their tires slipping and stepping on the gas.

I learned to drive in the snow in Toronto, with some fierce winter weather. My wife grew up in Nelson,BC, where it snows many feet more per year than the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Living here now, we can see the struggles of drivers who have little experience in the snow. It can be a challenging thing when you have experience, much less when you don’t.

So, no matter your skill, caution is probably better than confidence… and today is supposed to be pretty bad out, so be careful out there!

Can you drive me home?

I don’t pretend to be a perfect dad, but let me tell you one thing that I do that I’m pretty sure I’ve got right. Whenever one of my kids asks me to pick them up at the end of the night, my default answer is always ‘yes’.

My oldest shared this with me one night when I picked her and three friends up from a club… We just dropped the 3rd one home and my oldest said about the kids me we dropped off second, “You know what she said to me before you picked us up? She said, ‘I think you dad actually likes dropping us home’.” We had a good chuckle.

Yes, I do.

I want to be asked. I want to know they are getting home safe. I want them to plan ahead and ask me. I want them to know that I’m the backup if things don’t go as planned.

The fact is if I’m part of the plan, I know the plan is good. I know they aren’t driving with a designated driver that still had drinks, or left the party early. I know that my kids will call me if they feel stuck, or uncomfortable, or decide to leave before the person driving.

And I want them to know that I’m not rolling my eyes, or judging them, or doing it begrudgingly. As they get older, they aren’t going to come to you for the big things if they don’t feel like they can come to you for smaller things… And playing chauffeur for them every now and then in their late teens and early 20’s isn’t half the work that being chauffeur to sports and dance and musical theatre and singing lessons were when they were younger.

“Hey Dad, can you drive me and a couple friends home at midnight tonight?”

“Of course.”

Be careful out there

If you want a lesson on overconfidence you need not look farther than Vancouver Lower Mainland drivers in the snow: Speeding, tires spinning, cars fishtailing, passengers pushing… and parked cars stuck on angles or with hazards flashing. A good snowstorm out here means mayhem on the streets.

However, if you ask people if they are a good at driving in the snow, probably 85% will say better than average, and at least half would say they are better than most. Do the math, that’s a lot of cocky, overconfident people! This reminds me of the ‪Dunning-Kruger effect:‬

‪In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.‬ (Wikipedia)

I’m not a perfect driver by any means, but in snow I slow down, I might gear down, and I look around… I’m far more aware of other drivers around me. I’ve hit black ice before, and for those that have never experienced this, it’s scary at any speed. It’s a humbling experience driving a car that you have no control over. It wakes you up to the potential danger.

Today I share a caution. Slow down! Be cautious. Be defensive. A few years ago I lost a dear friend, (who was the safest driver I knew growing up), to a snowstorm accident.

Be careful out there!