My buddy started a point system to track his road rage. He can think about frustrations, but if he verbalizes anything, he loses points. If he does something nice like let some in his lane, he gains points. His goal is to be in the plus after every car ride.

I think I could do this if I lived in LA, where traffic moves in a civilized way, as I explained after my recent visit. There is no way I can do this in the Lower Mainland of BC. I spent a fair amount of time driving yesterday and the frustrations just grew. Multiple times I put my indicator on to move into a lane that had room for me, and the car behind me in that lane sped up. Multiple times I was in a long turning lane and someone came from the faster flowering lane and jumped in front of me, because I actual leave a safe amount of space in front of me.

The day he told me about this, I was in the car with him and I started swearing because of an idiot driving in front of us. I looked at him after a series of expletives and said, ‘minus eff-ing 3’, and we both laughed.

But it’s actually not funny, it’s embarrassing. Embarrassing for me that I know I can’t play this game because I’d lose far more than I’d win. And embarrassing for Canadians that when it comes to driving we can’t be as civilized and orderly as Americans in one of their biggest cities.

So if you ever see me driving and my lips are moving, I’m probably not singing along to a tune, I’m cussing at the poor driving etiquette of someone who I wish never got their driver’s licence. And you can be confident that if I was keeping score, I’d be in the minus.