Brake Wear

Red traffic lights will never become a lesser shade of red by hitting your brakes at the last second and coming to a screeching halt, nor will a stop sign be knocked off its post by the air concussion your car might create by a last moment stop.  All you are doing is increasing the heart rates among the drivers who have the right of way as you streak like a rocket sled to the stop line.  Furthermore, you are wasting money, not just by maintaining a gas guzzling high speed when inappropriate, but also by needlessly wearing down your brake pads.

Ken’s one of my fellow bus drivers, in fact, he trained me.  (I remember the glee on his face when he strapped another trainee and myself into wheelchairs then took our bus for a spin over as many curbs and bumps as he could put in his path to stress to us how we need to modify our driving habits when we have disabled passengers on board.  Ken had great fun that day.)  He recently told me, after just picking his van up from the shop, he still had the original brake pads on the vehicle after 180,000 kilometers, and they’d only been worn down 40%.  Ken’s lesson is that the better you drive, the less of your money you will have to give to mechanics.

Driving properly in this context means anticipating stops, which isn’t exactly rocket science.  A line of cars ahead of you with their brake lights on as they wait for a light to turn green is a pretty good indication that you can take your foot off the gas, coast, downshift, or in plain English, slow the hell down.  Being a cheap bastard at heart, I’m particularly fond of the game where I’ve managed to approach a red light solely by downshifting.  Points are awarded in the form of unused ounces of fuel and the grand prize is a postponed trip to the gas station.  This is what you see the big semis doing when confronted by a light.  Ideally they’ll still be coasting when the light turns green.

Of course if you have to brake quickly, then stomp on the mother.  A single collision will instantly negate all the bonus points you’ve amassed by stopping gradually.  Anticipating stops also means allowing for the unanticipated. You should always obey the Two-Second Rule which ensures you will have enough space to safely stop if the vehicle in front of you comes to a quick halt.  And remember, the only time the Two-Second Rule is ever ignored is when it becomes the Three or Four-Second Rule due to poor driving conditions.

Residential Areas

Driving like a dick is a major annoyance to one and all wherever it’s done, but nowhere does a dick driver risk being torn to pieces by an angry mob more so than in a residential area.

People see the road outside their homes as an extension of their front lawns. Their very own cars are parked on it, their kids chase badly thrown balls onto it, and their cats cross it to get illicit snacks from the kindly old lady yonder.  The sounds of squealing tires, an engine barking without a muffler or bass woofers thumping load enough to register on distant seismic equipment will be perceived by a homeowner in much the same way as if you’ve thrown a bowling ball through his or her living room window.  Whenever you are driving through somebody’s neighbourhood, remember that it matters a great deal to the people in the houses you’re passing, and they feel as if you are temporarily borrowing their road.  Bad guests can get a bad beating.

 

Coasting

1. What you should be doing at work when your boss is an unappreciative sadistic despot.

2.  What you should be doing when you are approaching a red light or stop sign.  Otherwise you are foolishly wasting fuel and brake pads and this will translate  into more hours of your one and only life under the thumb of your unappreciative sadistic despot of a boss.

 

Traffic Lights

You’ve probably had these memorized since you were five, but here’s a quick review.

Red:  Stop at the stop line or before the intersection until the light turns green (or wait for a break in traffic if making a left-turn).  Red is the colour that will pour out of your body in great spumes if you ignore this light.

 

Flashing Red:  Consider a flashing red light to be the same as a stop sign.  If the lights are flashing red in every direction, you negotiate the intersection as if it were a four-way stop.

 

Green:  Green means go, but it never means go without checking to make sure the vehicles with the red light are actually stopped.

 

Flashing Green:  This is an advanced light meaning oncoming traffic is stopped and you are clear to make a left-hand turn.  Usually the green light is in the form of a flashing green arrow.

 

Solid Green Arrow:  This allows you to follow the direction of the arrow without stopping either into a turn or into a free-flow lane.

 

Amber:  This means a red light is imminent so get out of the intersection if you do not have time to stop.  It does not mean double your speed to ensure you won’t be stopped by the red light.

 

Flashing Amber:  This is a generic indicator that you need to exercise caution for any number of reasons:

 

-  You are about to encounter an inordinately busy intersection.

-  Service crews are working on the road.

-  There is a sharp turn in the road.

-  A pedestrian is using a crosswalk.

-  Visibility may be poor due to forest fires.

 

In other words, a flashing yellow light can herald any situation requiring you to be more alert than usual.

 

Walk Lights:  Never turn at an intersection when pedestrians are crossing regardless of what the walk sign says.  What you perceive to be a jaywalker may simply be a slow walker who got onto the crosswalk seconds before the Don’t Walk hand began to flash.  Regardless, vigilantism in the form of mowing down jaywalkers with your vehicle has yet to be encouraged by a court of law.

 

The major benefit the Walk Lights offer to a driver is when the Don’t Walk light begins to flash.  It usually means a green light will soon be turning to amber and you shouldn’t be surprised if you have to come to a stop.

 

Witnesses

A person’s sense of right and wrong can often be among the damage in a collision.  A friend of mine once pulled over to assist a woman — hereafter referred to as Inferno Bound Devil Bitch — whose car had skidded off the road and into a snow bank.  A third car rear-ended my friend’s car which sent it careening into the back of Inferno Bound Devil Bitch’s car pushing it deeper into the snow bank after knocking off its bumper.  Inferno Bound Devil Bitch later told her insurance company that my friend had rear-ended her, which caused her to lose control and hit the snow bank in the first place.  Burn Inferno Bound Devil Bitch, burn!

Insurance companies themselves are partially to blame for these all too common cases of moral anemia.  “Never admit fault” is the insurance company’s first directive to a client reporting a collision; and this is often interpreted to mean, “do everything you can to pin the blame on anyone but yourself.”

The only way you can guarantee that nobody will be able to falsely accuse you of being responsible for a collision is to have witnesses.  Often people will volunteer.   I was once hit by a woman who failed to notice I was already driving in the lane she wanted to switch to.  The driver of a truck following me immediately pulled over and gave me his business card in case I needed a witness, and a pedestrian also provided her name and number.

If the other driver(s) involved in the collision see you getting contact information from a witness or two, they are probably never going to attempt any wild accusations to begin with.  If no one steps forward, ask anyone who was at the scene.  In rare cases when nobody stops, jot down a license plate number.

 

Hypermiling

In 1941 American military folks were shocked when a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor U.S. bases in the Philippines were also bombed.  The Japanese aircraft carriers were all near Hawaii, so how did land-based aircraft manage to travel so far?  By carefully flying at just over stalling speed the Japanese planes were able to conserve fuel and extend their range by several hundred miles.

Modern examples of hypermiling are almost as dangerous.  Tail-gating a tractor trailer to take advantage of its slipstream has a number of potentially disastrous drawbacks including getting a lug wrench upside the head if the trucker gets his hands on you at the next rest stop. Crawling along at a fraction of the speed limit is also inviting disaster and can get you ticketed as readily as if you’re speeding.  There’s no wisdom in saving money on gas if in the process you’re accumulating traffic fines.  Or incurring wrathful beatings.

The basic principal underlining hypermiling is sound:  fuel consumption is dramatically effected by the habits of the driver.  Moreover, most of these habits, when not taken to extremes, will also make you a safer driver.

 

High Beams

Your brights are designed to extend your range of vision when you are driving on a highway in the nighttime.  You are expected to dim your lights – turn off your high beams – whenever oncoming traffic is within 300 metres.  Bad things can happen if you blind the driver of a vehicle hurtling towards you with a closing speed  (the combination of his and your speed) of 200 kmh.  Do not use your high beams if you are following a vehicle less than 150 metres in front of you.  Giving someone a face-full of glaring light via their rear view mirrors will get you called an asshole, dickhead or worse.  Ensure you switch to low beams on a divided highway when appropriate as well.

The only use for high beams within a town or city is to piss off other drivers and/or to get a ticket.  They are even less useful in bad weather.  Stick to the low beams in the rain, snow or fog.

Never look directly at oncoming headlights.  Your retinas may actually burst into flames and set your skull on fire.  And please refrain from the almost overpowering urge to keep your brights blazing when an oncoming vehicle fails to dim its own.  Two blind drivers are more likely to cause a catastrophe than one.

 

 

Unless Posted Otherwise

Any traffic law can be suspended or amended by the appearance of the appropriate sign.

Yes, you can make a right turn on a red light, unless you see this sign.  You are probably being saved from some dangerous oddity in the road just around the corner.

 

 

 

 

Yes, you can pass on a broken line, unless this sign has been set up to protect a crew of workers ahead.

 

 

 

 

Never stubbornly cling to a right temporarily suspended by a one-off sign.  The traffic gods giveth and the traffic gods taketh away.

 

 

Bicycles

Besides the rigors of semi-professional Pint Lifting, cycling is the only exercise I ever get.  Despite doing it as often as possible, weather permitting, I’m not terribly sympathetic towards my fellow cyclists especially when I’m driving my car.  Many strike me as suicidal lunatics eager to terminate their lives as messily as possible.  (I faint-heartedly keep my bike to side streets and bike trails myself.)

Regardless of my petty prejudices in this matter, the law considers the bicycle to be a valid vehicle with as much right to be in the flow of traffic as any motor vehicle.  You will stop for one when it is to your right at an uncontrolled intersection, you will wait for one when it is in front of you signaling to make a left turn, anytime you are passing one the onus will be on you to do so safely just as if you were passing another car, and so forth.

The only time you will not treat a bike as a vehicle is when the cyclist has dismounted.  At that point the cyclist is considered to be a pedestrian.

 

 

Child Seats

When I was a wee baby my dad used to prop me up on the hood and steady me with his arm reached out the window whenever we went for drives.  I’d giggle my fool head off especially when dad would turn on the windshield wipers and try to sweep me on to the road at 60 mph, catching me by the scruff of the neck at the last second.  It was always a great rush, even the day he missed and I rolled 500 feet into the ditch.  Sadly, times have changed.

 

Babies are a lot more delicate these days so use of a child seat is now mandatory, and it better have a label that says, “This product meets Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213.”

 

- Fresh babies and those weighing up to 20 pounds need to be snuggly fit into a rear-facing restraint properly latched (with a seatbelt or a universal UAS/LATCH anchor) into a seat that will not be filled with baby-squashing airbag in the even of a collision.

 

- From 20 lbs. to 40 lbs. a child needs to be strapped into a forward-facing restraint also properly secured.

 

- Children over 40 lbs can use regular seatbelts however it is strongly recommended that an approved booster seat be used as well.

 

For all child safety seats it is absolutely imperative that you carefully follow the manufacturer’s instruction and those in your vehicle owner’s manual to ensure they’re saddled up correctly.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that “72% of nearly 3,500 observed car and booster seats were misused in a way that could be expected to increase a child’s risk of injury during a crash.”[1]

 

As the driver it is ultimately your responsibility to ensure that all of your passengers are correctly buckled up.

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[1] www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/childpas.htm