you moved to Vancouver where getting behind the wheel is a daily exercise in taking your life out of your own hands and giving it to the other people on the road.
in my journeys throughout this fine country I have found that the level of driving skill dimishes as one moves westward from Quebec. In Montreal one can have entire non verbal conversations with other drivers -- i wanna merge here, please let me in etc -- with simple hand signals. In Vancouver I don't think I have ever made eye contact with another driver so I really have no idea what their intentions are.
Montreal drivers may be fast but they let you know what they are doing, even if it is an insane manouver. In Vancouver the car ahead of you will, without warning, come to a full stop in the middle of traffic to let a jaywalker cross the street.
and don't get me started about the darwin award candidates who stop on the merge lane onto the highway waiting for their chance to enter the traffic stream.
But are saying DMc is just trying to fit in? I'd say he's spent so much time in Toronto taking cabs or in his downtown castle waving down to the admiring throngs that his driving has gotten a little rusty.
Now waiting for Denis to explain how I'm missing the point and that grandmothers are 'good' drivers.
Yeah, I went back and forth over whether "Grandmother" was a good descriptor.
See, neither of my Grandmothers ever drove. They were city dwellers, and before that, Irish country folk.
I've also spent so much of the last year inside some shitty production Ford Taurus that I think I'm ready to name it the official car of my procrastination.
I used to like speed, really I did. When I was in South Africa I was careful, and there's a place where you can get killed when you're driving just by rolling down the windows. But I think blueglow's closer to the mark here. I just don't understand how people in the Lower Mainland approach being on the road. They just...drive...wacky here. And it's got me a little spooked, I gotta tell you.
If that is the case about Vancouver drivers, then why were there over 400 reported accidents in the first few hours of yesterdays snow storm in Toronto?
Because it was the first major snowstorm of the year and people got out of practice. Same as every year.
Last Tuesday, which was my first snowstorm in Vancouver where I spent the day thinking I was going to die, was something like the tenth time it snowed in the Lower Mainland since the winter came on.
At the risk of activating the never-dormant VancouverhatesToronto gene, dude, there is simply no comparison.
And blueglow, I had to laugh about your Montreal story. The craziest bullshit I've ever seen from drivers -- going over a raised median to make a Uturn, etc, etc -- happened in Montreal...and yet, somehow, no matter how F-ed up the move was -- it didn't take me by surprise.
Driving in New York's like that, too. I have never been so alive as trying to get from midtown to the East Side Highway to get out of the city for a family wedding.
I remember my first cab ride in Vancouver. It was quick. And because the back seat was nice and smooth I kept sliding from once side of the car to the other as he took the corners. Ah, happy days.
"I just don't understand how people in the Lower Mainland approach being on the road. They just...drive...wacky here. And it's got me a little spooked, I gotta tell you." Dmc
That's O.K. Denis, my husband drives all over the lower mainland every day as he does his private tutoring. He' being doing it for 20 years. He doesn't understand how people approach driving around here either.
A word of warning: if you ever get the notion that taking transit might be easier, beat yourself on the head with a big stick until the idea is dead and gone.
Another post here, the piece about showrunners, testifies, once again, that good television is more often not driven by stars or directors, like film, but by writers. Yet the actors have their drivers, the DGC contract flies those crossing guards around best available class and both routinely negotiate contracts over scale ... television writers in Canada are suckers.
I haven't set foot in Montreal for well over ten years, and it's because of the angry, homicidal drivers.
Back in the '90s, my now ex-husband and I used to take the hour-long drive there to spend the day shopping, sightseeing. But as the years passed we noticed a rather frightening change in attitude from drivers. Time and time again we were cut off at dangerously high speeds -- and by cut off, I don't mean they hit the breaks 10 feet ahead of us. I mean they pulled out of their lane and into ours with barely a foot between us and hit the brakes, then laughed hysterically and gave us the finger as we screeched to a halt. Our car was also repeatedly targeted for vandalism. Coming back from shopping or dining we'd find gobs of spit, dented doors, smashed side mirrors. The final straw was when I, travelling alone on my way back from a shopping trip, was literally run into a ditch on a quiet road at midnight by a guy screaming at me to "Go back to Canada!"
15 comments:
you moved to Vancouver where getting behind the wheel is a daily exercise in taking your life out of your own hands and giving it to the other people on the road.
in my journeys throughout this fine country I have found that the level of driving skill dimishes as one moves westward from Quebec. In Montreal one can have entire non verbal conversations with other drivers -- i wanna merge here, please let me in etc -- with simple hand signals. In Vancouver I don't think I have ever made eye contact with another driver so I really have no idea what their intentions are.
Montreal drivers may be fast but they let you know what they are doing, even if it is an insane manouver. In Vancouver the car ahead of you will, without warning, come to a full stop in the middle of traffic to let a jaywalker cross the street.
and don't get me started about the darwin award candidates who stop on the merge lane onto the highway waiting for their chance to enter the traffic stream.
lol...so true Blueglow, so true.
But are saying DMc is just trying to fit in? I'd say he's spent so much time in Toronto taking cabs or in his downtown castle waving down to the admiring throngs that his driving has gotten a little rusty.
Now waiting for Denis to explain how I'm missing the point and that grandmothers are 'good' drivers.
Yeah, I went back and forth over whether "Grandmother" was a good descriptor.
See, neither of my Grandmothers ever drove. They were city dwellers, and before that, Irish country folk.
I've also spent so much of the last year inside some shitty production Ford Taurus that I think I'm ready to name it the official car of my procrastination.
I used to like speed, really I did. When I was in South Africa I was careful, and there's a place where you can get killed when you're driving just by rolling down the windows. But I think blueglow's closer to the mark here. I just don't understand how people in the Lower Mainland approach being on the road. They just...drive...wacky here. And it's got me a little spooked, I gotta tell you.
If that is the case about Vancouver drivers, then why were there over 400 reported accidents in the first few hours of yesterdays snow storm in Toronto?
Because it was the first major snowstorm of the year and people got out of practice. Same as every year.
Last Tuesday, which was my first snowstorm in Vancouver where I spent the day thinking I was going to die, was something like the tenth time it snowed in the Lower Mainland since the winter came on.
At the risk of activating the never-dormant VancouverhatesToronto gene, dude, there is simply no comparison.
And blueglow, I had to laugh about your Montreal story. The craziest bullshit I've ever seen from drivers -- going over a raised median to make a Uturn, etc, etc -- happened in Montreal...and yet, somehow, no matter how F-ed up the move was -- it didn't take me by surprise.
Driving in New York's like that, too. I have never been so alive as trying to get from midtown to the East Side Highway to get out of the city for a family wedding.
I think it's because of all those arrogant Torontonians who move here and pollute the easygoing roads with their type A driving ;-)
I remember my first cab ride in Vancouver. It was quick. And because the back seat was nice and smooth I kept sliding from once side of the car to the other as he took the corners. Ah, happy days.
yeah, driving in Vancouver. It was bad enough here... then cell phones happened.
"I just don't understand how people in the Lower Mainland approach being on the road. They just...drive...wacky here. And it's got me a little spooked, I gotta tell you." Dmc
That's O.K. Denis, my husband drives all over the lower mainland every day as he does his private tutoring. He' being doing it for 20 years. He doesn't understand how people approach driving around here either.
No driver?
You kidding?
What am I, an actor?
A word of warning: if you ever get the notion that taking transit might be easier, beat yourself on the head with a big stick until the idea is dead and gone.
Another post here, the piece about showrunners, testifies, once again, that good television is more often not driven by stars or directors, like film, but by writers. Yet the actors have their drivers, the DGC contract flies those crossing guards around best available class and both routinely negotiate contracts over scale ... television writers in Canada are suckers.
I haven't set foot in Montreal for well over ten years, and it's because of the angry, homicidal drivers.
Back in the '90s, my now ex-husband and I used to take the hour-long drive there to spend the day shopping, sightseeing. But as the years passed we noticed a rather frightening change in attitude from drivers. Time and time again we were cut off at dangerously high speeds -- and by cut off, I don't mean they hit the breaks 10 feet ahead of us. I mean they pulled out of their lane and into ours with barely a foot between us and hit the brakes, then laughed hysterically and gave us the finger as we screeched to a halt. Our car was also repeatedly targeted for vandalism. Coming back from shopping or dining we'd find gobs of spit, dented doors, smashed side mirrors. The final straw was when I, travelling alone on my way back from a shopping trip, was literally run into a ditch on a quiet road at midnight by a guy screaming at me to "Go back to Canada!"
Funny, I thought I was in Canada. :-(
KJC
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