| Don’t you just hate all those cell-phone-gabbing, mascara-dabbing, big-mouth-blabbing drivers who do everything on the road except drive? I would say that I do, but I have to admit, half the time it’s me and my friends who are responsible for this kind of bad behaviour.
Take my pal, Angel, for example. After 10 years in the passenger’s seat of her car, I don’t bat an eyelid at her last-minute braking or when she changes her shoes while manoeuvring in the fast lane on Deerfoot Trail. With all the speeding tickets, honks and occasional foul-fingered gestures, some could argue Angel is one of the city’s biggest driving hazards. However, while her distractedness is a risk, Angel does have some great skills – she knows how to merge, always puts her signal lights on and observes the speed limit. In fact, experts say while there are clear-cut rules of the road that should never be ignored, the idea of "bad driving" is pretty much in the eye of the beholder – lead-footed dudes in their 20s loathe over-cautious moms, while others say it’s the aggressive jerks who pose the greatest risk.
On Calgary’s cramped road systems the biggest danger is the mix of people in such close quarters. Some can’t control their cars and others can’t control their tempers, says driving instructor Hensel Fong. The International Driving Academy boss has watched the streets of Calgary change from spacious lanes to jam-packed pains since he drove cabs in the ’70s. "We need more roads and more information," he says. "As for the biggest hazards on the road, it’s speeding with the young ones and using cell phones with middle-aged people. Also, there are some rough characters out there."
In a recent incident, a guy was punched after intentionally slowing down in front of a speeding driver. A friend of mine had coffee thrown on her by a tailgater who thought she was "wasting his time."
"There is a lot of road rage," says Fong. "I have been teaching my students the proper way to drive in a school zone, by going 30 km/h. Some guys shout at us for going so slow. The best thing you can do is follow the rules of the road and pay attention to your driving."
Laura Milne has been counting cars in Calgary for 20 years. As an official traffic monitor, the owner of ME2 Transportation Data Corp knows more than anyone about the effects of Calgary’s traffic hell. "It’s bad, but I have seen some places that are way worse than here," she says. "Deerfoot Trail and Crowchild Trail are the worst in Calgary in terms of having the highest volume of traffic. I’m lucky – I know pretty much every shortcut in the city. Edmonton Trail is a good one if you are going from McKnight Boulevard to Memorial Drive, for example. I hope more people start using public transit. That would help. There are just 1.2 people per car during the peak traffic times in Calgary. I think the City is doing an awesome job trying to fix the roads, so people just need to be patient. Once we get things like the ring road around the city and the construction complete on Glenmore Trail, things will get better."
With daunting stats like 160,000 vehicles per day using Deerfoot Trail when it was built for 100,000, and tens of thousands on virtually every other main road, it’s not difficult to see why people are frustrated. City officials have promised that new developments like widening 16th Avenue, a number of new interchanges and a longer C-train line will eventually help, but in the meantime it’s up to drivers to control their steering wheels and attitudes.
Aaron Schnell, who works in management for Accenture utilities, has seen what was once a 30-minute commute on the Deerfoot increase by 10 minutes in the last year and a bit. "It is the system I am used to and I have come to expect delays," he says. "It gives me time to talk with my wife, listen to the radio and make sure the brakes work well. Plus, I was just in Manila, and we definitely have it better than they do."
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According to Auto.com these are the best ways of coping with high-traffic conditions:
· Give aggressive drivers their space
· Give tailgaters the opportunity to pass
· Don’t make eye contact with aggressive drivers
· Don’t tailgate
· Don’t play the radio excessively loud
· Allow plenty of time for your trip
· Don’t use obscene gestures
· Above all, stay calm. |
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