Wow. This thread really turned out much better than I had expected. For some reason, it's comforting to know I'm not the only one who finds Island drivers to be among the world's worst. You guys have some brutal stories.

Today's fun experience: Cruising Beach Drive at a shocking 25km/hr. When I go to pass, I get honked at and fingered as if everyone should be doing 25 and to go faster is a sin.

Wrong. When turning left at an intersection where there's a roundabout, you signal LEFT as you enter the round (going arount it to the RIGHT of course), and signal RIGHT as you leave.

Check your Safe Driving guide.

please read it again, I have accentuated the key word of the sentence for you.

Ya, the island sucks. You should probably move.

we should all move :P

Nobody said they didn't love living here, but no place is perfect, and horrible driving seems to be the Island's achilles heel.

At least no one is shooting it out on the mean streets of Parksville!

:eek:

Too soon?

I almost have an aneurysm every time I drive down Shelbourne. Why does everyone drive 40km/h down a major 4 lane road?!

...and find it necessary to drift into your lane, almost forcing you into on coming traffic

Where?

They should have cops enforcing the "Keep Right except to Pass" law instead of catching speeders. Even if the fines were way lower (say $25), they'd meet their quotas a whole lot faster too :)

At the intersection of Bay & Tyee, the big right arrow on the right hand lane when travelling westbound on bay street means that lane is a RIGHT TURN ONLY lane. This means that if someone is turning left onto tyee from bay, you do not use the right lane to go around them to proceed through the intersection.

Police could have a field day with tickets at this intersection.

If everyone is driving like a granny in the fast lane, how come everyone is tailgating me? Even in the slow lane AND at stop lights.
Something people don't consider is that no one else has control over the one person like 30 cars ahead that's holding up everyone. It only takes one person to render the whole "passing lane" idea useless.

I don't know which I hate more, bikes or trucks/suvs/vans.

Not just Washington too; I think its all over the USA. I drove in San Fran and its the same deal. Road manners are very respected.

You think dirivng culture is bad. Its nothing until you ride a motorcycle in town.

Everyday I ride, I get at least 1-3 close calls. I remember one time I had to kick a car door on the highway because he was merging into me. Yay victoria.

Or one time some tool in a talon though it'd be cool to cut me off 6" from my front tire when i was going 110. Yup.

Last sunday I almost became one with the center median on the section of highway just south of Mill Bay because a stupid woman in a minivan didn't shoulder check.

I thought she hit me, I swerved and my mirror was literally an inch from hitting the median, I was just waiting for the "thud" on my passenger's side.

The funny thing is that afterwards she fingered ME. Dumb bitch.

I swear, ever since I got this new car the world has been out to get me.

oh yes.... i've had that happen many times when stuff someone does is their fault, but somehow is mine because i was there. I guess it was their lane all along and i'm not supposed to be there ? :P

Screw that... I will continue to go around who ever is turning left there. That intersection sees a fair amount of traffic... I am not waiting for everyone wanting to turn left.

As long as you realise that people turning left from the other direction (onto skinner) have the right of way (Like a woman last week didn't realise when I was turning left there), otherwise I hope you get plowed into by someone turning left onto skinner and ICBC finds you 100% at fault.

My pet peave all the island horrid drivers aside , is the city who encourages this kind of crap driving with horrid traffic planning. Look at that corner alone .. Bay and Tyee. Hey lets build a strip mall + Condos, offices + how much more development, but not do anything to accommodate the extra traffic.
I think its funny about enforcement there, because 4 time in the last month, I have seen IRSU on the opposite side of the bridge harassing people for all sorts of crap, (hauling stuff with tailgate open, tail lights being out, etc).

Not to mention all the stupid fort st style lets just get rid of a lane ... lets make everyone go 40 in a 50 zone because we eliminate the extra lane you used to be able to pass these idiots in.

My new biggest hate comes at my school parking lot. Lansdowne Camosun, by the parking lot on foul bay. They (Oak Bay/Sannich) have built an traffic island right by the bus stop where it is single lane, you used to be able to pass the bus (beside was a really long turn lane into parking lot) but now with this idea lets block all traffic on a single lane road with an island right at a bus stop that unloads 30+ students that then cross the crosswalk directly behind the bus. Adding twice the time it takes to unload to begin with . I am not joking when I say its taken me 4 minutes (it used to take me 20 seconds previously) with a snake all the way to the intersection, because a bus had stopped and unloaded..

You would think that with all this global warming, that city/municipality would want to stream line traffic and lessen people time driving in cars, Not increase it.

The point your trying to make is true and sad. They where so busy tying to build build build, sell sell sell that they didn't develop ANY infrastructure to support ANYTHING. I mean, the only thing that they are thinking ahead for is the bear montain overpass at spencer road. Thank god. Could you imagine how much more traffic there would be? What sucks is I like 5min away from that intersection and I have to go down that road to get home. They havn't finished the langford parkway out that way so I can't go that way yet. So I wait in all the traffic, makes my 5min commute into a 25min one. Because people needs to merge at the last minute, or get a few cars ahead of the other because somehow, those few extra seconds, will get them home faster. little do they know, the horrible merging just causes traffic to back up to millstream.

Thanks victoria.

I heard some crazy stuff this year about them making double a 2 lane road vs a 4 lane. with a middle lane for busses only...

:rolleyes:

Who knows if it'l work.

What they need to do is get some kind of sky tram going downtown to langford with a bunch of stops along the way. That'l cut down on stuff.

Don't get me started on the hole island culture being against building a bridge to vancouver "oh no! people people will have access to the island!" damn you granola eating sandle wearing hippies..

socks and sandles... .. arg.

You guys are all hitting close to home with all this stuff, it's like you're reading my mind.

I was involved in another island driver nuisance this morning on my way to work; the inability of anyone to pass a police cruiser. I went the whole way from Victoria to Sidney at 10 under the limit because nobody was willing to go faster than this cop car who was happy to sit behind a large truck in the slow lane and do 10 under. IME cops aren't interested unless you're doing more than 10 over, but at LEAST do the limit in the fast lane people.. jesus.

On a similar note, when it is a nice sunny day and the cops like to setup a speed trap on the straightest, safest piece of HWY 17 at the McKenzie overpass that is one issue. It doesn't really bother me because I get all my speed urges out at the track. However, when I'm in the left lane and people who are already at or below 80km/h decide to slam on their brakes and drop it down to 55-60km/h that really gets me. They should give those idiots tickets for unsafe driving/too slow for conditions. Although it is a good reminder to leave plenty of space to the car in front of you :p

Why in the name of holy god do they set up their speed traps there? *Every* local Victorian knows that they're there at least once a week. Southbound, I happily drive 140 right up until the Vanalman exit and then slow to 90 as I approach the McKenzie exit.

Seriously, shouldn't they be setting up their speed traps in a place where accidents actually occur? How about set one up on Blenkinsop? They'd roast so many drivers, including myself, on that road doing 80+. Way more dangerous than people doing 100 on a straight, well-paved, wide open freeway.

My theory is that they camp out there periodically to develop a false sense of security in speeders so that when they pull one of their sneaky spots out they nail more people.

That seems so absurd to me. Their goal should be to get people to slow down the flow of traffic, not hand out tickets. Hell, I've often thought that a police car parked on the side of the road with nobody in it would work.