When in Rome…drive like the Romans right?

Picture a nice sunny day in the beautiful mountains of British Columbia, and hardly a soul on the road. In your rearview mirror there is a fast approaching car franticly flashing their high beams at you, weaving in and out of their lane an inch off your rear bumper. Soon barreling past you, shaking their fist and yelling lord knows what. It can be hard to hear someone above the wail of their screaming engine and roaring tires.

Once they have hurtled past you can clearly see the Ontario license plate and shaken, you wonder what a mean place that Ontario must be to drive in, and add that to your list of reasons to never travel there. I have been that person. No, not the innocent victim, but the prep, the fiend, the maniac behind the wheel scaring old ladies and tearing up the streets. I was the fire breathing, hooligan on the gentle streets of BC. For the life of me I was going to lead by example until the practice of pack drafting was adopted as part of the provincial road test. Eventually though, I became frustrated at my inability to turn everyone into NASCAR drivers let alone change the driving style of a province. I decided to emerse myself in the study of the locals and their peculiar habits. I’ve learned the subtle social laws that govern the roads and have adopted my driving to that of the rivers around me. Now I can blend in and and slowly become the Diane Fossy of BC driving. A new emigrant or visitor to BC is greeted with gridlock. Gridlock of a type they have never dreamt of. Two car gridlock. Its source and definition are in the list below. BC may be an entire province of drivers that don’t seem intent on arriving at any particular destination at any particular time. Those from out of province and determined
to get where they are going quickly, are going to make themselves miserable and those
around them unless they accept a few BC driving tips.

Safe Driving.

1. Passing is road rage. Period. Anytime you pass anyone, anywhere in BC it is an affront to the driver of the car being overtaken. It is also an offence to their family, the environment, safety and everything that is decent in humanity. This
   means that you are not only hurting the person you are passing but everyone around you as well. This is one of the reasons we can have Two Car Gridlock on a two lane hi-way both cars traveling in the same direction are forced to sit side by side rather than run the risk of offending the other driver.
2. Speeding is road rage. Tied closely with Passing is road rage. Speeding is inevitably going to lead to some passing. And thus a crime against the world. Speeding in BC is not related to the posted speed limit but the person whom you are following no matter what speed they are traveling below the legal limit. See number 1 for clarification.
3. Following any closer than two football fields behind the driver in front of you is road rage. If you are three seconds behind the car in front you could cause them to lose control of their vehicle and kill everyone. It’s like playing with dynamite; people are used to a lot of room to move around out here. This enables them to drive as if they are they are only person on the road and it’s much more relaxing that way.
4. These laws are enforced. Unless it’s raining, or snowing. You are unlikely to get pulled over for speeding in the rain in BC as the mustachioed ranks in the RCMP are loath to put on the emasculating shower cap over their Stetsons. You will however be pulled over six times between Nelson and Vancouver if you are cruising along, passing others with no regard to their feelings. It’s best just to follow behind the other guy. Let him shoulder the responsibility for choosing how fast we should drive that day.
5. Communicating your wishes to a fellow driver will also startle them and cause them to lose control of their vehicle and die. A quick flash of your brights to get someone to pull over and let you pass is road rage and should not be used as you shouldn’t be passing anyhow.

Driving is one of those things that we all do, but few of us do well. You may be able to get through life only able to draw stick men and not painting fine art, but the consequences of not driving well could mean that the last image you leave is a long red smear on the asphalt.

A few weeks ago in Trail I had stopped for a yellow light at an intersection on the highway. As I was sitting there in my car a large moving van was racing up from behind. I quickly moved the car into another lane and the moving van sped across the path where I’d removed myself from just moments before. The driver of the moving van went through the red light without even touching his brakes. Had I stayed there I’m sure I would now be “canned goods.”

We’ve all been in a car with a driver who skids to a stop at every light only to lunge forward the second the light turns green. Not a very relaxing drive is it? The desire to kiss the ground upon arrival is not a feeling you should instil in your passengers. Being smooth is not only going to prevent you from smacking your friends face on the dashboard, but it’s safer too. Before you start braking, check your side and rear view mirrors to make sure the driver behind you is aware of what you’re doing and not lighting a joint, cleaning deer meat out of his teeth or rushing to the hospital mid-aneurism. They could be about to perform automotive proctology on your car and you should find a way get out of Dodge. What about trying to make that stop imperceptible to your passengers? Rolling through a stop, taxi style, will only get you three points on your licence, plus the cash for the fine. So make the full stop before you proceed.

Look left, right and left again before you continue through the intersection. The reason you check left twice is because the cars traveling in the left lane are the ones that could slam in to your door first. Your passenger will act as a buffer for the cars hitting the right side of your vehicle, should it happen. When your car is in motion and you have cleared the intersection, check your mirrors again to keep tabs on the next group of yahoos behind you.

Have you heard a friend or relative proudly say, that they have never been in a car crash and then add “except for once last winter when I spun out, rolled down a hill and totalled my car?” Of course that was black ice and they were helpless once in its grasp. Despite what drivers have told themselves, spinning on black ice is not up to the road or the car. It’s up to them.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. There will be black ice on the roads this October and for the rest of the winter. I know because last year around the same time, the same thing happened. During the day when traffic keeps water on the road warmed by friction from our tires and the temperature drops quickly, ice forms and looks like light frost or clear asphalt. This is no surprise, or at least it shouldn’t be to people who have lived here for over a year.

This fall and winter look at the road you take to work and back home again notice where water builds up or runs across it. Pay attention to the areas where the road turns from sunlit to shady, both on the way to school or work. Memorize those places and look for the hapless victims you will see mid winter in the clutches of a snow bank. If you see frost on your car, maybe there might be black ice lurking at your feet or waiting at the end of the driveway. Just maybe.

A tall, grey-haired, and expressionless man came out in his white lab coat and got in the drivers seat of my car. I had owned this car for three years already and had been driving a manual transmission for ten years; I thought I was fairly competent in this department. Within seconds of leaving the dealership we were screaming across the Burrard street bridge with the mechanic running seamlessly though the gears, I had no idea what his feet were doing but the engine sang and the car danced through the entrance and exit ramps like it was possessed. We calmly pulled back into the service area where he told me in a very dead pan voice that everything seemed to be working fine.
On the short jerky drive home it felt like I was driving with my knees and elbows compared to the smooth control of the master mechanic at the dealership. I tried to replicate the way he kept the engine at the perfect RPM through every gear, and every corner without the car pitching forward or protesting in any way.

A few years later I joined the BMW car club of BC and signed up for their Collision Avoidance day out at the old Boundary Bay airport in Delta. I showed up eager to impress the instructors with my natural car control skills and dazzle the rest of the group, who were surely inferior drivers to me. The day consisted of the twelve of us in our own cars, mostly BMW’s but a few Volkswagens, and big Land Rover that lurched and rolled like a fat man on a rollercoaster.

I roared through the exercises, each one a simulation on how to avoid a crash, energetically throwing my car around the pylons set up as obstacles. At the end of the day each of the exercises were put together to form an autocross course. Once again I hurled my little car around the cones, even spinning it once when I got into a corner just a little too fast. I was thrilled, I went home exhausted and happy at all I had learned.

The next morning reality dawned on me: my embarrassing display of automotive abuse was flooding in. Oh, how I must have looked, wildly grinning ear to ear as I beat the car around the course, not once focused on being smooth, consistent or treating my car with respect. I was starting to call myself “the butcher of BMW”. After a dozen years of being the best driver on the road I had finally reached the stage in the learning cycle known as “conscious incompetence.” I realized how very little I knew about driving a car.

Craig Burton is a licensed driving instructor, and is learning more about driving everyday.

Homemade pesto is very easy to make. It uses some expensive ingredients, but will still cost less than buying it premade at the grocery store or restaurant. This pesto recipe forms the base for the pesto salad dressing and creamy pesto pasta sauce. It also makes a good tomato sauce substitute on pizzas.

Pesto Sauce

• 1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts
• 4 garlic cloves or about 3 Tbsp. crushed garlic
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup basil fresh or frozen
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend them into a smooth sauce. Pulse for about five minutes to ensure garlic is well minced.

Pesto dressing (makes 1 cup of dressing)

• 1/3 cup pesto sauce from previous recipe
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salad (per serving)

• 2 cups mixed greens or whatever you have available or prefer
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup white button mushrooms or Crimini (Italian brown mushrooms)
• 1/2 cup small tomatoes cut into wedges
• 1/2 cup red peppers sliced and left long
• 1/3 cup pearl bocconcini or regular baby bocconcini or other soft cheese
• 1 Tbsp. pine nuts as garnish

Arrange salad on a plate in the order listed above and drizzle pesto dressing on top to taste.

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