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Archive of posts tagged driving skills

pass it forward…

Posted by  on 9 July 2009, 3:43 pm
recently i’ve been involved in an accident. it happened in the night from saturday towards sunday at around 2:30am. traveling in the second lane of a 3 lane street (kingsway for those who are aware of it) and approaching an intersection. the light turns green, and the car in the second lane remains stationary even thought the light was green. the third lane was quite busy, yet the first lane was clear prior and after the intersection. i switch onto the first lane…and as i get closer to the intersection, the white hyundai in the second lane decided to turn right onto the other street…as he is doing this he runs right into me. here’s how the damage looks…
as my car stops, i take a look back to see the white hyundai finish taking the right turn onto nanaimo st, and continuing. as this occurs, a dark colour car speeds after the hyundai. a witness engages into action, stops the other driver and starts yelling at him as to why he was about to take off. as this happens, i pull behind them and get out of my car…

the following day i spent about an hour sharing my story with icbc, and during this i try to provide as many details as possible, including that the other driver tried to drive away and was stopped by the witness. on top of this, it seemed to me the other driver was impaired, quite heavily. however, at that time it did not occur to me to contact the police…this little detail only occurred to me next morning. anyhow…icbc ruled on the thing quite quickly, 100% the other driver’s fault…

anyhow, this post is not so much about the accident itself, but a gesture received by yours truly. after the icbc thing was concluded, i decided to call the witness and thank him once more for his action on the respective night…and offered to buy him a beer as a sign of recognition for his involvement (keep in mind that the icbc case was closed, thus this would not interfere with his statement…). anyhow, the witness thanked me for taking my time to give him the updates and graciously refused the offer. however, he took time to mention ‘you’ve received a nice gesture, so all i ask instead of the beer is to pass on the gesture when the opportunity occurs’. overall, it’s great to see that nice gestures are still possible and that people will help another in need. appreciate the effort he put in stopping the other driver from taking off and staying with him until i managed to pull my car behind them. amazing gesture not only on the night of the accident, but after-wads as well. so for this…i will finish this with a ‘thank you!’

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happy to be alive

Posted by  on 14 November 2008, 10:30 am

well, it’s true. as i was walking toward my office in the morning from my car, i figured it’s just after 6am, so i’m ‘safer’ if i stick to the side-walk and cross the streets on the crosswalks. well, for the most part at least that offers a feeling of safety. as i’m about to cross, on the crosswalk, i see as this car fails to stop at the stop sign from the 4-way and is heading in my direction. i’m about half-way on the crosswalk and the first instinct is…to stop. i stop and just look at him to see if he’s ‘sleeping’ or simply ‘dumb’. he brakes and allows me to continue on my path to cross the street.

what can i say, 1 pedestrian, 1 car before the sun is even up and they eventually find a way to cross paths. i guess i have to be a bit more ‘careful’ and actually keep my eyes open. oh wait, i was actually aware, he failed to realize he had a stop sign prior to entering the intersection. i guess rules are meant to be broken, especially when you know ‘big brother’ is nowhere to be found.

this also reminds me of another time i almost got sandwiched between two cars. the summer of 1998, crossing a pretty major street in burnaby. red lights one way, and green for pedestrians. i start crossing the street, as i see a car going a bit too fast given the driver had a red light. no cars in front of her, and my path is set to meet up with the car. realizing that it’s probably gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt the car, i did stop. the driver didn’t, ran the red light, t-boned a car and came to a stop. i look back, my sister is a bit in disbelief, my dad is sort of searching for words and then i look forward again, as 2m in front of me the woman driver that just ran the red light is already on her phone. the other driver, well she had back, neck and head pains already. so i guess i should stick to driving as crossing streets on foot for me is quite unsafe.

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roundabouts

Posted by  on 6 October 2008, 7:22 pm


as the series of driving complaints continues. today, roundabouts and the lack of rationale from the drivers in vancouver for how to approach them. about two weeks ago, i’m behind this truck (come back another day for that rant) and about to enter a roundabout. the ‘driver’ shockingly stops in the roundabout to let another car, small sedan, enter the roundabout. at which point i honk, yes the honk is my friend. the car entering the roundabout has a yield sign (see picture or your ‘driving for dummies’ book); which of course is probably the hardest to understand for vancouverite drivers. the driver of the sedan thinks that it’s appropriate to stop, as well in the middle of the round about, stick her head out and say something while showing me a finger (no, not that finger) and pointing towards herself as to say she has the right of way to enter the roundabout and that she should go first. not only did she not yield to the yield sign or yield to traffic in the roundabout, by stopping she ended up making sure that for a few moments three cars are stopped in the roundabout. why? well the truck didn’t move, apparently the guy was being a ‘gentleman’ – guess he paid attention when he was told a woman always enters first.

a roundabout has one simple rule, the cars inside the roundabout have right-of-way. according to a friend ‘it doesn’t take a phd to figure out how the roundabout works’; well, i guess it does, seeing how that simple rule is not respected nor obeyed in vancouver.

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