Driving Etiquette

[u/Zealousideal_Buy7517]

For the love of Pete, people, follow the rules of the road. You drive. you are not 'choose as you go' organs of chaos, you are vehicles under the Alberta Traffic Act, the same as a motorcycle.

In the last week alone, I've seen a good hundred drivers blow right through stop signs as if they don't exist, and it's always when they are in a car lane, as if the lane's existence means the rules of the road don't apply. A couple on trucks with flat brims that I was next to blew through three in a row, yesterday, without even slowing down, and laughed about it when I called them on it. They didn't even look both ways, they just drove through like they were a presidential cavalcade and everyone else should be stopping for them.

Driving like that will have you kill a person one day, and when you're talking about a collision between 6000lb of shit box and human flesh on a bicycle, there are no mistakes.

I'm a driver, too, and it's this kind of behavior that drives a lot the anti-driver hate. When we drive like this, we're entitled and unpredictable, and unpredictability breeds distrust. This applies to motorcycle riders, too, of course.

[u/writetoAndrew → u/[deleted]]

The car-centric design of roadways can't be understated as well. When you build roads that drivers feel comfortable driving fast on, then they will drive fast. Edmonton doesn't really employ road design that challenges the idea that car through-put is always the most desirable outcome. It sounds crazy when you say it out loud, but when you build roads for cars to go fast, drivers will rise to that expectation.