My buddy T and I used to commute to university together. We encountered so many driving mooks that it was enough to drive you crazy some days. Of course this lead to a discussion or five about the worst drivers on the road.
T swore that there was a tie for worst driver. Old man wearing hats and young women driving Fireflies. The old men were usually so focused on what is straight ahead as they drove 20+ KM UNDER the speed limit that they didn't notice what was going on around them. The young women were usually smokers and paying more attention to their smoking and music than driving.
T is a wise man. We would keep track of the mooks on the road and I swear that most of them back then were old men in hats. There were a goodly number of young women driving fireflies but they were out numbered by the geezer brigade.
I went downtown with my mom this morning. Yet another foggy spring day. On the way home we came up behind a car doing about 40 KPH in a 70KPH zone. We were turning off the road soon so it wasn't worth passing him. It was driven by ... an old man in a hat.
The mook actually started going slower and weaving a bit. He was busy talking to whoever was sitting in the passenger seat and oblivious to the road. When he started weaving mom decided she definitely wasn't going to try and pass him, a decision I agreed with. I would rather let a traffic hazard like that stay well in front of me instead of getting hit passing him.
He ended up turning off before us so I was able to get a good look at him and determine that yes it was an old man in a hat. T, if you are reading this, you are still right. :)
So if you see this mook, EBV 081, on the road be careful around him because you can be sure he is giving no thought to those around him.
It seems to be a western version of the Korean "culture of obliviousness". My father, who is 71, should not be on the road, as he is definitely a hazard because he's constantly distracted. But he's been driving for 60 years and who is going to tell him he has to stop? My mother definitely won't tell him because she needs him to drive her around. I'm sure that one of these days he's going to cause a major accident and I pray no one gets seriously injured or killed. Maybe the government should introduce a mandatory driver evaluation once a person hits a certain age, but somehow I don't see the Canadian population agreeing to that. So in the meantime we will continue to have these dangerous drivers on the roads. And of course it's not just old people, but the aging population means older drivers are becoming more common.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought people should be tested every few years but that wouldn't work. Everyone is on their best behaviour when being tested. The DOT should have people who drive around and look for bad drivers. They should have the power to pull them over and make them get a retest.
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