Don’t be too quick to pass judgment
Dangerous design of highways often puts drivers of big rigs in difficult situations
On last week’s evening news, local TV stations went to great lengths to play dash cam videos of highway incidents involving two big rigs.
It wasn’t really an incident, but rather, more of another chance to complain about big rig drivers.
The very short videos displayed two commercial trucks-and-trailers passing as they travel in the same direction. The videos were shot by someone in a four-wheeler that was going the other way.
One of the commercial trucks had to move to the paved shoulder of the highway to avoid a collision.
This is where I would back up the camera.
I learned to drive in the State of New York, where I got my driver’s license in 1963. The system of thruways, freeways, expressways and interstates all pushed through congress by President Dwight D. Eisenhower hadn’t yet been completed.
The builders of that Internet of pavement worked on a military system that dictates all major highways lead to and from major cities in order to evacuate the population in the shortest possible time. One way they envisioned to achieve this end was to construct three-lane secondary highways in rural areas. The idea was that the middle lane was to be used for passing slower vehicles.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a three-lane highway down south today. Too many folks died in headon crashes. Motorists in the 1960s an ’70s were blinded by hills and curves. They couldn’t see what was coming, and when they finally did, it was too late. Guess what? We have our own version of that killer concept right here in B.C.
Our passing-lane system is designed in the same manner. Too short and too little warning of lane endings. Further to that point, we just don’t have adequate highway warning signs.
The aforementioned dash cam videos show that very aspect … a lack of warning.
A fully loaded commercial rig won’t scoot down the slab like a passenger vehicle. You come over the rise to see the lane ends in 50 metres and you’re hung out to dry.
No more lane. What to do? Where do you go?
I watched those videos on two different news channels, both nights, and again the next morning, and I feel for the driver of the passing rig.
Sure, he took a chance, but he was driving with what the highway builders gave him. The rig he was passing didn’t slow down to let him merge, so both are equally at fault.
Yes. I’ve been in that position a couple of times. Both as the passer and the driver being passed.
I’m usually given room to pull in safely by the inside rig, and I do likewise when another rig runs out of road as he tries to pass me.
In those days, drivers respected and helped out our colleagues. Not so with today’s commercial drivers.
But before you armchair quarterbacks who don’t have a Class 1 licence sit down to write nasty emails, remember that nobody knows the situation facing those two drivers at that time. We have no right to criticize.
I only know that I’ve been there, in that situation, and from the driver’s seat in a loaded rig, it’s not worth even trying to pass. I saw too many friends die in similar situations when I was a young driver back east.
And now I see that same highway system here in Western Canada today, and I shake my head in disbelief.
That’s the extent of my professional opinion.
Over the years, I have slowed down and started to become more appreciative of the world around me.
I know, in my heart, that I’ll still get where I’m going. But these days, I just enjoy just getting there, and I’m happy when I don’t arrive at my destination in the back of an ambulance.
I could fill a newspaper with stories about life on the road, but why not share yours? Send them to Driving editor Andrew McCredie at amccredie@postmedia.com.