Summer driver pet peeves and bad habits to avoid
Lorraine Sommerfeld writes tips for a safe season and not annoying your neighbours
Summer is here — yay! Our cars are safe in these COVID-19 times, and might be one of the few places other than home that we can be with reasonable certainty we won’t get infected.
What’s not to love? Well, a few things.
PUTTING FEET ON THE DASH
I can’t believe this is still happening. I passed a cottage-bound couple last weekend. The young woman had her legs fully extended up the dashboard, scrolling through her phone. Despite my writing an article six years ago about a young woman who was mangled and irreparably maimed as a result of this habit, I continue to see it happening. Please, please, please don’t do it, and please stop anyone else from doing it. If ever there was a use for billboards sporting warnings, this should be it.
SWERVING AROUND SPEED BUMPS
Please, stop swerving around them into bike lanes. More and more people are cycling, and that symbolic strip of paint is all they have. Gauge your speed so you can take the bump without hurting your car, and stop making life difficult for those already navigating a tiny strip of the road.
And about those cyclists: We’re forever pitting drivers against cyclists, pedestrians and every other road user. We have to stop. Rules are for everyone, and withholding that respect breaks the trust we need to keep everybody safe. Parents, please teach your little ones road safety. Dismount at lights to cross and make sure they know to make eye contact with drivers. They’re watching you and the do-what-i-say-not-what-i-do demonstrations could prove incredibly dangerous.
REVVING THEIR MOTORCYCLES
I can hear pipes in Russia from my back deck, I swear. Same goes for those who strap the fart cans on their pseudo race cars. You expect insane noise levels at a race track; it’s why people wear headphones. When you go ripping up and down residential streets — because summer — we don’t get that option.
HONKING GOODBYE LATE AT NIGHT
You’ve had a lovely evening at a friend’s house. You’ve called it a night, you’ve stood in the driveway for another half-hour (parting is such sweet sorrow) and then as you pull out of the street, you honk yet another goodbye. It’s 2 a.m. Stop doing this. Your horn should be used to warn someone of impending death, not to bid a fond farewell.
TOWING LOUSY TRAILERS
Trailers have to be as roadworthy as the cars pulling them. You cannot cobble together a safe trailer from a couple of two-byfours and a pair of roller skates. Piling everything you can into them or on them with a few bungee cords endangers everyone else on the road.
NOT SIGNALLING TO TURN
Use your indicators. For most of us, it’s an ingrained habit, like seat belts. But even in a dedicated turn lane, if you flip on your signal it lets drivers know that you won’t be swerving back into traffic. It doesn’t matter if no other cars are around; all road users need to know what you’re up to.
TRUNDLING ALONG IN THE LEFT LANE
A perennial favourite. Keep right except to pass. Please, do your ambling in the right-hand lane. Yes, there are some insane highway sections with so many on and off ramps it feels safer to stick to the middle, but don’t be a stone in the middle of a stream.
Many of you already know all of this. Thank you, and make sure new drivers in your family are also aware. Stay safe, and have a good summer drive season.