scrubbedexpat091

We live on a busy street so it becomes a gong show during rush hour, sometimes an entertaining one.

Today in a span of a few minutes.

Horn blaring behind a bus because it stopped at a bus stop, guys gets out and screams to bus driver about stopping in an HOV lane, only issue is while it is indeed an HOV lane from 3pm to 7pm, only bikes and buses are allowed to use it during that time, so bus was in the right, road rage man in the wrong.

Fire truck driving down the street sirens and lights, lady pulls over because well that is what your supposed to do, another lady blares on the horn to try and get other car to move, um hello do you not see the big red truck making all sorts of noise with flashing lights.

Cop car joins fire truck and parks in right lane, the lane closed to all vehicles except buses and bikes, a guy blares his horn at the cop, cop waves guy to stop, cop is currently writing the guy a ticket.

Vancouver drivers are some of the worst in general of any place I have ever lived, excessive use of horns, and seems road rage is the norm.

I would almost like to see horns removed from cars, they become a nuisance more then anything else these days.


How are the drivers in your little part of the world?

dbd33

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-for-two-weeks

scrubbedexpat091

Well I have read everything now.....I have never been confused as to what kind of rental car I have.

Danny B

Don't ever complain about horn usage until you have driven in South East Asia. The horn is used to warn people you are approaching e.g- 'watch out I'm passing you on the inside'.

bats

dbd33

It's two Asian cars, they're hard to tell apart from the outside, and anyway people in Canada rarely seem aware that they are driving, never mind what they're driving.

(Maybe from the inside too, I've only been in one).

spouse of scouse

Same. Our last rental in Oz was a white SUV, no idea what make, model, yada yada. (even though I was the one who booked it) It's a car. It goes. No further information needed

macadian

Some years ago, infact, nearer almost 50, Naples, Italy was the worst, driver could not move forward a yard without hand on horn.....have things changed?

Vulcanoid

We got to observe a lot of different behaviours last year when repeatedly driving across the west. The most scary was the one who tried to kill us (they were overtaking, over a solid line, around a blind corner in the mountains on Highway 5 - we rounded the corner, saw them heading right for us, screamed, braked, started steering for the ditch, they just got back into their lane in time to avoid it) but didn't see their plates.

Decided that Alberta plates aren't that bad - sure, they treat the speed limit like it's a minimum, but they can generally drive. Saskatchewanians had an odd propensity for treating merge lanes like T-Junctions (so we often wound up growling as they stopped and looked before merging). The worst was when we got to Winnipeg - my partner's assessment at the time was "I never knew people could be so aggressive. I'm just way too used to laid-back BC stoners". On our recon trip to find somewhere to live we discovered how aggressively they drive (a fire truck came up behind me at a red light, and an SUV paused, and then drove into the space ahead of them so that I couldn't use it to get out of the truck's way). Since then, we've discovered the joy of park-almost-anywhere as it turns out many of the major thoroughfares (including divided highways with two or three lanes each way and a 60 limit) are in fact treated as residential streets, so you'll be cruising along in the lane and suddenly everything stops because it has to merge down to 1 lane so everyone can pass the (legally) parked car in the way. Oh, and there was a (minor) hit and run within a few weeks of arrival.

Yet all of this pales against what I think is the one thing I'd change about Canada if I could: emergency sirens. I never knew how peaceful it was having rules that emergency vehicles use flashing lights to attract attention, and can only use a siren if something's in the way. It's exhausting to hear several times a day (we're on a fire truck despatch route) a siren screaming as it flies down the completely empty road.

scrubbedexpat091

Sirens in our area are frequent, we live in East Vancouver on the edge of the DTES so we get some overflow from there so paramedics are busy attending homeless and addicts who are passed out on the sidewalk or in the case of this morning laying on the road. Police are busy with the criminal elements that happen, fire trucks usually arrive anytime there is a paramedic call.

Fri and Sat night are the worst, but its frequent and considering how people somehow miss the emergency vehicle with lights and sirens blaring, not sure lights only would work in Vancouver....

I pretty much wear ear plugs 24/7 to soften all the noise.

This siren VPD uses is the most annoying of them all.

Shard

I second Naples as being the most horn-friendly place on earth ! And not just simple beeeeep horns, but multi-tone, melody horns too !!

As for bad drivers, Vancouver ranks very high indeed. Amplified by the fact that most believe that they are exceptionally good drivers.

MillieF

Oh heavens, we lost our Renault rental car in a hypermarket car park just outside Paris, we knew it was Blue, and the registration, but it took us three hours to find it! Not good, a family row broke out as to who should have noted where we parked it etc. Not good.

New Brunswick, other than winter, is a delight to drive in, everyone is polite and friendly and they all stop to let each other out of turnings. The roundabout does seem to have them rather fazed and they either approach it with caution or great gusto and I avoid it like the plague. I prefer driving in Europe, I miss the cut and thrust to be honest. I do get hacked off a bit because nobody ever seems to indicate, but I make allowances for that now.

neilcumming

If anyone honks their horn at me at the lights because I have not pulled away fast enough for them the micro-second it changes to green I take even more time! This happened to me today,I was making a left turn in the left turn lane ,indicator on, there was a pedestrian waiting to cross so I was making sure what she was doing and the car behind honked me but he was in the wrong lane he wasnt turning left lol.

scrubbedexpat133

Its a delight due to too many roads for the volume of traffic I think its more that they are incompetent, timid and generally unsure of what they are supposed to do rather than friendly

That roundabout in Fredericton really does bugger them up lol I have to use it frequently. An HGV needs to use both lanes to negotiate it. I always take both lanes up on approach to minimise the Kamikaze efforts of the locals. Quite often I get flashed, honked at, middle finger after roundabout despite it being blatantly obvious there is no room!

To the OP, drivers here are not really aggressive (there is always the exception) but as mentioned are on the whole incompetent. The testing standards here are a joke. I include the Class One test in that. Couple this with wide straight empty roads its not surprising.

withabix

I find car horns are essential to:

1) tell the person on their phone that they are drifting over the centre line/in to my lane next to me/in to the cyclist riding in the cycle lane
2) waking up semi truck drivers who sit in the left lane on the Coquihalla when there is NOTHING even within sight WHATSOEVER in the right lane. Unfortunately you usually have to do this just as you finish passing the truck cab in the right lane.....
3) waking texters up when the light has gone green