It鈥檚 time to bring up the stupidity of passing stupidly on a double solid while being impaired by stupidness. Again.

I don鈥檛 think there is a highway in B.C. anywhere that I鈥檝e driven, at least, that stupidity, carelessness, impatience, and reckless driving aren鈥檛 an issue. I see it, experience it, and yell at this behaviour as though those driving that way can actually hear me.

I try not to talk on the phone with loved ones too much while driving (hands-free of course) but it really isn鈥檛 cool to hear your mother, grandma or close friend cut a sentence off midstream with something that sounds like a blood-curdling scream or very well-deserved curse word without them knowing whether the vehicle headed straight for you is about to end your life. Luckily so far, I have had the room to move to the shoulder, braking while the road predator barely slides in nearly missing a very large commercial vehicle it has just passed at high speed who can鈥檛 brake much because there is a line of vehicles behind them too.

Nine times out of 10, the same vehicle will likely be seen further down the road continuing this erratic abuse of the roadways passing on double solids, gesturing wildly at those he wrongs, and I can鈥檛 apologize for pointing out often sporting an out-of-province license plate.

The latter means that even if this fool-hearted, wreck-less road beater did get stopped it鈥檚 highly unlikely they will be charged in our province, but they might receive a stern warning or if they do receive a ticket most likely will never see the inside of a courtroom or pay a fine. If an Alberta driver is ticketed in B.C. there is currently no mechanism to force them to pay, they don鈥檛 get points and there is no enforcement to make them pay.

So now we are in the thick of summer heat, tourism a main economic driver in the province and oh how we long for a megaphone to shout to those meandering drivers of rental RVs, 鈥淲e love you but please for all of our sakes, move over or off the road for a few minutes and let us by!鈥�

We can turn up the music and adjust our thoughts and speed to remind ourselves that being alive is better than unsafe passing like the many stupid drivers we鈥檝e seen along the way. 

The choice should be easy. As a wise and ancient Greek writer/philosopher Aesop suggested in the moral of the famous fable, 鈥楾he Tortoise and the Hare鈥�, slow and steady wins the race.

Hettie Buck is a multimedia editor for Black Press in the North Thompson Valley.