It’s that joyous time of the year again; we get to take a look back at some of the year’s worst drivers. Let’s get right into the good bad stuff.
Report impaired drivers
We’ll start with one of the more schadenfreudey moments of the year back in March. “A pickup truck driver who crashed into a ‘Report Impaired Drivers’ sign on Vancouver Island this week appears to have been impaired, according to the RCMP,” reports CTV. Jumping a curb in your Dodge Ram is always poor — and often deadly — form. But leaving your licence plate behind at the crime scene and taking off? Better than a trail of breadcrumbs. The driver was apprehended minutes later.
Unplanned border crossing
We don’t hear as much as we used to about GPS offering up weird (dangerous bizarre non-existent) shortcuts to drivers, but this time I was almost feeling sorry for the guy who got tripped up at the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan crossing. I drove near it earlier this year, and my phone registered me as having crossed when I hadn’t; the line is that slender. An Ontario traveller heading to Saskatchewan “had not planned to cross the border, but his GPS had apparently plotted a shorter route south of Lake Superior,” said the RCMP An accidental border crossing is always a time-wasting drag, but doing it with fentanyl in your trunk? You get charged with possession and export of a controlled substance. Leave the drugs at home, kids.
Distracted truckers
Commercial truck drivers were once a welcome combo of road warriors and white knights. Just recently, a trucker was fired and is facing impaired charges after playing smash-up derby with his rig and nailing four parked cars. The incident, in Port Coquitlam, B.C., resulted in the driver being handed a 90-day suspension and the semi heading to the impound for 24 hours. It could have been a lot worse; this happened at 3 in the afternoon and you really have to click to take a boo at the damage to the cars. Back in Ontario earlier this month, a police crackdown got 67 truck drivers charged with distracted driving — using their phones. Please stop piloting thousands of tonnes of metal on our streets with your phone in your hand. Private drivers are bad enough; you’re being paid to be better.
Impaired bus drivers
In the professional drivers behaving badly category, a Halifax bus driver crashed into a ditch in February and was subsequently charged with operating a conveyance while impaired and blowing over .08. The only upside was that the bus had no passengers at the time. A drunk bus driver is really defeating the purpose of people finding a safe way home.
More troublesome is the Saskatchewan school bus driver arrested in November for being impaired. School employees attempted to stop him, but he drove off with 50 kids on the bus. Police caught up to him a short while later (he’d dropped off the kids) but come on people, this is such a betrayal.
DIY drive-thru
Drivers crashing into buildings is hardly new. In Edmonton, the driver of a black Cherokee tried to make the local liquor store a drive-thru, and demolished the storefront in the process. ”It is not known how the crash occurred.” A couple of months back, it was a mid-town Toronto Tim Hortons that had a driver crash through that business. Again, “the cause of the crash is unknown.” In Trenton last January, another Jeep driver blasted into the waiting area of a physio/osteo/wellness business. In March, a black SUV “went over the curb, over a bike rack and hit a gas meter before damaging [the] front windows and patio furniture” at a store in the highly populated ByWard Market in Ottawa. CBC reports Ottawa police didn’t mention any charges.
Can we just stop for a moment and consider that there should be charges in many of these situations? Unless there is a mechanical failure or medical episode — and there almost never, ever is — this is the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. Impaireds are charged as such. These usually aren’t. We used to be able to assume the driver confused the gas for the brake, but we can factor in distraction now, too. But too many of these incidents are happening in the day in highly populated areas. You don’t get to mix up your pedals and plow through a building and be done with it. If a driver isn’t capable of controlling their vehicle at all times, this is a red flag indicating intervention.
Does age play a factor?
Speaking of which, this video from Toronto last week is an object lesson for the ages. “An elderly woman is in custody after a car was captured on video driving the wrong way in downtown Toronto Thursday, leaving behind a trail of damaged vehicles,” reports CTV News. The video shows a driver at midday (in a large SUV, of course) bashing and banging her way in the wrong direction smashing into cars as she goes. A man tries to stop her, but she keeps going. Her vehicle had sustained a lot of front-end damage already, and airbags had been deployed. Medical incident? Maybe. But she ignored someone helping, didn’t see other vehicles fleeing out of the way, reversed to get around some and kept bashing away. Police say three kilometres away and minutes earlier, “there were other collisions linked to the same vehicle.” I’m not ageist but please take the keys away from this woman before she kills someone.
Speed demons
Who were the idiot speed demons in 2024? Too many to get to them all, but this motorcyclist doing 234 km/hr (speed limit: 60) on the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver surely makes the cut. The best part? He filmed himself and posted it to social media. The worst part? Can’t find any evidence that police have found him. Closer to home and dumb-but-less-dangerous is the young Brampton man who celebrated getting his G2 licence — by cracking open a beer behind the wheel. He’d had his licence for 20 minutes, he was going 50 over with a beer in his hand as he blew past an unmarked. “The man’s driver’s license was suspended for 30 days and he was charged with stunt driving, careless driving, novice driver with BAC above zero, driving with open liquor and several other document related offences,” reports Caledon Enterprise.
NSFW
In a twist on distracted driving, OPP two weeks ago stopped a driver who was zipping along the 417 in Ottawa. Watching porn. He’d carefully propped his phone behind the wheel, but the only thing he got off with was a $615 fine. “Driving requires your full attention,” police said. “Leave the phone alone, wait until you get home,” said police, with a straight face.
We saved the best worst for last
In the spirit of saving the worst for last, someone really needs to explain — and stop — the idiots who keep shutting down major highways and holding their own street festivals. From CityNews: “Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers are investigating after some wild scenes on parts of Highway 401 in Mississauga early [October 6] morning that included street racing, stunt driving and even fireworks being set off.” Numerous reports of the highway blocked at 401 and Mavis at 2:10 a.m., then they take off. An hour later, same bullshit at 401 and Islington. Blocking the highway, stunt driving and setting off fireworks, again, many with licence plates covered. Like the fool on the Lions Gate Bridge, this is all done to plaster all over social media. I know they didn’t shoot someone in the C-suite, but how are arrests never made? Take it to the track, you low-rent Ricky Racers. See how the pros do it.
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