Point

My faith in humanity is dwindling to nothing very, very quickly.

I have to drive into work twice a week at the moment and the commute is, once again, really getting to me.

In MY opinion, I'm an above-average driver. I'm not a great driver, by any means. I'm also not a horrible driver. I speed, yes, but you're not about to see me run red lights or stop signs and speeding in playgrounds and school zones will never NEVER happen. But comparing me to other drivers out there these days.... my God...

To my American readers, these numbers are kilometers, so please don't think it's miles. Do the math if you really want to know, but understand some of these speeds are f-a-s-t fast!

I have 2 bridges to cross on my commute in. It's usually the faster route and even in Springtime, the slower route can get a little frosty in the heavily wooded, turns and add in some fog and they're not the type of road I want to be driving on before sunrise with people doing 40-50 over the speed limit of 80.

So, the freeway is my way right now.

Leading up to the first bridge is a tight, round onramp with a maximum speed of 60. The bridge itself is 80. Most people on the bridge these days travel around 110 or 120, some go even faster. On the onramp, the fastest I've seen people go on the max. 60 onramp is about 120. Until this morning, that is. This morning, I was keeping up with traffic (doing 90) when a girl passed me. I figure by the speed she passed me, she was doing 140 to 150. So, close to 3 times the legal speed limit.

Once I got on the highway (max. 100), I kept up with the morning traffic as we sped along at 110. As we approached one hill, a semi was in the fast lane and they slow down big-time when they hit this particular hill. So, we were fortunate that he pulled into the outside lane as we started up the hill. Too bad for Dude in the SUV, who thought he could pass everyone in that lane. Even worse for Dude was the fact that his lane was slowing down and the fast lane was now speeding up again and he'd have to wait for a chance to get back in.

He decided not to wait, though.

Within a couple seconds, I nearly had a hood full of black SUV as he forced me off the road. If it wasn't for the wide shoulder in that particular spot, I would've gone into the grass and down an embankment, most likely rolling my car. This particular area shows numerous "scars" along the edge of the road where cars, trucks, and semis have been pushed off by aggressive drivers. And here I was, a couple feet from the same fate. Fortunately, I hit the brakes and stayed on the pavement. As I looked up, leaning on the horn (usually a universal sign of "pay attention to me!"), I saw another universal sign: his middle finger waving at me.

Within moments I was doing 140 to catch up to him and get the licence plate number to contact the police. And, as I dialed 911, he slammed on the brakes and I nearly slammed into him before I once again saw his middle finger and he sped off.

But I had his plate number, and we were headed straight into the jurisdiction of one of my friends in the RCMP. A quick call to the RCMP had a cruiser waiting about 10 minutes' drive further down. If they didn't get him for reckless driving, he did them one better by blasting by the cruiser doing over 150 (which is the speed I was at trying to catch up to him). I'm sure he was angry because he would've lost at least 10 seconds by having to wait to get into the fast lane legally...

But these 2 crazy drivers was not the end of the day's driving adventures. In the last block before my office building, as I walked down from my parking spot, a van pulled into the intersection a stopped. He was dropping his 20-something daughter off, I'm assuming to go to the ESL school in the neighboring building. As he she got out of the van, she walked across the street towards the school...

Right into heavy traffic. How this girl did not die and how no one smacked their car in the sudden screeching of brakes and turning of wheels is unbelievable. And she never looked up to even acknowledge that she might've done something wrong. She just continued across the busy street.

So, my faith in humanity is dropping quickly. In 34 years, it's gone from the 100% everyone starts with, down to a point or two.... like 0.2%

Not more than that.