Winnipeg, Worst Drivers in Canada?

Yes, I mean you Winnipeg! I felt safer driving around Rome, or Moscow. They may have a, shall we say, festive attitude towards driving but it's not the naked aggression displayed by the fine citizens of this city. Witness the wreck I drove past heading east on Portage at the intersection of Cavalier at 9:50 this am. The driver "attacked the concrete divider!" knocking down several posts in order to do so and look how far up the meridian he is!

Check out that light beam from the heavens, doesn't bode well for the motor vehicle operator methinks. It could be argued that it's just the reflection on my drivers side window but I know a supernatural event when I see one on account of that there tee-vee show on the tee-vee, that I sometimes watch, at night. And the golden arch is kind of a give away on some level.

That's a busy intersection but quite normal in it's configuration, not like that nasty cluster fuck at the Super Store just down the road. Generally speaking I go on hyper alert when ever I have to navigate a parking lot in this city. The intended traffic pattern as indicated by all those yellow lines on the pavement seems to be interpreted differently by everyone from teenagers stress testing their learners permit to little old ladies, everyone just burning around the lot in random patterns which means there is no warning before you are in a fender bender. BOOM!! Lets not get into 4-way stop signs. They are after all merely a suggestion and right of way is determined solely by vehicle size.

I probably shouldn't be making light of this particular situation because not much had changed when I drove by heading west 25 minutes later. But radio didn't mention any casualties and the channel 2 evening news didn't mention it at all as we're not even considered part of the city way out here in the west end. But I digress.

There isn't a moment where I am not reminded how really shitty and insane Winnipeg drivers are. From the well dressed gentleman in the silver Ford Escape who was reading the sun paper while driving as the firefighter waved us through this intersection,  to all those aggressive lane changers zig zagging all over the place, the knuckle draggers in their huge 4X4's crowding my back bumper and the really really dense bastards pulling U-turns and clogging the left lane for ridiculously long periods of time. Close cousins to the mouth breathers who enter Portage from a side street and calmly sit astride two lanes while they wait for an opening in traffic going the other way. This is a special kind of idiot. Three lanes become one.

So let me introduce you to my little friend! This is my Flip video recorder stuck to my windshield and it's going to be recording every trip I make in this city from now on. When I have enough edited footage I'll post it on my YouTube channel. So to that swollen dwarf in the black Dodge Ram who parked so close to my drivers door I couldn't get in! Next time you'll be recorded. That ignorant kid who almost T-boned me in the Wally Mart parking lot! You're about to transcend your local jerk status and become a famous jerk.

Winnipeg drivers are a pretty noisy bunch I've noticed. Ask them about bicycle lanes, pot holes or traffic circles and watch the vein in their temple start to pulse.  Cameras at intersections, fines for cell phone use while driving...all provoke fits of rage. But you know what? You get no sympathy from me! As far as I'm concerned there should be a cameras at every traffic light, more patrol cars roaming around and a website where you can name and shame transgressors.