Sometimes in this line of work you head into a story thinking the answer is pretty clear and you have a good idea what it is, only to find out it isn’t and you don’t.
That’s where I’m at this week.
Remember the July 15 Coast Reporter? I wrote: “I was going to write about a beef I have with some driving habits I’ve noticed lately at a certain Sechelt intersection, but I need to do a little more research to confirm my indignation is truly righteous and not based on faded memories of a decades old drivers’ handbook.”
I’ve been driving in downtown Sechelt a lot more since joining the paper. As a motorcyclist, the most dangerous situations I face come at intersections. The folks at the Motorcycle Safety Foundation teach riders SIPDE: Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide, Execute. It’s a clever way of saying keep your wits about you.
Now, here’s the beef: Heading out of Sechelt, I turn right at the intersection of Wharf, Dolphin and 101. There’s a yield sign, and I’ll be damned if I’ve seen any two drivers react the same way in the past six months. Some stop dead, even when there’s no traffic. Others barrel on through, even when there’s a semi-trailer heading right for them. Others put their vehicles through a herky-jerky stop, start, stop, start. It really messes with the P in my SIPDE, and I’ve seen some close calls.
It was primed for a shake-my-fist-yell-at-the-clouds rant about drivers who can’t cope with a yield sign, when my reporter voice asked, “Are you sure YOU know what to do at a yield sign?”
Turns out I do (whew), and the best explanation I found is from DriveSmart BC, a website run by retired RCMP constable Tim Schewe.
“If two vehicles approach or enter an intersection from different highways at approximately the same time and there is a yield sign, the driver of a vehicle facing the sign must yield the right of way to all other traffic.
“The key words in the last paragraph are ‘all other traffic.’ This isn’t just the traffic in the lane that you are going to try to enter.”
At the Wharf, Dolphin, 101 nexus “all other traffic” could be pedestrians at the crosswalk, vehicles coming in and out of the gas station and the very wide enter/exit apron for the neighbouring businesses, someone turning left from Wharf into the right-hand lane to get to the McDonald’s drive-through, etc.
In short, there’s a lot going on. So much, that I’m no longer convinced my SIPDE is being thrown off by ill-informed drivers. It’s just that Sechelt is a lot busier than the Sechelt of my youth, and I need to bring my big city defensive driving game when I roll up to that intersection. Most other drivers apparently do. The intersection ranks low on ICBC’s list of the most crash prone in Sechelt (Snodgrass Road and 101 is tops).
So, to get back to my point, the answer wasn’t clear and I had no idea what it was. Maybe there wasn’t even a question.
But, I don’t want to be accused of writing an opinion piece without an opinion. So, if there was a question, the answer would be roundabouts. In my last job, I spent a lot of time driving in Nanaimo and the Cowichan Valley. They have roundabouts, and they work. They’re also kinda fun for motorcyclists.
