Younger drivers get a bad rap but sometimes age has little to do with one’s lack of brain power.
This news item from today’s London Free Press is making me shake my head. I saw someone doing this very thing on the QEW several years ago. Stupid beyond belief. Feel free to comment on the dumbest driving move you’ve seen on the road!
Here’s one time it’s not good to have your nose stuck in a book – while you’re driving a car. One driver’s commitment to literacy led to a dangerous driving situation in Perth County, OPP say.
On Thursday, just after 1 p.m., an officer was doing a radar patrol along Hwy. 23 in Atwood when a northbound car drove by. The officer noticed that the driver was reading a book. The officer followed the car as it weaved along the road, hitting the gravel shoulder and veering into the oncoming lane. The officer activated his emergency lights and siren, but the driver was too absorbed in the book to pull over until about one kilometer later.
Then the car finally stopped, the officer approached the car and saw two young children in child safety seats in the back seat of the vehicle. A 68-year-old man was charged with careless driving.
(BTW had I written the story, I would have found out from police what he was reading! Was it Stephen King? A Harlequin romance? Inquiring minds want to know.)
I bet he was reading the “Safe Driving Handbook”……..upside down!
ugh, I remember catching somebody reading the newspaper (and no, I couldn’t see which one) while driving on the DVP.
I’m guilty of sipping on a coffee when I have to drive for an hour or more. 🙁
I once saw a guy on the 401 near the airport eating a bowl of soup while driving.
I drove beside a guy on the 427N for about 2 miles and watched as he held a novel against the steering wheel with both hands and read it at about 120 kmh. He read for 4 or 5 seconds then glanced briefly up at the road for maybe a half second then resumed reading.
I had a conversation with some motorcycle travelers in central america about how the drivers were much more attentive than they were back in north america. Later that day in heavy, fast-moving bumper-to-bumper traffic I passed a driver with an actual television mounted to the right side of his dash……..and he was watching it!! So much for first impressions!
When I was in college, I almost got hit at Keele and Steeles by a guy with the Sun spread out on his steering wheel. (No, he wasn’t checking out the Sunshine Girl!)