The kind of driving I’m talking about is found on the numerous undivided two lane highways found in eastern British Columbia (hell even sections of the TransCanada are undivided two lane in this part of the country). This is complicated and I’ll try to simplify it. The main areas of concern are: 1) things in your control & things not in your control and 2) information & communication.

The biggest thing in your control when driving is your brakes. Drive like you don’t have any (for the most part), as even thinking about touching your brakes at highway speeds during winter driving in the mountains can get you in trouble. Go into corners a little slower than you want and then power out of them. It is always preferable to ride the throttle than to ride the brake as once you hit the brakes and your tires are no longer spinning at the speed the car is moving you have lost real contact with the road and it is not easy to get that contact back. By slowing down before the corner (often just by taking your foot off the accelerator) you make sure you will not need to hit the brakes in the corner when you lose your nerve. Once you know you’re good you can then power out of the corner and get back to the speed you want to be going.

This rant will be all over the place, but the next thing I want to talk about is the distance between you and the car ahead (in your control) and the guy that is on your ass (out of your control). This leads me to The Three Second Rule (3SR). Give the guy ahead of you three seconds and the guy behind you should respect this also. The only time you need to disobey this rule is when you need to pass. On these roads passing is mandatory and YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO PASS OTHER VEHICLES. This is something everyone needs to understand and you shouldn’t show up if you cannot figure out how to safely pass.

Passing: Now listen up and I will let you in on some things. Every once and a while you will be given an opportunity to pass other vehicles using your very own passing lane. This is a luxury and you need to take maximum advantage of these opportunities. Another tidbit: you even get advanced warning for when these passing lanes will occur and that leads me to the first introduction to the “information and communication” content of today’s ass talk.

Look for the signs that say “Passing Lane in 2 Kms” as well as all the other signs that tell you things like the real speed limit (black on white signs), suggested speeds for corners (black on yellow and the curving line is actually a depiction of what’s coming up) and lots of other useful information. OK back to passing and the passing lanes. You need to use those two kilometers (sometimes it is one or three km, but usually it’s two) to be in the best position to use the passing lane and this means knowing when to back off and give the guy ahead (that you want to pass) some space. This is so you can gun it at the right time and get up to speed to start passing at the very beginning of the pass lane. Passing lanes are often on inclines (going up) so if you drive a vehicle like mine (4 cylinder intercooled turbo diesel) you need to be in the power band in the top gear to really pass quickly and I will digress here to say that the 3SR is very important when passing. Try to stay 3 seconds back before the pass. This helps keep the amount or crap hitting the front of your ride down and you should always go as far past the guy you are passing as you can go before you get back in the other lane to minimize the shit you spray on him.

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OK, I’ve established the need to be able and willing to pass and I will now touch on some others issues around passing. In other parts of the world drivers help one another to pass by signaling that the road ahead is open (when there are still only two lanes but the centre line is broken indication that it is legal to pass using the lane running in the opposite direction). The way they do this is to use their left turn signal. Now this is a bad idea because every once in a while someone is actually turning left and not signaling a pass and the resultant collision is often fatal. I’ve adopted a method of letting others know it is safe to pass and it is often effective as if you insist on being within my three-second zone with safe passing opportunities I will make you pass me if it is safe.

So instead of using my left signal to communicate safe passing when someone invades my rear space I will simply push down on my RIGHT indicator switch so that my right signal light lights up just once. This is very often effective as some drivers just naturally want to have someone else drive for them so they get up on you ass and let you determine how fast to go etc. Well the right turn light often will clue some drivers into figuring out that there is a safe opportunity to pass and some will take it. Others for whatever reason will not clue in and so the next move is to use the four way flashers when the next safe passing opportunity comes. If someone continues to drive in my three-second zone then I will reach over and push the four way flash button and flash my lights once. To those behind it looks like I’m putting on my brakes without me having to remove my foot from the accelerator (remember braking is dangerous) and this will often get some to take the pass while others will drop back to a safe distance. The remaining few are the ones that really piss me off. They want me to drive for them but I’ll bet their reaction times are way slower than mine and if I did need to brake, for wildlife for instance, then I’m sure they would be ramming into my rear end and I’d be fucked.

So for these I reserve the final stage of my program. Again once if there is a safe opportunity (no other cars on the road within a long sight distance and a long passing lane) I will not only hit my four way flashers I will leave them on and then take my foot off the accelerator and start to coast. Again this will lead some to finally make the pass but a stubborn few will just slow down with me. If it is safe I will persist and actually start to brake staying in my lane. I will refuse to move to the shoulder of the road as this is an unsafe practice and I have slowed to 30kms an hour in a 90 km zone before the offender would pass. I don’t like having to do this but I refuse to leave something I can’t control riding my ass.

So to conclude: don’t use your brakes, help each other pass and use the available information to drive appropriately. Anyway, this is just a small sample of winter driving tips I could lecture on but for now I’ll let it go.