Jason Loves The World

So today I got a phone call from a co-worker “Hey, can you find out whats going on with the Malahat”

It was closed, due to yet another accident.  This time it was a fatal accident, a PT Cruiser crossed the centre line and hit a northbound motorcycle.  I’m going to make an assumption, the people in the PT Cruiser were old.  Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t make assumptions, but have you ever seen someone who drives one of those cars?  Now, it wasn’t raining, it wasn’t foggy, and the southbound car has a single lane, so really, how hard is it to keep it between the mustard and the mayo?  

For alot of people it is hard, I see it every day, but with years of driving the road, I’ve developed a better sense of situational awareness for a number of reasons, the varying speeds, people not paying attention, and people who are scared to drive the road!  Plus on weekends, I hate driving this road because you get the people who rarely drive it, they either drive too fast, too slow, or are too timid, especially when you have to merge, these people are easy to spot.

What would help all the issues would be a divider, its simple.  There wouldn’t be head-on collisions, less people would die, and less people would be inconvenienced.  Even when there is an accident, at least one side of the highway would be clear and allow for at the very least single lane alternating traffic!  I don’t know why this hasn’t happened, even in the dead straight portion of the highway that my 6 year old could drive, past bamberton and into Mill Bay there is a divider!  I call on the Transportation Ministry to buck up and put a divider in, maybe instead of the digital signs telling us to buckle up, they could put in some cement and save lives?

On a similar note, BC Ferries has a ship that travels from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay, and when the Malahat is closed this pretty much is the only way to get to Victoria.  It shocks me that every time our ferry fares go up, they point to routes like this that do not make money, yet, when the opportunity arises to make money when the free highway is closed, they are not prepared, slow at getting information out to the public, and don’t see an opportunity when it presents itself.

They pay people to use twitter for them, yet every time there is an accident and you ask for information on this route, they are incredibly slow to respond, but if someone tweets a picture of damn whale they saw from a ferry, they can re-tweet that shit in seconds!

In closing, we need some barriers down the entire route, come on, lets do it, I don’t want to die, or be held captive in my car waiting for the road to open.  Lets also get BC Ferries to step up and do their job, have the ability to increase service on the that route when the demand is there, stop bitching about it being a money-losing route when you are not able to capitalize on opportunities when they arise!