Have you seen any dangerous driving in Metro Vancouver lately?
While it isn't uncommon to see people making poor decisions behind the wheel, a few locals have taken to social media to share incidents that could have ended tragically.
A local man shared a video of an alarming near-miss at the intersection of Shaughnessy Street and Pitt River Road in Port Coquitlam around 11 p.m. on Sunday (May 8) night (the dashcam says 10 p.m. but he hasn't updated it yet for daylight saving). The footage shows him driving up to the intersection when a vehicle dangerously cuts across it and into his lane.
"I was on my way home, slowly coming to a stop at the intersection when I noticed a vehicle appearing to make a left turn towards me," Jay P. tells Vancouver is Awesome.
"It was coming on too fast, and if you notice [in] the video, before it even started making the turn, it was fully in the oncoming traffic lane."
While he's seen some "sloppy drivers cut into the left turn lane as they make the turn," Jay P. notes that this driver was completely in his lane.
"Had I not slowed down, I would’ve been hit for sure. For that split second, I actually thought that I was gonna get hit and somewhat braced for the impact," he recalls.
"Luckily, the driver swerved out of my lane at the last minute and we avoided the collision probably by a few inches. No idea what the driver honked at me for."
The driver drove off after the near-miss, leaving Jay P. "feeling dumbfounded and shocked." That said, he also feels there's been an uptick in reckless driving in the Greater Vancouver area over the pandemic.
"I’ve shared this video on my social media, and people generally agree with my sentiment," he adds.
Metro Vancouver drivers witness near-miss incidents
Another local driver captured a close encounter when he was travelling from New Westminster to Downtown Vancouver on Friday around 1 p.m.
In the dashcam footage, a silver SUV with an "N" (New Driver) sticker on the back crosses three lanes at the last minute to get to the exit to First Avenue. As they cut across traffic, they cut directly in front of the individual recording the incident.
"I have never seen something quite like this," Victor Li tells V.I.A. "I have seen people do two lane changes around Metrotown mall before, but nothing like this on a highway."
The frustrated local captioned "Thank you Vancouver, you never cease to disappoint me."
In another incident, dashcam footage shows a driver making a right turn off Fraser Street onto Broadway and then continues several blocks heading east. As he heads up Broadway, a Yellow Cab eventually cuts directly in front of a TransLink 99 B-Line bus and then parks beside the sidewalk.
Chia-Wei Kuan captions, "worst driver in Vancouver" on their YouTube video.
