Worst Drivers In The World - Fredericton

I live in a small city called Fredericton. It’s north of Maui. Unlike Maui, the weather sucks. So do the drivers. In fact, Fredericton’s main boast to fame is the sad truth that it has the most inconsiderate, ignorant, dumbass, stupid, hollow-headed, vindictive, brain dead, petty, mean little asshole drivers of any municipality on the planet.

Last summer, I was driving in Toronto. One of the things that amazed me was seeing cars slowing down to allow cars to get in front of them to change lanes. If a Fredericton driver sees your turning signal begin to flash before you change lanes, that driver will speed up and close the space between his or her car and the car in front so that you can’t change lanes. I’m not joking. I see this almost every day.

A couple of months ago, I was in Chicago en route to a meeting with a client. The client was in Lisle, so it was a long drive. The driver had to change lanes (yes, I counted the number of times) 47 times there and back. Not once did the drivers in the other lanes try to stop him.

The three-way stop at the Regent Mall is the Fredericton driver’s wish-come-true. “I wish to be an especially mean little asshole today.” And so is. One car from lane one pulls out, followed by one car from lane two, followed by one car from lane three, and … oh uh … mean little asshole just got his wish as he pulled out right behind the car from lane three, upsetting the equilibrium of fairness and almost crashing into the second car from lane one, whose turn it is to pull out.

Putting a traffic rotary in Fredericton would result in one of the greatest motor vehicle disasters in history. Thousands would die. In minutes.

At the University of New Brunswick, three roads feed into one short lane that leads out the front gate of the campus. Traffic usually backs up ten or fifteen vehicles deep on two of the roads because the gate leads smack into a busy intersection with traffic lights. The third road leads into a gym parking lot and cuts through one of the other two lanes. Last week, traffic was backed up waiting for the intersection lights to change and I stopped my car just before the road to the gym, leaving enough space for cars coming up the hill to turn onto the gym road. I could have pulled ahead and blocked access to the gym road but I wouldn’t have been going anywhere because the traffic was still backed up. I would have gained a staggering two car lengths. So why not let cars turning onto the gym road through? The ignorant dickhead in the car behind me had other thoughts. He honked his horn continuously and shook his fist at me. The whole time I was stopped.

If I hadn’t been in a hurry, I would have sat through a couple more lights in the hopes that he would get out of his car so that I could clobber his mean little ass. The unfortunate part is that this has happened to me before in Fredericton. Others are angered by attempts to be a considerate driver.

Forget about trying to pull out in busy traffic in Fredericton. Nobody’s going to stop for you. If you’re a pedestrian, don’t step out into a crosswalk until the traffic has stopped completely. Law or not, most drivers are just going to ignore you. At intersections with double lanes, watch out for drivers cutting into the right lane instead of the left like it says to do in the driver’s manual. In Fredericton, traffic laws are made on the fly and assholes reign on the roads.

Here’s how bad it is, I was stopped in a busy lane waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic so that I could make a left turn. The traffic in that lane stretched as far as I could see. I hunkered in for a long wait when suddenly, a car in the oncoming traffic stopped. I didn’t do anything. I just sat there. The other driver honked her horn and smiled. And then it occurred to me: she’s giving me a break. I almost burned rubber making my turn, smiling, waving, and thinking: “Is there hope for the drivers of Fredericton?”

BTW, if you think the city you live in has worse drivers than Fredericton, make a comment below.