The truck accident last week proved one thing about the local traffic scene. We may not be big enough to have traffic jams like Kelowna does but we’re still big enough that a poorly timed accident can impact the morning commute for a lot of people.
School kids were on their busses and their teachers were in their cars all heading to what they thought would be a normal day. But with some of them going east and a bunch of the others heading west, when there was a truck jackknifed across the highway at quarter to eight in the morning, quite a few people found themselves in a pickle.
Fortunately cell phones and text messaging exist these days so staff was reassigned and all of the classrooms were covered so the kids could be looked after at whatever school they could get to.
Also fortunate was a previously scheduled elementary school skate at the Midway arena later in the morning. So eventually the kids were all meeting up and could be sorted out there.
Lots of people move out here to the country to get away from traffic. Can’t say as I blame them. Though a few years back when I was in Vancouver for a weekend I saw a traffic jam on a major arterial heading to the Oak Street Bridge. In a foolhardy quest for nostalgia or something, I flipped my blinker on and pulled onto the ramp that would put my car into the slow-moving traffic. I think that goes under the “You can tell they’re country if…..” column.
Sometimes I tell people that we live rural out here. “So rural in fact we had to cancel the traffic jam last Thursday because Judy had her truck in the shop,” I say.
Too much time behind the wheel can get boring though. That was the case for this fellow from Newfoundland and Labrador named Archie.
Now Archie was a long-haul truck driver, so he spent a lot of time behind the wheel. He had a regular route that went from St. John’s to Montreal. He’d been making this same run for years and he was getting really, really bored with it.
So one day he decided to take up knitting to help him pass the time. He’d just wind his arms through the spokes of the steering wheel and go merrily on down the road – knitting and whistling and enjoying his career as a truck driver again for the first time in many years.
But one day a cop saw what he was doing. And this cop was pretty sure that driving while knitting was a violation of the law. So he whipped around and turned on his flashing lights.
No effect. So the policeman turns on his siren.
No effect. So he pulls up alongside the truck and he pulls out his revolver and shoots out the window on the truck.
Still, no effect. So as they drive down the highway, the cop yells up at the driver, “Pullover! Pullover!”
And Archie yells back, “No! It’s a cardigan.”