ON THE TIMES - By Art Stott
Victoria Daily Times February 4, 1958
Ed note: Art Stott drove the Malahat many times from Victoria to his summer cottage at
Shawnigan. He frequently commented on the his experiences related to in and about Shawnigan Lake. Even though this article is over 60 years old, it still has pertinent information to digest. Used with permission from the Stott family.
Long before Le Mans and the Mille Miglia scattered sports cars and human bodies over famous road race routes, I took a negative position on highway and byway automobile speed tests.
Perhaps my attitude was coloured by the fact that I’ve never considered myself a good driver. I came to driving too late to feel that I was ever a sentient part of the machine itself. The automobile and I have been able to get along together. But our association has always been more a marriage of convenience than the wedded bliss some men enjoy with their cars.
Still, if I could never hope to be a good driver—if there was little chance of me handling a car with completely automatic reflexes—I have thought that I was a reasonably careful driver. Appreciating my limitations behind a wheel, I’ve tried to compensate with extra caution.
The doctrines of watching the white line, staying in your own lane, not passing on hills or curves, and holding to slower speeds because you can stop a car better at them have always seemed important to me.
A man can be quite misguided in his own assessment of his car-handling techniques. He can see the faults in others. Noting his own is something quite different.
Good Lesson
The lesson has come home to me sharply—and fortunately with no physical pain.
The other night I left a gathering extremely tired. I wanted to get home and get to bed. To leave the parking lot, I had to ease my way between stationary cars, slide over a sidewalk crossing, and wait for a break in cross-traffic on the road.
When it came, I moved into gear, cut over the road, and slipped into high.
The driver swinging around behind me in the general flow of traffic took time to lean from his window and holler: “That’s the way to make angels, Pappy.”
I guess it’s a normal driver’s reaction to holler back and, provided the critical motorist stops, to climb out of his own car, walk to the critic and punch him on the nose, if the critic’s small enough.
I didn’t holler back. The dispenser of advice didn’t stop. But mentally, he hauled me up short.
Maybe, it occurred to me, maybe I had tried to make angels, in spite of the fact that I pride myself on careful driving. Just possibly my fatigue and anxiety to get home dulled my conventional caution.
There isn’t anything unusual about that experience. It must happen to everyone who drives a car at some time or another. Fortunately—if I actually had been at fault—no serious mishap occurred. Circumstances were such that nobody was in danger.
Normal Lapses
And yet, on a short run up to Shawnigan, for instance, there undoubtedly occur any number of unnoticed split-second lapses. If they coincide with elements of danger already present, they could lead to tragedy.
I guess everyone driving the highway occasionally drifts toward the shoulder of the road, finds his wheels in gravel, and almost unconsciously pulls the car back to a safer position. Maybe the driver’s mind has been half on a business deal in prospect. Maybe he has been thinking about events coming up in the evening. Or maybe he has been concentrating so hard on driving that he suffers a touch of highway hypnosis.
A hundred, or a thousand, times a day drivers undergo these minor aberrations. A hundred, or a thousand times a day they escape without serious consequences. But there comes a time when inattention to the exacting tasks of driving occurs simultaneously with the existence of other accident factors and they all add up to trouble.
Drivers can’t escape all the slips. But, if they recognize the results that can accrue from them, they should be just that much more cautious when they drive. With caution, they can reduce the percentages.
That’s why I’m a little grateful to the impertinent young man for yelling that I was trying to make angels. I hope I remember his remarks. I hope he takes them to heart, too—as well as everyone else who shares the road with us.
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