Note to drivers: Rage won’t get you there faster

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/08/2023 (766 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the kind of thing most folks would consider to be basic common sense: when entering a construction zone, drivers should heed the posted signage and slow down in order to keep workers, other drivers and themselves safe from harm.

But here’s the unfortunate reality regarding common sense, exemplified yet again by lamentable human behaviour: it is not, it seems, all that common.

Case in point: earlier this month, city officials felt compelled to issue a statement urging motorists to exercise more caution and courtesy in the 200-plus construction zones that dot Winnipeg’s landscape during this busy summer of infrastructure repair and renewal.

Citing disrespectful and “downright dangerous” antics by some drivers — including verbal abuse and rude gestures, ignoring signage, entering active work areas and driving perilously close to crews attempting to do their jobs — the city called for cooler heads while this necessary work grinds toward its seasonal completion.

“Everyone involved in road work is out there doing the best they can to make the roads better for all of us,” the statement declares, “and they deserve to feel safe while doing their job and (to) be able to go home at the end of day.”

It’s an observation so obvious it should not even need to be articulated, and yet we find ourselves in a time and place in which construction companies feel obliged, for their workers’ safety’s sake, to ask the city to speak out.

Summertime construction in this winter city is nothing new. And while it’s true the volume of disruption this season exceeds the average — owing in part to a catch-up effort after 2022’s extra-wet summer pushed road work further behind schedule — there does seem to be something unsettlingly different about the way motorists are coping (or, in too many cases, not) with the seemingly endless array of barricades, lane closures and bottlenecks.

The term “road rage” dates back to the 1980s, when it seems to have been coined to describe a wave of gun-violence incidents on the congested freeways of Los Angeles and other U.S. cities. While what’s happening on Winnipeg’s construction-clogged streets in 2023 does not involve angry drivers opening fire on the sources of their frustrations, there does seem to be an increasing level of lead-footed fury that requires a collective reconsideration of attitudes and behaviours.

Flipping the bird isn’t going to get you to your destination any sooner. Honking your horn isn’t going to make the cars in front of you disappear. And driving dangerously close to construction workers is as pointless as it is ignorant.

We’re all under a lot of stress these days — inflationary pressures, lingering pandemic disruptions to our home and work lives, concerns about a looming climate catastrophe, overheated, polarized politics and so much more have contributed to a growing unease in 21st-century society.

But that doesn’t give anyone licence to take out their frustrations on those who perform the front-line tasks intended to make our lives easier and safer. In addition to those construction workers who just want to get home safely to their families at the of a hard day’s work, this list of those who don’t deserve abuse also includes health-care workers, restaurant servers, grocery-store clerks, airport and airline employees and anyone else whose daily routine involves interaction with the public.

We can all do better. And we must. Perhaps there’s a bit of more broadly applicable wisdom to be found in public works committee chair Coun. Janice Lukes’ advice for delay-disgruntled Winnipeg drivers:

“Put some nice music on in your vehicle, relax, and just get a grip.”