It's Never Just The Driver

In my family, everyone has a driver's license. Well, sort of…As a person with a fainting issue, driving does not appear to be in my future. As a unit, my family, both immediate and extended, has a wide range from overly cautious drivers to incredibly aggressive drivers. There are family members I’m fine with, some I would prefer not to be a passenger for, and then there are one or two I would sooner walk the length of the Trans-Canada Highway system than get into the passenger seat of the vehicle they are driving. One of these people is my uncle. He drives as though he is constantly angry, and has no issue tailgating, weaving in and out of traffic aggressively, or even stopping short in front of transport trucks. Sadly, he is not the worst of the drivers in our family. Nor is he the scariest that honour goes to my cousin, who, to protect their identity, I will be referring to as Z. 

There used to be a show on Canadian Television called “Canada’s Worst Driver”. The premise of this show was to highlight the absolutely horrific driving habits of Canadians who had racked up an absurd number of tickets and accidents and then supposedly, taught them how to be safer on the road for everyone’s well-being. Our family used to joke that Z should be on that show. Not that Z was aggressive when driving, but more because they struggled with inattentiveness at the best of times. Years into adulthood, they now have an official ADHD diagnosis, but I’m sure that starting medication at the beginning of their driving life would have greatly eased the concerns of everyone familiar with Z's driving. Even if Z didn’t know what kind of driver they were. 

There was once a time when we would roll our eyes and chuckle at some of the more ridiculous driving moments Z occasionally found themselves in.  They once had a minor fender bender with the car in front, which was stopped behind a school bus. Z then discovered they had just driven into the back of their own mother’s car. Z not only failed to realize the School Bus, and thus the car behind it, was stopped, but they hadn't noticed it at all. They would often miss exits and get flustered, or let the fuel get a little too low before filling up, but mostly there was just something about the way Z would drive that left the members of my immediate family not comfortable with them being on the road operating anything heavier than a scooter. 

Fast forward to 2020 and Z was visiting our grandfather for an extended period of time in a small town about two hours away from where we all live. During these visits, Papa would often let Z take his car to run errands or to drive to the next town to visit their Oma. Knowing that Papa was reliant on his car to maintain his active lifestyle and thrive on his own away from us, Z was normally quite cautious with his car. It was during one particular visit that Z would have the accident that changed everything for them forever. And for us all to some extent as well. 

During this visit, Z had made plans to get together with some friends online and not leave the house. Some visiting with Papa, a shared meal and then online games was on the docket for this day; unfortunately their father had different plans and called Z. The call was a demand to go visit his mother, Z’s Oma, in the next town over because he didn’t want to make the drive, and after all, Z was right there and could borrow Papa’s car to get there. I say demand, because there was no room for my cousin to argue or explain why this wasn’t a good idea at that moment, and couldn’t it wait until the next day? Z’s father is the uncle I referenced before as being a particularly aggressive driver. He is also like that when not behind the wheel, and arguing with him is never a good idea. When Z tried to say no and explain, my uncle just got angrier and louder. So much so that Papa tried to intervene and let Z know that it was fine they could borrow his car to go see their Oma, and they could enjoy dinner the next day. Placated, my uncle eased up on the verbal sparring, but the emotional damage had been done. Z was crying. Stressed. And most importantly, distracted. 

I’ve mentioned that Papa lived in a small town, this should tell you that the roads between his place and Z’s Oma’s were mostly back country roads where the speed limit ranges anywhere from 40km/hr to 90km/hr; most of them the latter. 

Most backcountry intersections in Southwestern Ontario will have one or more of the following to warn of an upcoming stop or yield: flashing lights, a warning sign of the stop coming, and/or rumble strips. But on this day, none of those advance indicators were in play at the intersection of Before and After. Apparently, the local property owners in the general  vicinity of the intersection had lobbied for the rumble strips to be removed at some point in the years prior, as the noise made by vehicles passing over bothered the quiet they cherished more than the safety they could provide.  Requests had been going out to the Ministry of Transportation and the local Municipality to have a flashing warning light installed for years as well, with no follow up from the decision makers. No advanced warning sign that a stop was imminent was the final absence that contributed to the next part of my cousin’s life being irrevocably changed for the worse. 

We’re told that Z was driving, in a state of upset, at a speed somewhere between 80-90km/hr (50-55mph) when they noticed belatedly that they had a stop NOW. Doing their best to hit the brake and avoid catastrophe, their foot slipped, missed the brake completely and T-boned an oncoming pickup truck who was also enjoying a speedy clip. We know that the other driver was not wearing a seatbelt. We know that he had his dog loose in the truck with him. We know that he had loose tools and other vehicle detritus. We know that the combination of some of this (mostly the seatbelt) and the speed at which Z hit his vehicle resulted in him tragically flying through his windshield and being declared dead at the scene. We know that Z was rushed to the hospital after being questioned at the scene without any sort of representation or understanding of what had fully happened due to some head trauma of their own. We know that the dog is ok. Z was determined to have non-life-threatening injuries and eventually released to return home. 

The idea of releasing a person who has been in a traumatic vehicular accident to ‘go home’ when home is several hours away is a lot more difficult than one would presume. The first hurdle was just getting Z into a car. Any car. But then to try to get them into a car with their father, who both Z and my uncle held partly responsible, was next to impossible.  Luckily Z’s sibling is possibly the BEST of the drivers in our family, so they were the ride home. Our Papa’s car was impounded for inquiry and also written off. Looking at photos of the accident, it’s no small miracle that Z was able to “walk away” from the scene.  As I mentioned earlier, this was in 2020 as the world was somewhere between locked down and slightly open, as such, the investigation and subsequent court case wanted Z to drive to a courthouse in a city half-way between both Z’s home and the hometown of the victim. Z couldn’t walk from their door to the street, let alone get into a car for an hour long drive. Thank goodness for Zoom calls.  At this time the family of the deceased were also grieving and I can only hope it was their grief that had them piling on to my cousin's sense of guilt and not because they were truly the type of people who would normally say to a 25-year-old that they should die. 

We are now six years out since this life-altering moment of vehicular misadventure. Z struggles to this day with severe C-PTSD, suicidal ideation due to guilt from their part in the passing of the other driver, and has had their license suspended since the court case wrapped up.  The other family have tried to sue, past the insurance limits, Z for money Z does NOT have, nor does Z have the ability to earn that sort of money as they would need to be able to GET to a job and not have a panic attack every time they hear a loud or startling noise. This coming year they are able to return to a refresher course in Driver’s Education and retest for their license.  We are all hoping that they choose a bus pass instead. 

Having been a young child when all this began, it is this family history that makes me glad that my own health struggles currently keep me from being able to test for my own driver's license. It has made me a hyper-vigilant passenger who is on top of everyone else in the car to be buckled up, alert, and to not have all sorts of things floating around collecting on the floor of the car; and just in case, encouraging my drivers to take the back roads instead of the highways in order to help bypass some of the more aggressive drivers on the road. Because as far as I’m concerned, the back roads are still safer than the alternative, and they allow us to see more of our province than the concrete presented by the 400 system of highways.