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Driving in London, Ontario

It was on a Saturday afternoon. Needing groceries, I stopped at the grocery store to buy food on my way home from work. Shortly after leaving the store, I needed to make a left hand turn at a traffic light. While I was waiting in the left hand turn lane, a driver behind me honked. Looking in my rearview mirror, there was a woman driving a SUV type of vehicle who apparently wanted me to move my car forward so she could get completely into the left hand turn lane. Her rudeness really annoyed me, and I initially had no intention of giving in to her demand until the car in front of me moved forward, and I decided to move my car ahead to let this rude driver in.

When it was time for me to turn left at the advanced green light, she was right on my tail for the turn. Way too close, I increased my speed to try to grow the distance between us.  After I had made my turn, I switched to the right hand lane. Then the SUV came back into my lane and got so close to my car that I could not see the SUV’s headlamps in my rearview mirror. My speed had been reduced to the speed limit by now.

Having experienced this type of situation before, I knew that increasing my speed would just encourage her to drive faster too, and braking was not an option because this would cause the SUV to slam into the back of my Aveo car. Instead, I slowly, and gradually, let up on the accelerator, very slowly reducing my speed. She got off my tail, switched to the left hand lane, and promptly rode the bumper of another vehicle.

At first, I was enraged at this idiot driver. All the things I wish I could have done went through my mind. Frustration that I have seen these types of drivers almost every time I am on the road each day, and there is never a cop around. This is the reason auto insurance for drivers in London, Ontario, is higher than other cities. Too many drivers like the SUV driver who cause collisions, mixed with asinine Ontario government auto insurance legislation. I have never received even a ticket for my driving, ever, but my higher insurance rate is still based on where I currently live.

As I drove home, I cooled off as I looked around and I noticed all the good drivers around me that greatly out numbered the one bad driver I had encountered earlier. It also occurred to me the SUV driver’s insurance was probably high, she had been pulled over numerous times and ticketed by the police, and she would likely be pulled over again by the police. I also know that off duty police officers do drive on the roads in their private vehicles. All I should concern myself with is my own driving, and leave the traffic law enforcement to the police. Maybe think about installing a dashboard camera in my car as well just in case….

(c) Trevor Dailey 

Anti-Americanism and the Robertson screw

After coming home from work on a Friday evening one week, I found the hydro in my apartment was off. Hydro outages are not unusual in the apartment building I live in, but this time the rest of the building appeared to have hydro, just not my unit. Working though possible solutions, like a blown fuse, that really was not logical as I had been at my job all day, panic set in. Why was my hydro off? How long had it been off? Who was I supposed to call regarding my hydro being off after 17:00 hrs on a Friday evening?

Fortunately for me, a person who works for my landlord encountered me as I was returning from outside to find if I could determine by sight in the evening darkness if any other unit did not have hydro. He told me all the units in a vertical row in the building had lost hydro, and an electrician had been called. Satisfied with the answers to the questions I asked him, and that the problem was going to be dealt with, I told him I was going back to my apartment to sit in the dark and wait for the hydro to come back on. Later, there was a knock at my door.

The landlord’s employee and the electrician were there,  and they requested entrance to my apartment to check the wiring. I reluctantly granted the request, and they came into my dark, small, cluttered, one room, apartment, the electrician with a portable lamp. They had to move my refrigerator and stove to access a panel on the wall that, as it turns, out had not been opened in years. Something small made of glass, not anything I cared about, fell and broke on the floor as the refrigerator was being rocked and moved by the landlord’s employee. When I told them not to worry about it, as I just wanted them to get the job over with and leave, the electrician got a little verbally aggressive, and he refused to enter the space, asking me if I had a mat to throw over the glass. My annoyance was elevated. He was not in my apartment at my invitation, and I felt my privacy was being invaded by these two strangers. The glass was swept up, and the electrician was satisfied it was safe for him to work. It took two or three visits that evening before they found the problem in the building’s wiring, and the electrician put some new wiring in my apartment that brought my hydro back on. (A full repair was done a couple of weeks later.)

During the time the hydro problem was being fixed, the Robertson screw was brought up in conversation between the electrician and the landlord’s employee, because some of the screws in the panel were the slot type. The electrician stated the Robertson screw was the best type of screw. Then he said something that just made me angry inside. Expressing the anti-Americanism so many Canadians have, the electrician claimed the Americans would not buy the Robertson screw because it was Canadian, and the Americans came up with the Phillips instead. The landlord's employee added his own anti-American comments by saying something to the effect of the Americans always having to invent everything themselves. As a Canadian, I have heard this kind of pompous and self-righteous Canadian attitude towards Americans for years, and I am fed up with it. These type of Canadians think they are better than Americans simply because Canadians are not Americans. That is idiotic. 

First, the United States of America is still the greatest country in the world. Read their constitution. Compare that document to the Canadian equivalent, the Canadian Bill of Rights, or any other county’s equivalent, to prove that. Second, the claim the electrician made is false; absolutely false!

© Trevor Dailey

Robertson Inc.

The Constitution (USA)

Canadian Bill of Rights