Nearly half of British Columbians believe drivers have gotten worse over the past five years

Are BC drivers getting worse?

A new survey shows nearly half (45%) of British Columbians believe drivers have gotten worse in the past 5 years.

When asked by polling firm Research Co., if they believe drivers in their neighbourhood have gotten better, worse, or stayed the same, 46% of Canadians answered “worse”, down just two points since a similar survey was done in 2022.

In the survey, 1,000 Canadians were asked to mark down what kind of traffic infractions they had witnessed in the past month. The results were then weighed by province based on the Canadian Census data. This showed that 58% of British Columbians saw someone turn without signalling, 43% saw a car taking up more than one spot in a parking lot, and almost as many (42%) saw a driver not stopping at an intersection, while 30% saw car turning from the wrong lane, 26% had a close call (having to slam their brakes or abruptly steer away to avoid a collision) and 6% had been in a car crash. Just 21% were lucky enough to have seen none of it.

A majority (64%) of British Columbians believe a specific group of people are worse drivers than others, be young drivers, old drivers, women, immigrants, etc. That is the second highest rate from different provinces, just behind Alberta which stands at 71%. Most Canadians have answered that the worst drivers on the road are “young” (33%), “elderly” (21%), “Asian” (16%), and “immigrant” (12%). The data for these classifications was not available by province.

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