Steve Wallace, owner of Wallace Driving School, is offering advice on how to react to drivers traveling in the wrong direction. His advice comes in the wake of an elderly man traveling in the wrong direction on the Trans Canada Highway during morning rush hour traffic.
The 93 year old elderly man narrowly avoided high a speed head on collisions Thursday morning while driving north in the southbound lane for a full minute, before safely stopping.
Wallace says these types of incidents are uncommon, but when they do happen, drivers should avoid hard braking, and instead find an escape route.
"At high speeds, always take the space. Slamming on your brakes is not going to be the solution at those high speeds. For reasons that it's going to take you exponentially further to stop. So people don't understand that 'Hey, at 50k, I'm going along, I have to stop.' At 100k, it's four times as far."
He says this could be the shoulder of the road or an open lane, adding in the rare occasions where there are no escapes, like on a bridge or in a tunnel, drives should give themselves extra room to safely brake.
Wallace adds that when these situations arise, it's mostly elderly people who have never driven in those areas before.
"If you have someone who's in their 80s, 90s, and their in a new area, a lot of times they will get to a place they don't want to be. And as such, they'll make sure that they try to get back to where they were before. And luckily this guy didn't do it. This guy, what he did was he came to a slow stop, thankfully there was a professional driver, a trucker, who stopped and impeded his progress, and of course the police followed afterwards"
Wallace says the driver will likely have to be assessed on whether or not he's fit to continue to drive.
"I think the person will probably get a notice to show up to the doctor for some sort of a physical/cognitive exam, and perhaps a driving test will be ordered"
He says it will be a similar exam to the one that British Columbians take when they turn 80..
The 93 year old man was ticketed by the West Shore RCMP, and a cruiser followed the driver to his destination to ensure he didn't get into any other dangerous situations.