Man advises Vancouver drivers to "chill the fu*k out"

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When Adrian Larkin landed in Vancouver 10 years ago, he fell in love with the city in five minutes. However, there is one thing he truly hates about living here.

“When people get behind the wheel of the car… they turn into proper a**holes,” he said.

It’s once people get behind the wheel and “have a shield.” Larkin said they think local drivers believe “they can do whatever they want.”

“They are very quick to lay on the horn, they’re very quick to… give the finger, or rev their engine and speed past you,” he lists. “Living in a high-rise apartment in Vancouver, the sound echoes from people deliberately revving up their engines to fly down the street for attention-seeking purposes. It is just horrendous.”

Larkin said that for years, he’s felt the driving in Vancouver is terrible, as many people try to get to their destination as quickly as possible. However, “[Tuesday] was the epitome of it.”

Earlier this week Larkin came across an elderly couple, who seemed to be in the mid to late 70s, blocking one lane heading north on Granville Bridge close to the Drake and Seymour streets intersection.

“They were completely lost”

Presuming it was a mechanical issue, he pulled up behind the couple’s vehicle, which had been flashing its hazard lights. As he spoke to the couple, he learned they were visiting from the Squamish area and don’t come down to Vancouver often. Unfortunately, this time when they travelled to the city, their car froze up.

“I tried to help them by putting the car into neutral so we could get them out of the line of fire, but their car wouldn’t even do that,” Larkin said.

The Vancouver resident added that the car had broken down at a “terrible time.” It was 5 pm rush hour in Vancouver, and folks coming off the bridge were driving down a four-lane road and expecting to narrow down to two lanes. However, the vehicle break down blocked one lane and meant drivers could only use one lane to get past.

“It was causing a lengthy tailback on the bridge,” he said, adding people were heard shouting out their car windows “pull over somewhere else.” Since Larkin’s car was behind the stalled vehicle, he said drivers may have assumed they had both stopped due to a fender bender.

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“The wife did seem a little bit more shaken… but [the couple] were still sort of just waving it off, but were being shown the middle finger multiple times and being shouted at multiple times,” Larkin said, “It cannot have been easy.”

“At the end of the day, they were an older couple visiting Vancouver. They were completely lost.”

After Larkin stopped to help the couple, it took them about 70 minutes to finally get their vehicle towed off the bridge.

During that time, Larkin said it was “astonishing” how unkind drivers were Tuesday evening, adding he was “very disappointed.”

“I still love Vancouver, and for the most part, I love the people. It’s just the shield that people seem to put up around themselves when they get in behind the wheel of the car was a little bit depressing,” he said.

Cars in Vancouver. (Urban Napflin / Shutterstock)

Larkin said Vancouver will likely be his home for the rest of his life, but he hopes drivers will be more empathetic and patient on the road.

“Don’t always presume that you know what’s going on in somebody else’s life, because you bloody don’t,” he said. “[The couple] had a very innocent situation… and the level of abuse that came their way because of it was ridiculous.”

“Chill the fu*k out,” Larkin advised Vancouver drivers.

What you do think of Vancouver drivers? Let us know in the comments below.