The Chesterfield McFisticuffs Blog

Offensive Driving

Car accidents happen. There's really nothing you can do to avoid them because even if you're the safest driver on the face of the Earth you can't control the actions of others who have been deemed to be roadworthy drivers. However, there is always that one accident that you hear about every once in a while on the news that makes you laugh out loud and wonder exactly how someone could be stupid enough to do whatever they did to cause the accident in question. I'm sure that a lot of you have borne witness to such an accident and can tell a similar type of story as the ones that I'm about to tell.

Before I go any further, I need to preface the rest of this entry by saying that I am not under any circumstances - and by any stretch of the imagination - a racist. First of all, I go to school, and now live in, North York. I can't speak for the rest of North York, but I know that my area of North York has a very high Asian population. Second of all, ALMOST everytime I see a car accident in North York, or just in general getting cut off on the highway, almost getting hit by other cars, or being stuck behind someone who is driving 20 kilometers under the speed limit, the culprit is generally of Asian persuasion. At first, whenever we got cut off or something of the like, myself and my friend would jokingly say, "Bet you the driver is Asian", and then we'd speed up to see who cut us off. It didn't take long to notice the trend.

Once again, I am not a racist. I need to re-iterate that. In fact, I have Asian friends with whom I joke about the Asian stereotype when it comes to driving, as in they CAN'T drive. So, Mark Chan (a good friend and my basketball coach), if you're reading this all the way in the Philippines, know that you moving half a world away will not exempt you from my taunting.

This taunting is the fruit of countless run-ins with irresponsible Asian Drivers, run-ins that are exponentially larger than the number of run-ins that I've had with Caucasian, African-American, Middle Eastern, and any other nationality of driver. In fact, since I've been going to school at Tyndale, I've already been cut off so severely that I had to swerve into oncoming traffic lanes to avoid killing the people in the car that cut me off, not once, but TWICE! I've also had my car written off at the expense of an Asian person driving a van through a light that had been red for 3-5 seconds, and hitting me so hard that my car spun 3 times and my rear axle broke.

The first story that I want to regale you with is just a mild introduction to my second story, but nontheless, it is still a quality recollection. In December or first year at Tyndale, Ryan and I were returning to the school from one of our many McDonald's runs that year (Tyndale Cafeteria food is far worse than McDonald's). We were travelling northbound on Bayview, driving down the hill where the Catholic School is right before you turn on to Garnier Ct. I look out the passenger window to see a very nice Lexus jutted out of an wraught-iron gate, front end submerged in snow and the rear end suspended about a foot off the ground. Accompanying this image was the fact that this fence was approximately 10-12 feet off the road, meaning that this car would have had to jump the curb, travel over the sidewalk, and then be airborne over another 6 feet in order to reach its final, 45 degree angled, destination. While such a task doesn't seem too difficult to accomplish, keep in mind that the car was perpendicular to the road, meaning that it would have had to drive straight across the street, through busy traffic, untouched, in order to logically reach its crash point. What made this scene even more hilarious were the 4 people (all Asian) surrounding the Lexus, with shrugged shoulders and scratching their heads. It was like something out of a cartoon.

Now, to the grand finale, which is surpassed in humor only by how surprising shocking this event was. It was Wednesday, August 31st, at approximately 3:00 AM. I was out on the balcony at Ryan's apartment just staring at nothing when I noticed a Silver SUV driving north on Bayview. With no other traffic to be seen, this SUV unexpectedly swerved off the road, ramming into a traffic light and knocking it right out of the ground. After hitting the traffic light the car swerved back onto the road and then into another sign, then jumped the curb and landed on the other side of the sidewalk. This crash must have awakened everyone in the building because quite a few people were with myself and the occupants of Ryan's apartment shortly thereafter in our quest to figure out what the hell had happened. We then rushed outside to ascertain what had happened. If the crash didn't wake the whole place up, then what followed certainly did. When we got outside, the driver, Asian, was pacing up and down the sidewalk, screaming the 'F' Bomb as loud as he possibly could, and as drawn out as he possibly could make it. He was not screaming in pain, but rather in frustration. That makes me wonder, what the hell did he think was going to happen if he swerved off the road?

After having determined that he was in fact alright and unhurt, we did what any normal college students would do... We took pictures. What made the whole thing even funnier is that the fallen traffic light was still wired, so it was changing from Green to Yellow to Red in unison with the other lights, all while lying flat on the ground. Amid the strewn wreckage on the lawn and the curb was the front passenger side tire from the SUV, which had flown off and landed perfectly in an upright position. Without further delay, here are a couple of photos...





Moral of the story... Don't drive north on Bayview.

posted by Chesterfield McFisticuffs III @ 8:25 p.m.