Western Hospitality? No. Such. Thing.
If you come to Alberta, don’t expect the locals to welcome you with open arms.
Fuelled by oil wealth, several years of endless employment opportunities, rapid growth in just about every sector and urban sprawl that makes Toronto’s look calm and orderly, Edmontonians and those in surrounding bedroom communities have had a good few years to perfect the notion of being absolutely full of themselves. They want it all and they want it now. They want the biggest toys, the noisiest trucks and motorcycles, and the biggest houses. Just because they can. They are demanding, rude, self-centred and often utterly ignorant.
And, they are the most aggressive, bloody minded drivers I’ve ever seen in my life.
Never mind what people tell you about Torontonians being all that, Edmontonians make my fellow T.O. natives look like absolute charmers.
A typical drive into the city centre commonly turns into a pissing match within a block of your home. As you watch the road and watch the speedometer (photo radar is everywhere, as well they should be), inevitably you will look up into your rear view mirror to see one of the locals, as my other half puts it, “docking for gas”. They speed, they follow too closely, and they commonly pass over solid lines because YOU are keeping them from their appointed rounds.
I know what you’re thinking: “But, these are prairie people. People from Big Sky Country. Why are they in such a hurry? I thought they were so….”
No. They’re not.
Take this morning, for instance: I was due in the opposite end of the city round about lunch time. I left the house in plenty of time, and made my way to the one and only north=south road that would get me through the first leg of my journey. As I pulled out of the subdivision, barely ten seconds elapsed before someone else followed close behind. Up the two-lane road I went, all the while fully aware that there was someone DYING to get past me, and they simply couldn’t. When the road widened to two lanes in each direction, a Mercedes SUV FLEW past me at a good 20 over the limit, but somehow got behind me again a little further up the road. As I continued north, a Chrysler something-or-other hovered on my tail. He jumped to the right lane. The Mercedes appeared. They kept changing places back and forth for about two kilometres. Traffic was heavy. They couldn’t go anywhere.
Suddenly the Mercedes jumped from my back bumper into the right lane. I continued north, as I was about to turn west within the next block. The Mercedes moved halfway into my lane, narrowly missing a good hard sideswipe as I swerved to nowhere to get out of his way. Within a second he jumped back right and took a hard right turn.
Why did he find it necessary to scare the crap out of me, I ask myself? It’s not like I gave him attitude. I didn’t move my lips or make any gestures. I don’t have out of province plates on the car that would inspire any kind of hostility. Nor was I driving too slowly. So, why?
The moral of the story is, if you come here and plan to spend any length of time, be wary. There is a large segment of the population that has done so well for themselves in such a short time, that you are nothing but a hindrance to their existence. You might meet them on the roads, or you might just meet them in the grocery store. But wherever you meet them, get out of their way, and don’t make eye contact. Oil wealth obviously makes you crazy, and they’re easily provoked.
