[Focus man. Focus.]

Dimitri,Apr 8 2009, 10:29 AM Wrote:The problem lies in a few areas:

Policing: I have a few friends in the emergency services, including OPP, scary thing is they are understaffed, where they only (on a given day) have only 6 officers/squad cars patrolling a big strecth of any 400 series highway at any time (Metro Area) where now they are dependant on assistance from Toronto Police to help curb 'enthusiastic' driving. Ever wonder why you see a Metro car on the 401? He's holding that person there till OPP arrives. So most of the lemmings slip by un-noticed, but not by us lol. There is also the fact that some cops just don't care anymore, they see this crap day after day after day. Their will is broken and they just don't give a sh*t anymore. To them it's a paycheque and nothing else, they'll police a situation , only if it occurs in front of them, and sometimes that doesn't help when their "blinders" are on.

But this just one of the problems, this is just a bi-product of what has happened especially over the past couple decades. The rate of new drivers increases dramatically yearly. Start with the route of the problem....THE SYSTEM... Most of us on the board can remember that it only took $15 dollars to get your 365 which was a multiple choice test, and if you passed you got your temp license that same day. You also had the choice to do your final driver's examination the following day. But here's the catch it was done in ENGLISH. You walk into any MTO office nowadays and people are given the choice in whatever language they would like the test, and can get asistance if they are having problems figuring/translating the question posed to them. That's where the problem is, my parents had to write it in English as well as the driver's portion of it. They seemed to do very well and HAD a better understanding of what this province asked of them as opposed to been given a slightly watered down version in Greek lol.

Ok now you can argue and say, we all need some sort of help, and what about new foreigners to our country and what not. YES everyone needs an opportunity to work/play etc etc, thats what makes Canada so multi-cultural, BUT it's a double-edged sword. Take into account the number of "grey-area" driving schools which are not technically "on-the-books' teaching these people how to drive. Yes there may be a better spoken communication in their particular language. BUT if I cannot communicate with you in case of some sort of emergency, how will this problem be resolved. I will give you an example, at work (Pearson International Airport) before we even step out onto the ramp (aircraft movement area) we have to learn a set of hand signals in order to communicate with each other. Even with hearing proection, some days it gets so loud you cannot hear yourself think! I do not want somebody on my crew that I cannot communicate with that would put my life in jeopardy. You fail the class you dont work. Plain and simple.

We have become too lax, and to concerned about hurting people's feelings. Were (as a society) becoming too wishy-washy. Learn the language, write the test, get your license. If people can jump through hoops to get their citizenship and learn about the wonders of Canada and ALL of it's provinces, I'm sure they can put forth the effort to learn about getting behind the wheel of a car.
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I couldn't agree more. The system as a whole is letting socitey down.