Who says Montrealers are bad drivers?

Maybe someone new to the city, or unfamiliar with the Montreal driving culture of the 1980s, which I remember as being a shade more civilized than the one in the Mad Max movies. But where gasoline in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Mad Max was scarce, in Montreal it was plentiful and cheap. Everybody drove and did so at every opportunity, even when the destination was just around the corner. Compared to the way we drove then, we’re now puttering around town like yoga instructors contemplating the scenery.

Take, for instance, drinking and driving, which in the 1980s in Montreal was as socially accepted as smoking inside a McDonald’s. In a place as bar-abundant as Montreal, where last call came two hours later than in most big cities, the downtown core for pedestrians was akin to being at centre track at a stock-car race. And while in those days drinking and driving wasn’t unique to Montreal, where Montreal distinguished itself from other Canadian cities was in the rebellious nature of its drivers. There’s a reason why Montreal never allowed right turns on red; once we assumed our metal-machine personas, we were anti-social and dangerous.

I saw more slaloming down Décarie Expressway and along Taschereau Blvd. than on the ski slopes at Mont-Tremblant. Tailgating was so flagrant, even at treacherous speeds, that cars sometimes appeared to be trailer-hitched together. And good luck merging from a closed lane onto an open one based on the turn-taking system we now take for granted; it was often a case of first come, first served, even if the vehicle shoving in out of turn came this close to gouging your car.

Pedestrians weren’t spared the bird-flipping attitude, either. Cars owned the right of way by threat of brute force. Not a day passed that I didn’t see someone trying to cross a street, only to have a car in the distance suddenly pick up speed toward them, forcing the startled target to either back off or dash to the other side for safety. Even at stop signs, cars regularly cut people off in crushing distance of their toes if they tried something foolish, like going first. And never mind crosswalks; until recently nobody seemed to know what they were. And flashing lights on a school bus? A time-wasting nuisance that meant hastily manoeuvring around the bus before the kids crossed over.

But then, as the sun started setting on the ’80s, a new dawn in traffic-code enforcement promised to turn things around. Of course, the crackdown on bad driving was also motivated by a desire for more revenue from fines for such. Which is to say that the timing was serendipitous; but Montreal drivers needed to be reined in. And so a bevy of new road-safety laws were enacted and stringently enforced. Reams of traffic signs and lights went up. Tough new penalties were meted out, and exorbitant fines were levied.

Not only did enhanced traffic-law enforcement do wonders for dwindling city coffers, it also ramped up the safety quotient on Montreal roads. Not surprisingly, it proved that the harder our pockets were hit, the more we cared about the way we drove.