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Border crossings remain open to rats
Kootenay Crust
By Ian Cobb
Have you ever been waiting in a really long line at a border crossing and had someone(s) cut into the line?
I have, numerous times and I’ve ranted about it before on e-KNOW but the matter persists!
The majority of people who butt into long border lines know exactly what they are doing; they just act like they are innocent buffoons blithering along in life’s dumbest of lanes.
Our local border crossings can be rife with these ‘buttinskis’ and it is all due to an apparent lack of cooperation between the two nations, commonly known as Canada and America.
There needs to be better signage and traffic control coming into both Roosville and Kingsgate. Duty free chaos, due to location, on the US sides of the border create constant line butting during the busiest times.
The Roosville crossing has, I would be willing to bet, serial assholes who drive into the duty free and then head for the exit and ‘cut’ into the border line. This happens when the line is really long; one of those one hour or more jobbies at the border.
These serial swines don’t even visit the duty free – they just roll through to the exit and sit there like pathetic slugs, inching forward until someone lets them. Without even availing themselves of the fine duty free offerings, they think they have some god gifted right, almost Trump like in their arrogance, to cut into the line where people have been sitting for half an hour or more and face at least that much more waiting.
In one lengthy line at that border I watched at least 10 ‘privileged arses’ cut into the line.
Don’t think you’re clear Kingsgate. I watched the duty free ‘dick about’ several times. The biggest problem with crossing into Canada at Kingsgate is the lack of signage and clarity about the lanes drivers should be in. It is commonly known by regular crossers at that border that trucks and busses go in the right lane and everyone else sits in the left lane.
However, some of those crossing commonly bonehead out and roll wa-a-a-a-ay forward, to the point they can save lots of waiting time during the busiest times. It is not fun to watch those ‘lucky idiots’ get rewarded for their temerity by kind or timid people.
This past weekend, as we inched our way back toward Canada at Kingsgate, a number of buttinskis struck in the right lane, buying themselves a few minutes of time at the expense of everyone else. One, who I shamefully admit I let in front of me, wasn’t being a sneaky rat; his California plates told me he was confused. As he rolled up tugging his fifth wheel, he saw a shorter line and opted to take it. Who can blame him?
There is no signage stating how things should go down; no warning that the approach to the Canadian border seems to have been designed by someone who maybe should have been not designing approaches to naptime let alone traffic control.
However, this poor Californian was welcomed to Canada rather boisterously by the occupants of the two vehicles in front of us. It was clearly spelled out to the buttinski that he was a cheeky beggar in need of a sound thrashing; welcome to Canada, eh.
And what steamed me most about letting this guy in front of me, who had essentially cut so far over I had little choice, was the fact he didn’t he even give ‘the wave.’
‘The wave’ is what one gives when one knows they are a lucky son of a snake and are being given ‘a break’ by a fellow driving citizen. But no; no acknowledgement of ‘the break’ came from Captain California. He just slipped into line and entered Canada a good half hour sooner, as I tried to make his head explode.
The wave should never be confused with the finger. Sometimes you just have to point out the obvious.
Clearly, chaos remains at our border crossings. The approaches to most American crossings (save in the Lower Mainland), are orderly and civil, a stark contrast to the nation itself.
Yet, coming into Canada, one of the most law-heavy nations in the world, a land that prides itself on restraint and tidy conflict resolution, people are behaving like second graders in the milk line.
I suppose it is also possible the Americans leave the approach to Canadian borders as chaotic as possible because they enjoy watching “the over-polite twits drive one another bonkers.”
Invest in some orange cones and a few signs, Canada, and ask politely of your American counterparts to place them strategically within their boundary so those venturing forth to Canada know how not to be complete assholes who might spark a full-on bar fight at a border crossing one of these days.
And a system similar to the duty free at Kingsgate, where one’s goods are delivered to them when they are approaching the intelligently designed US border, where buttinskis are immediately turned into stinky vapour by some form of cool particle beam, would stop the duty free rats and send them to the back of the line.
