Who's Doing This?

This past Monday evening, the Massey Tunnel (the tunnel that goes under the Fraser River on the main north-south highway into Vancouver) was closed for several hours after a 1981 Volkswagon pickup with a single driver had an accident while driving through the tunnel around 8:50 p.m.  The pickup then caught fire.  Unfortunately, the driver was killed.  Closing that tunnel in both directions, even for a short period of time (the accident was in the northbound section, but there was smoke in the southbound section) must have caused a colossal traffic mess, even that late in the evening.

The next morning, we were driving east on Highway 17, barely 6K from the Massey Tunnel, when we saw traffic backed up forever in the westbound lanes, near Ladner Trunk Road.  Just past the intersection, a trailer truck had turned right over on its side.  No curves in the road there, no wind happening; the driver seemed to have made the turn (if he was turning) before the truck turned on its side because it was stretched right straight out on the shoulder.  Many, many police cars around, lights flashing.  Many, many cars not getting to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal.

This, my experience of the beginning of the Olympic phenomenon here in Vancouver.  Today, the newsmedia report that they are trucking snow in from the interior to Cypress Bowl because it's 45-50 degrees F. all this week, all last week, all next week from all appearances.  My neighbors up here in the Sunshine Coast are not speaking kindly about the Olympics and the Premier who thought having it in Vancouver was such a great idea.

But here's the bright side.  If the Massey Tunnel closure had occurred in the U.S. on the first day of the Olympic schedule (that's when the various road closures began), somebody somewhere would have asked, suggested, insisted that the driver of that 1981 truck was probably a terrorist.  That the overturning of that tractor-trailer truck, barely 3 miles away the very next morning, was the work of a terrorist.  That the absence of snow and the high temperatures were part of some terrorist conspiracy.  And the official response, at the very least, would have been to let only one car at a time drive through the Massey Tunnel for as long as the Olympics lasted.

In B.C., there has been no indication that anyone thinks it was the work of a terrorist.  Although some people have wondered how you get a 1981 Volkswagen pickup to drive at all.