I used to think Saskatchewan had the worst highways. Crossing into the province from the Alberta side of Highway 55 was like skiing down a nice, smooth, wide-open blue run that abruptly turns into a death-trap triple black diamond run with no escape routes.
Highway 55 is by no means a special road. It's your standard Alberta two-lane highway, with its pavement, shoulders and painted lines.
But then you hit the Saskatchewan side and everything changes.
The shoulders disappear, the line markings fade away and the path beneath your wheels becomes a pitted mix of sand, gravel and the occasional dark strip that could possibly be identified as some form of pavement.
Instantly, the sensible driver slows down and proceeds as though he or she were travelling down one the deadliest roads on the TV show Ice Road Truckers.
Getting through unscathed is like a right of passage into Saskatchewan's long history of rough roads. The journey becomes a game of dodge the pothole or the gopher or the possibly empty Pilsner box. With a lack of shoulders and lines, your position on the highway is anyone's guess.
But it's not all bad on Saskatchewan highways. Looking on the bright side, should you end up in the ditch or plunged into a pothole, the next vehicle you see will probably be a tractor or a farm truck, with a friendly driver ready and willing to pull you out of any predicament you find yourself in. Only problem is it might be days until you see the next vehicle travelling down those long, lonely prairie roads. As my tenure driving has lengthened, I've become more aware of what makes roads dangerous.
Sure, a shoulder would be nice when swerving to avoid the group of ravens picking at a dead porcupine in the middle of the highway. But avoiding animals is a small task compared to avoiding an oncoming vehicle trying desperately to pass a convoy of oversized tractor-trailer units.
Though I have been lucky enough to avoid most road tragedies, I, like so many others travelling Alberta's highways, have had some unbearably close calls.
Whether it be avoiding that overly-aggressive passer or jamming the brakes just in time to avoid slamming into the back of a cement truck with a driver that felt the need to pull into traffic ahead of you, rather than behind, Alberta's roads are getting busier and more dangerous than ever.
There are calls to widen highways and twin thoroughfares and do just about anything we can to improve the safety of the roads we drive on.
However, even the safest built roadways can become a death trap if the drivers don't use them properly.
Governments could pour all our money into each and every highway in Alberta and police could patrol non-stop but the responsibility of keeping everyone safe falls on each individual driver.
Cars lose control quickly and a crash, as we all know, can have devastating consequences.
So next time you find yourself questioning the safety of the road you're driving on, ask yourself how safe of a driver you are being.
We could all be a little more responsible when exercising our privilege to drive and do our part to make all roads a little safer.
Oh, and for anyone concerned with the quality of Highway 55 as you cross into Saskatchewan, it's currently being repaired. But don't go rushing out to race down it – just like the Prairie provinces entering modern times, it's a slow and grueling process.
