I know a lot of people who have visited Victoria and are fascinated by the idea of moving here.
When I speak to them (which somehow seems to be almost every day), I'm often asked how the lifestyle compares with, say, Winnipeg, where minus-30 temperatures aren't news, or Toronto, whose city administration joined the Taliban as the only jurisdictions on the planet to ban kite flying?
In other words, setting aside the obvious virtues -- it's gorgeous, has impossibly nice weather and the local food and beer offer solid evidence of God's existence -- what's it actually like here on a day-to-day basis?
It's pretty good. You don't need me to tell you that.
I'm asked, naturally, what the downsides are.
Like any city, Victoria has some things I'd like to change -- it's cliquey to the point of incestuousness, and the situation on the 900 block of Pandora is simply ridiculous -- but those aren't what come to mind.
What do I find most surprising about Victoria?
Driving here. It's harrowing.
It's not the worst city I've ever driven in; Honolulu and Mexico City are the runaway winners, for very different reasons. But it's bad.
Not because roads are badly designed, though it's well past time for another overpass on the Island Highway.
It seems to me that Victoria drivers are more dangerous than other Western Canadians -- though admittedly safer than Quebecers. (Where you can't turn right on a red light for good reason: You'd die.)
No city is perfect and this is far from a blanket condemnation. And Victorians have a well-earned reputation for responding poorly to criticism.
But if there's one thing about this wonderful city I'd change, it's the feeling that death might be around every corner.
Even the buses run red lights here, as I have witnessed quite a few times. (And I am not referring to the advanced green light for transit on the highway.)
It's not just me, either. If you're on Twitter and follow anything #yyj (that either makes sense or you're not into social media), you know that complaining about bad drivers, people running red lights and (bizarrely often) failing to use turn signals is far from rare. This isn't a secret -- way back when I first moved here, a Vancouverite friend said he loved Victoria, but found driving here stressful, for exactly those reasons.
Impressions are all well and good, but they don't necessarily mean anything. For example, my impression of the TV series Glee is that it's unforgivably stupid. Yet it's incredibly popular -- even my BBC-addicted parents are telling me to give it a try. Similarly, just because I find Victoria drivers loony, that doesn't mean Victoria is less safe than other cities in B.C.
I called ICBC to see whether my impression was accurate and they were kind enough to supply some hard data on the number of crashes and insured vehicles for the Capital Regional District, Vancouver Island, Greater Vancouver and the City of Vancouver.
And, uh, looks like I might, possibly, owe Victoria an apology.
There were 8,400 crashes in the CRD last year and 215,000 actively insured vehicles. That's one crash for every 25.6 vehicles. The rest of Vancouver Island was similar, with one crash for every 28.6 vehicles.
Metro Vancouver was worse, with one crash for every 15.4 vehicles, but far and away the worst of the four was the city of Vancouver with one crash per 10.9 vehicles.
Granted, these numbers might be misleading: A lot of crashes in Vancouver likely involve people who don't live there -- there's no way of knowing exactly how many -- but the crash rate is still two-and-a-half times the rate here. Also, while not all crashes are alike, fender-benders are treated the same way as fatal collisions.
In other words, Victoria's drivers aren't really all that bad. But would it kill you to use your turn signals?
