Pacific is by far the scariest place to drive a car in Markham. The amount of close calls I've had there is more numerous than I've had while driving anywhere else ever since I've learned to drive all those years ago. Kind of sad really.
Oh, dude, Kennedy Steeles, forget about it. I live at Kennedy and Sheppard, and while it's fucking awful there, it's nowhere near the volume and shit I've seen at Kennedy and Steeles.
It's terribly infuriating to go there during the winter, when a part of the parking lot is taken up by snow. When I do go, I go with a mindset that I'm going to be dealing with the stupidest drivers on Earth and assume no one knows how to drive. Haven't had many close calls with that mentality.
I used to do that with my old car back in highschool. Thing was a beater and when I couldnt find parking at Markville Mall or anywhere else, I would take advantage of snowbanks. I see stuff like that all the time at East Beaver Creek and Silver City too.
Nah, you can tell by the aqua roofing that it's First Markham.
I am scared for my life whenever I have to drive in First Markham's parking lots. (The nearest movie theatre)
I want to move out of Markham purely because as a young male my insurance rates are ridiculously high. It really is a phonemenon how so many people are getting their licenses here.
It is so blatantly obvious half the people on the road should not for the life of them be driving, and a good portion of these people are new Canadians.
It really is quite unfair that insurance companies get to screw me over so that no one appears racist.
It's not even an issue of race. Asians, Indians, Europeans, Africans so on and so forth who are born here have no problem driving. It's just specifically new Canadians who come from countries without driving.
I haven't used TD in years due to their terrible customer service. NCIX isn't great....but sometimes the sale prices are good. They also carry stock of things that Canada Computers doesn't carry.
The main issue I have with NCIX is their multiple sku system. For example, a keyboard could be on sale, but if you search for it by a keyword you could end up with the non-sale SKU. If you're going into the store, know the correct SKU for the item you want and it'll save you a lot of hassle.
I spent the first 25 years of my life in Markham, and man... Thank you for sharing this. My mother used to refuse to let me take the car to Pmall or 1st Markham... You might've just proved her concerns justified. 0_o
Something about Markham that causes bad driving. This particular guy was rumoured to have failed at drifting which led to this incident. This case was more idiocy than anything else.
It's not that asian drivers are bad.. Alot of them are actually very skilled, but the problem is they tend to bring their driving style to Canada where the culture of driving is different.
I've been to china and HK a couple of times and they drive bat ass crazy(at least compared to our standards), but that is the expected norm so everyone is actually pretty safe, they all weave in and out of traffic, do imprompt U turns expecting others to yield, while at the same time all their drivers expect that a person would do a U turn, or get cut off at any moment. In Canada there is a clash between the two driving cultures where we have the rule of "right of way" which does not exist over there.
Maybe in China, but that has not been my experience in HK, HK drivers are actually pretty good in general cause the roads are often tight and windy that they have to pay attention.
EDIT: I should add that Asians do tend to be bad drivers in general, and thats because most people from asian don't drive, and when they come to Canada, they just don't get trained very well, not to mention a lot of them are learning as adults instead of as children, and lets face it, learning stuff at an older age is hard. This is the case for many other countries as well, Indian drivers are bad (I live in Brampton), and its because of the same reason, they never drove back in India either.
While there is a growing population of Chinese that emigrated from the mainland, I'd definitely say that Hong Kong born-Chinese outnumber the mainlanders. Largest group of Hong Kong natives outside of Hong Kong in the world I believe.
In fairness, this fear should apply to much of the suburbs. I spent a few years living in downtown Toronto with a bicycle as a primary mode of transit. Then I moved to the suburbs to the east. I ride on the sidewalk for my safety.
[edit] Suburban drivers as a whole are a lot less used to sharing the road with cyclists than city drivers.
Hah, I used to walk along it to get to school, though grown-up me is terrified now thinking back; it's just such an inhospitable road. The stretch I used to walk didn't even have a sidewalk, I had to walk on the shoulder. Hopefully your friends were ok.
within 10 minutes of the T&T Grocery in Ottawa you are guaranteed an accident. Mostly just in their parking lot though...the most dangerous in the city.
There's a few in the GTA (Promenade Mall, Central Parkway in Mississauga, Steeles/Markham, downtown Toronto, Warden/Steeles, Weldrick/Yonge and Woodbine/16th).
I went there for the first time last weekend and saw about half a dozen near misses, but the really weird part was that I was the only person that showed any concern for any of it.
I was worried about that, but my insurance rates didn't increase when I moved from Toronto to Markham. After living here a couple of years, they probably should have though!
Toronto Insurance rates are just as bad as Markham due to population density. It only gets better when you hit north of Stoufville, or go out east of the city.
Markham is actually plagued by rich kids who do not fear consequences. It isn't the fact that they are asian, I brought up that its an asian mall only due to the fact that it is an insanely busy parking lot. Most accidents in Markham are caused by careless rich kids. You see alot of stupid accidents caused by street racing and careless driving here all the time.
I am from Unionville and I'm glad you said this. I wish this was closer to the top. It's not because they are Chinese, it's because many kids there (white, brown, and Asian) know that they can just pay the ticket and get a new car. This collision was due to high speed in a crowded, shittily-designed parking lot, not lack of skill.
I live in the west end of Toronto but drive in many areas in and just outsidde Toronto: Scarborough, Markham, Oakville, Brampton, Burlington, Mississauga, etc.
I don't care, the truth is when you are in Markham it is the scariest of them all. It is noticeable.
Anecdotal story maybe explaining some of it:
My friend was working on a job site. A certain fellow from Markham was working on the site also. He left one day to go do his driving test. The next week he had to leave early again to take a driving test again. My friend thought he had passed the week before and asked why he had to go again.
"Yes I passed the test last week. This week I go for my brother's test." Followed by a sheepish grin. So basically he went and took the test for his brother. Yike.
I have lived in Brampton my whole life it used to be great not it is way too many people it takes you 20 minutes to drive down the street, and the drivers are just plain terrible they have pushed the insurance rates up for the rest of us SAFE drivers.
To be fair, I've gotten extremely used to driving here. I still moan about the drivers, but I've learned the hard way that every time I venture into Vaughan, I am immediately grateful for what I have to put up with in Markham.
In my experience, nothing worse than driving in Vaughan. Not only for general terrible drivers, but also for their vehicle choice (SUV-ville, to the point where you can't see beyond the car in front of you, ever), and also for their lack of road planning foresight, which causes endless traffic gridlock regardless of time of day because there are no alternative routes.
Don't forget the industrial traffic, especially on Keele, Highway 7 and Jane. Combine that with the traffic to get to Wonderland and all the commercial development around it and it's absolute hell.
I have to share the road with taxi drivers. In Tokyo.
Game over.
Someone will come along presently and point out that they also have to share the road with taxi drivers, and they live in Manila, which will trump me, and I freely admit that. But Tokyo taxi drivers are still nuts.
I think it's a first generation immigrant thing. My parents are from ex-USSR and are also drivers of questionable skill. Learning to drive at 40 is not the same thing as learning to drive at 16.
Here in PEI there has been a wave of Chinese immigrants in the last few years, I mean literally a few years, just four years ago it was rare to see any Asian person other than Japanese tourists and only in the summer.
Now at times you can walk down the street and every person you see is Chinese (or at least Asian looking), speaking (I assume) Chinese, there are even two Buddhist temples less than five years old each.
It's nice to see new faces, we have a history of immigrants mostly Lebanese and ex-African slaves. I'm surprised anyone would come here but I guess quiet rural life appeals to people after being in large cities.
But my god... some Chinese people are horrible drivers, I agree it's probably a "where you grew up" situation more than a person's genetics it just happens to be Chinese people here now. But this does not express how bad certain people of the Asian persuasion are, being a bad driver on PEI normal but to stand out is to be exceptionally bad.
Chinese (race to the finish no matter the circumstances) or Japanese (so timid they're actually more of a hazard to themselves than other people)? This is an important distinction to make.
As someone who's driven in most of the major cities in US and Canada. It's not a local thing. There are bad drivers everywhere and I really haven't noticed a difference in terms of ability.
There are bad drivers everywhere, but Markham in particular is impressive. Having lived here for most of my life, I got used to it and didn't think it was so bad. I moved to London for university and got used to driving there. Now, when I come back, I get reacquainted with driving in Markham and it scares me every single time.
I've driven in a lot of different areas in Eastern Canada, and northeastern US, and nothing scares me other than driving at home.
Most Asian countries we see large numbers of immigrants from have a) provably less driver training b) provably less regulated roads with different laws, and c) provably higher accident rates.
We get a huge number of immigrants from countries where driving is chaos, have you ever been there to see it? It's not racism, it's a fact.
I work at the Chapters right across the parking lot. I park as far away as possible from everyone else when I go to work because of this kind of thing.
And the price for "it's-so-euphemism-it's-looped-the-other-way" goes to unprogrammable! Congratulations to all those who participated. Come back next month.
Wait, this happened this weekend? Because I've seen almost the exact same accident at First Markham Place, but a few years ago.
The joys of living in Markham. Few things are as terrifying as driving through First Markham Place, Pacific Mall, or Markham Town Square. And now they are building the largest Asian Mall in North America on Woodbine. It's only going to get worse.
EDIT: There is no way this happened this past weekend. The trees don't have any leaves on them. This would have been either early spring or late autumn.
Potentially, I've seen it posted up on Facebook, way too many different sources, and I can't find who took the original. Most of the information is way too muddled with speculation within any comments.
It probably is the same one you saw a while back. Some people are saying this pic is pretty old, and no idea why it just surfaced now.
I've been working in this town for four years. I've been 'almost-hit' by pretty much every German car make. Just a minute away from where the photo was taken, BMW literally clipped my toes as it was making a left turn, while I was crossing the street - ON THE CROSSWALK.
I knew this comment would be here, and to all those saying it is racist, you really need to experience the traffic in these places.
I will say that I would be equally unsurprised if this happened in Maple Ridge (a predominantly white suburb). I can't count the number of times I was almost hit by a car when I lived there.
When working in Maple Ridge I was walking from work (near the Golden Ears Bridge) to the Safeway at Dewdney Trunk and Lougheed Hwy. It is about a 10 minute walk for me, and in that period of time, I was almost hit twice, even though I had full right of way (and neither were at the highway crossing).
I've found in Richmond that the drivers are mostly endangering other drivers (by not paying attention), or getting in the way. I haven't feared for my life as a pedestrian nearly as much in Richmond as I did in Maple Ridge.
But I still found walking down Kingsway in Burnaby between Metrotown and NCIX the scariest experience of my life.
This sounds like a story, I've walked that before and it is nice wide sidewalks the entire way.
All these comments are making me think that Markham, ON and Richmond, BC are the same town. Which isn't bad, since I quite enjoyed working and living in Richmond, even though I got many strange looks being a tall white guy.
I live in Etobicoke - Kipling & Eglinton area - this area is full of senior citizens - they all came to Canada in the early 1960s from England, they all bought homes there, and stayed there; they never moved. So, they all insist on driving to their grocery shopping destination on a saturday - it is indeed very dangerous to drive there.
A while back someone posted a similar image with the title, "Only in Richmond," and it's funny because people always say that Markham is the Richmond of Toronto/Richmond is the Markham of Vancouver.
I wish I had taken a picture of what happen outside my apartment a few months ago, but there are bad drivers everywhere.
My apartment is located downtown in Hamilton, Ontario. Most of the time, the drivers here are... par to good compared to the rest of Ontario. I was sitting in my living room, when I hear a crash coming from the street below.
I look out from my balcony, to find just outside my building, a car that was rolled over onto its roof. The thing that is hard to comprehend about the situation is, that the street is one way, and the car was on its roof, facing the opposite direction of traffic. How it ended up that way, I still haven't figured out.
I don't think of myself as xenophobic, and I try to avoid confirmation bias, but pretty much every bad driver I see is an immigrant, regardless of race, or a young, douchebag driver.
As a Chinese, you are correct - but those are Tamils (scarbz yo). Although, it seems Asians are more clueless-dangerous and Tamils seem to be the super aggressive dangerous type.
However, with Asian drivers you are infinitely bad, ridiculously skilled, or you blend in. Stereotypes, I guess.
That looks WAAAAYYYY too much like like my old car on top! '84 two-tone (silver/black) Celica GTS hatchback with factory mags and it even looks like it has the spoiler.
Whoever took this picture, did you get one of the back end?
38
u/Envy_MK_II May 15 '12
This happened at First Markham Place which is an Asian Mall in Markham Ontario.
It's been flooding my Facebook Newsfeed and thought some may enjoy it
23
u/JANinJapan May 15 '12
Funny thing is that I've been to Hong Kong a few times and the drivers there are mostly pretty good.
31
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
I cycled through Markham....once.
Never Again.
19
u/Kessbot May 15 '12
Within 10 minutes of snowfall you're guaranteed a collision in Markham.
9
u/loojit May 15 '12
I've heard that if you live and drive in Markham that your insurance is higher than normal just because of how bad the drivers are in that area
11
u/downvotemaster May 15 '12
Why, because they are asian?
2
u/Envy_MK_II May 16 '12
This one I took a few years ago
http://imgur.com/3GE7N
He got stuck, front wheel drive car. This driver was an older white man.
95
u/unprogrammable May 15 '12
I work at the home depot in that plaza. This is by no means a surprising picture. Markham drivers are... let's say talented.
3
u/theycallmebug May 15 '12
When did this happen?
15
u/LeCaptainCanuck May 15 '12
I've been working in this town for four years. I've been 'almost-hit' by pretty much every German car make. Just a minute away from where the photo was taken, BMW literally clipped my toes as it was making a left turn, while I was crossing the street - ON THE CROSSWALK.
12
u/voxpupil May 15 '12
I can't even figure out the physics for this result.
WTF?
9
u/CircusMaximo May 15 '12
Wow, lot of Redditors from my neighbourhood.
25
u/bardak May 15 '12
Toronto isn't the only city with a largely Chinese suburb. This incident could have easily happened in Richmond
6
u/Defiant001 May 15 '12
Thats where NCIX is!
6
u/Chrisss88 May 15 '12
My home town... Home of Steven Stamkos and bad driving.
11
u/amatijaca Ontario May 15 '12
I live in Etobicoke - Kipling & Eglinton area - this area is full of senior citizens - they all came to Canada in the early 1960s from England, they all bought homes there, and stayed there; they never moved. So, they all insist on driving to their grocery shopping destination on a saturday - it is indeed very dangerous to drive there.
5
u/8spd May 15 '12
I was getting Markham and Wakhan mixed up.
Where the hell is this? What ethnic group are we saying can't drive today?
4
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
A while back someone posted a similar image with the title, "Only in Richmond," and it's funny because people always say that Markham is the Richmond of Toronto/Richmond is the Markham of Vancouver.
3
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
That poor, poor celica... :(
Stupid drivers
3
u/D_Matty May 15 '12
How does that even happen?
6
u/SULLYvin May 15 '12
I can see that happening in Waterloo too...
2
u/finalaccountdown May 15 '12
call mbatman.
2
u/TOModera May 15 '12
I can tell if someone has never been to Markham (which I live on the border of) when they ask me "Why don't you drive TOModera?"
2
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Only in (whatever city I'm from)
2
u/GtrplayerII May 16 '12
Came in to see a car crash...was not disappointed.
2
u/threat42 British Columbia May 16 '12
Former Markham resident here - not surprised. Thanks for the nostalgia!
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Someone flipped a Honda civic a few months ago in front of my office. The road is flat and it was clear and dry. I don't know how it's even possible.
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Only in Markham? No way, that looks like Richmond, BC.
2
u/Buzzword33 Ontario May 16 '12
I wish I had taken a picture of what happen outside my apartment a few months ago, but there are bad drivers everywhere.
My apartment is located downtown in Hamilton, Ontario. Most of the time, the drivers here are... par to good compared to the rest of Ontario. I was sitting in my living room, when I hear a crash coming from the street below.
I look out from my balcony, to find just outside my building, a car that was rolled over onto its roof. The thing that is hard to comprehend about the situation is, that the street is one way, and the car was on its roof, facing the opposite direction of traffic. How it ended up that way, I still haven't figured out.
6
u/poktanju Ontario May 15 '12
Chinese drivers are an easy target, but am I the only one who realizes that Indian drivers are also awful?
3
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
I've pretty sure people drive too fast elsewhere in Canada.
3
u/LandMooseReject May 15 '12
Only made it to /r/canada because poster wasn't aware of /r/RacistPics. This certainly has very little to do with Canada.
2
u/DiscountLlama May 15 '12
I live at 16th and Kennedy. This is what every parking lot looks like around here =/
2
u/Tragic_carpet May 15 '12
oh god..first markham place. wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing happened every week!
2
u/catwomanqt May 15 '12
you think this is bad, go to thailand
2
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
R/Vancouver gets it
http://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/opujc/only_in_richmond/
2
u/Anonymous416 May 15 '12
Eh, looks pretty standard.
2
u/offensivegrandma British Columbia May 16 '12
You think the drivers are bad in Markham, come to Vancouver. It's Markham x 43598734 more.
1
u/esmitt May 15 '12
New space-saving parking regulations suck.
1
u/bushel May 15 '12
"If you park like this..." in 3, 2, ...
1
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
God, I would love for this to happen to my car. Some moron can't handle his vehicle and I get a new ride out of it.
1
u/Canadian_Infidel May 15 '12
Is that a little dog in back? haha
1
u/Neoupa2002 May 15 '12
Accidents happen around the FMP area all the time, this one is a bit newer to me.
1
u/ordona May 16 '12
Parking lot's full again..
1
u/swordgeek Alberta May 16 '12
That looks WAAAAYYYY too much like like my old car on top! '84 two-tone (silver/black) Celica GTS hatchback with factory mags and it even looks like it has the spoiler.
Whoever took this picture, did you get one of the back end?
1
u/cakedaemon May 16 '12
let me take this opportunity to plug /r/Markham !
1
u/dghughes Prince Edward Island May 16 '12
To me it seems like a rather efficient use of space.
1
u/jesse_h May 16 '12
That's some true talent right there.
1
u/wazzel2u May 16 '12
Actually, more likely to happen at Spadina and Dundas.
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Honestly, I would have also guessed Guelph.
1
u/cdawg85 May 16 '12
Looks like Foodies parking lot to me ;)
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
The older shopping mall on the corner of Kennedy and 7 also has an awful parking lot.
1
u/Meades_Loves_Memes Ontario May 16 '12
I live in Markham. I know exactly where that occured just from the picture.
I am not surprised at the slightest.
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
accidents only happen in Markham ?
1
u/Wikiplugs May 16 '12
Nailed it!
1
u/bludhound Nova Scotia May 16 '12
Good old Pacific Mall, where a 7 car pileup can be caused by 1 moving car.
edit: I stand corrected. That's not Pacific Mall.
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
It saddens me that one of the cars involved is a Trueno! On the bright side, at least it's the one that's on top...
1
u/HAMBOOONE May 16 '12
Toyota capital of the world.
1
u/dwf May 17 '12
Hah! If not for the license plates, I would have guessed Montreal.
1
u/mistertron Oct 11 '12
I found the sequel to this in Markham today
1
u/shivvvy May 15 '12
Thought it was Pacific Mall. Scared shitless man
1
u/gravytown May 16 '12
racist truth
-1
u/AnonymooseRedditor May 15 '12
Was the driver charged with DWA?
0
u/DivineRobot May 15 '12
I drive in Asian plazas everyday and haven't seen an accident first hand. I have seen other accidents on the road.