My husband and I took a holiday in the southern Okanagan recently.

We headed home on a day that the Coquihalla Highway was closed, and the forests were burning around us.

En route, we stopped at Klippers Organics in Cawston, the jewel of the Similkameen Valley.

A friendly Albertan woman struck up a conversation with me.

She commented on how friendly everyone was since she and her husband had arrived from Calgary, “But”, she said, “It took us 10 hours to get here, and the roads were treacherous.”

She grabbed my arm for emphasis and came close, “I hope you don’t mind me saying but the highways in B.C. are horrible, there were so many trucks, dangerous roads and bad drivers.”

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” she shrieked. “You must tell your politicians to do something.”

If you ask my family, they will confirm that I attract crazy people in public places, but this time I’m not so sure she was crazy.

As we headed south on Highway 3, I took stock of what lay ahead on our ride home.

We drove over potholes, improperly graded roads, rough pavement, construction that held us up for 90 minutes in the heat and smoke, and a severely congested highway from Hope to Surrey.

We witnessed speeders, tailgaters, sketchy lane changers, and texting and driving.

This year government will spend $195 million on our B.C. highways but that’s concentrated in the northwest part of the province to support mining development.

Why does government continue to drag its heels when it comes to investing in our infrastructure? When we do decide to build it take years, if not decades to complete projects. Hello new Massey Tunnel?

It’s a toxic combination of inadequate highways and bad driving that we see major accidents everyday on our roads, yet still not many improvements.

I’m willing to pay an extra tax to see our transportation corridors more efficient and safer, because frankly I don’t see another solution.