B.C.Highway Cams
If you click on the webcam, you can get a good idea of the amount of traffic. Yesterday afternoon I watched it for 20 minutes around 4:00 p.m.. The camera refreshes every two minutes. I never saw a single car, not one, not even on the horizon.
I live in a fairly remote area of N. ON., and it's not unusual for me to drive for 1/2 hr or more without meeting another vehicle. If we see three vehicles in a row, we call it a convoy and bemoan the dreadful traffic.
But highway 97 is far more remote than these parts. That's why stopping to check other cars stalled on the roadside is a common local practice.
So I don't think it was particularly dangerous for Bearded Man to stand in the middle of the road, but his stance could be perceived as aggressive behaviour, and that would be so unusual that it would make the witness very concerned.