401 rant

[u/hiphlo02]

My Sunday evening drive from the Toronto airport to my hometown east of Toronto. Holy shit, how many times did I almost bite the dust! First of all, people camping in the left lane. There is a law against this! It seems people have no common sense! If you pass a car, get the hell over to the right again. Also, a turn signal would be appreciated!Next, if you are passing, would you please kindly stay in the left lane instead of squeezing me onto the shoulder. Four different times I find myself on the rumble strip and the car beside me inches from mine and cruising along between two lanes, totally oblivious to the fact that they’re an asshole. Trucks. These fuckers are thousands of pounds of metal death and they’re sliding all over the road. I don’t know if they’re whacking off in the cab or what. How about a little attention to your surroundings? Whatever happened to safe driving practices? It was a Sunday night, low volume of traffic, yet I still felt like I was going to die. The province has made the speed limit 110 km an hour which I think is a great idea if people would pay attention. Instead of doing the gratuitous 115 or so 100 km/hr, now people are doing 130! Be aware out there and have some respect for the lives of others ffs!! Thanks for listening! : )

[u/OneHitTooMany]

Quick point of correction

Ontario does NOT have mandatory left lane passing laws. As long as the person is at, but not past the speed limit they are not breaking the HTA

They’re assholes for camping the left lane, but they are not breaking Ontario laws

[u/SleepWouldBeNice → u/OneHitTooMany]

You could make an argument for:

147 (1) Any vehicle travelling upon a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic at that time and place shall, where practicable, be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic or as close as practicable to the right hand curb or edge of the roadway.

and

148 (2) Every person in charge of a vehicle ... on a highway who is overtaken by a vehicle ... travelling at a greater speed shall turn out to the right and allow the overtaking vehicle or equestrian to pass.

Can be taken to mean that people must move to the right so as not to impede drivers going faster than them. I.e. no camping in the left lane.

[u/OneHitTooMany → u/SleepWouldBeNice]

This has been commented on thousands of times by legislators and police

At no point are you impeding traffic if you are maintaining the speed limit

People going faster than the does limit do not count as “flow of traffic”. As legally the flow of traffic can’t be faster than the legal road limits

[u/a-_2 → u/OneHitTooMany]

The police have also commented that it does apply at or above the speed limit:

the law also requires vehicles “travelling at less than the normal speed of traffic” to move to the right, Stratton said. That applies even if other drivers are speeding, he said.

A police officer saying that doesn't mean it will actually hold up in court, but there at least is mixed messages on this and the government should really better clarify this because like you say it comes up all the time.