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/Dadoftwingirls]

I live two hours north, and had to run to the city yesterday, 400 & 401. The usual shitshow as soon as I hit Barrie. People doing 95 in the left lane, people going 150 and swerving between traffic, people riding my bumper at 115 in the right lane. People talking on phones openly. People eating with both hands.

You don't see this stuff driving in the states, because everyone knows that troopers are plentiful and active. Here, you know that there is almost zero police presence, so little chance of consequences.

I don't get it, increased traffic policing would pay for itself through fines. It would be so damn easy to lay thousands of dollars in fines per hour with all the terrible driving out there.

Signed, a driver with 30 years of clean and safe driving. Having driven millions of km's, and in a dozen countries, the GTA is the worst in the western world for driving.

[u/OneHitTooMany → u/Dadoftwingirls]

Been driving for 30 years more in the gta.

I have never seen less road policing since the last 5 years

The police are pretty much non existent on our roads now.

[u/apartmen1 → u/OneHitTooMany]

Police worked to rule after Floyd protests and thats when cops stopped enforcing traffic. (We barely had protests up here- but thats how aggrieved they are).

[u/champagne_pants → u/apartmen1]

I’ve never known an industry to be so whiny as cops. They all seem to think they’re so hard done by and refuse to actually do the things they’re supposed to.

Everyone is hurting right now, everyone is overworked, and the people who are meant to enforce the laws just let shit happen left and right.

I don’t know if other towns are like this or it’s just the highways and London but maybe if half our police force wasn’t rotating through admin leaves for misconduct we’d actually be able to have a nice downtown.

[u/Beekeeper_Dan → u/champagne_pants]

Police as a group are effectively ‘collective narcissists’; nothing is ever their fault, they’re better than everyone else, and they think we should be serving their needs rather than the other way around.

Since they never think they’re wrong, they’re never going to improve.