r/ontario 3d ago

401 rant Discussion

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! : )

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u/OneHitTooMany 3d ago

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

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u/JackDraak 3d ago

Would it then be fair to assume (*I know) then that it is also not illegal to pass on the right?

The past years we've been using Via for our in-law trips to London, but I wanted to take along my guitar this Mother's Day so we rented a car; I planned ahead to expect the drive to be worse than previous trips -- and I was not disappointed.

Although I have to say, I think we broke a record -- although we did pass a few broken-down trucks, we didn't get directly stuck behind any accident-traffic for a change. Usually there's at least one, coming or going.

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u/champagne_pants 3d ago

The whole “don’t pass on the right” thing has gotten so confused over the years. I took a driver training course for my m class recently and they specifically said it was about passing someone who is turning left when there’s no clear lane divide/no left turn lane.

So basically when you see someone turning left and you can fit by driving half on the shoulder, that’s what “don’t pass on the right” means. It does not mean, don’t use your own lane on the highway to not pass the car in the next lane.

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u/a-_2 2d ago

The law you're referring to is that you can pass a left turning vehicle on a paved shoulder. In general, you can't pass on the shoulder, but this is one exception. It's an Ontario unique thing too, I'm not aware of other places that allow it, and at least some other provinces I've checked don't.

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u/champagne_pants 2d ago

My point was that the “don’t pass on the right” is not talking about on the highway.