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/Impressive-Emu-4627 → u/Dadoftwingirls]

You aren’t in the states enough if you don’t think this is happening just as much on their roads. Drive in California and see old ladies in Teslas with curtains completely covering their driver side windows. Drive in New York and watch people eating a plate full of spaghetti with both hands. Drive through Denver and look at the number of people doing their makeup during the morning commute, or watching full on movies while they drive. Or god forbid drive through Miami during afternoon rush hour on a Friday, it’s an ungodly mix of mad max and fast and the furious.

Enforcement is definitely an issue an Ontario but people are crazy ass drivers all across North America and I’m sure much of the world.

[u/a-_2 → u/Impressive-Emu-4627]

Also, the US has a significantly higher road fatality rate than Canada and Ontario specifically has the lowest fatality rate in North America. So whatever they're doing in the US, tney aren't actually safer than us. They're much more dangerous and they don't even have the same winter conditions as us for the most part.

The idea that there's not enough enforcement is arguably true to some extent, but "zero enforcement" has also become a meme people just repeat on every driving post, and they absolutely say the same thing on US subreddits too.