B.C. government cracks down on slow drivers in the left passing lane
 

It's about time the government starts giving police more powers to crack down on slow drivers in the left lane. Long overdue! :fuckyea:


B.C. government to crack down on slow drivers in left passing lane

The provincial government will introduce legislation this spring to penalize slow drivers on the left lane.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone will provide local law enforcement officers with more powers to crack down on drivers who drive slowly on the left lane, CKNW reports.

Studies show that using the left lane for regular road movements instead of solely for passing can cause other vehicles to slow down, which in turn creates traffic congestion. This is particularly the case when there are equally slow drivers on both the the left and right lanes.

Furthermore, slow drivers on the passing lane cause more accidents. When frustrated normal drivers decide to bypass the slow driver on the left lane, they slow down and weave in and out of lanes, thereby increasing the risk of crashing.

The “keep right unless passing” rule is meant to allow fast drivers to pass several vehicles at a single time without having to slow down and change lanes.

The intention to move forward legislation is among the recommendations in the Ministry of Transportation’s recent Rural Highway Safety and Speed Review. This includes last summer’s announcement on the Ministry’s decision to increase speed limits on B.C. roads.

God I hope so. It's so frustrating having people sit in the left lane forcing others pass illegally in the right lane. It's especially brutal on on the Sea To Sky Highway!

So.. Can we actually pass in the left lane or will we get excessive speeding tickets everytime we want/can pass someone?

This is what American cops do everyday, hope we see this in Canada in the near future.

^ oh shit, that video was posted on the link OP provided, my bad.

BC government to crack down on left-lane bandits | (CKNW AM) AM980

Here is an article from a real news source rather than that horrific piece of journalism from VancityBuzz.

I think Todd Stone knows what he's talking about.

He was all in for raising speed limit and now this! Although I think Gordon Campbell is an idiot for drinking and driving, I think he did a good job taking of speed cameras out of BC, because realistically speaking, who doesn't speed? Like some cops pulling people over for going 56km/h on 50 zone...I wouldn't call that a speeding and have some common sense seriously.
Because technically, pretty much 100% of drivers in BC deserves a speeding ticket every day.

Mods should seriously ban all vancitybuzz links on this forum.

It's not illegal to pass in the right lane. Passing on the right using the SHOULDER is, but not in the travelling lane.

They were talking about this on NW yesterday, I couldn't believe (well actually, I guess I could) how many people phoned up and actually admitted to hanging in the left lane at the speed limit because, well, people shouldn't be going faster than that anyway. I was waiting for someone to call in and point out that hogging the left lane is ALSO ILLEGAL and that they're breaking the law themselves in their attempt to keep others from breaking the law.

This seems like a win-win for ticket revenues for police:

Either:

Driver holds up left lane: ticket

or

Driver is in left lane, passing cars in right lane while above speed limit: ticket

keep right except to pass on applies to highways with 80+ kph speed limit
it's pretty annoying getting tailgated at 60kph on a city street when I'm about to turn left in a few blocks.

'Bout fuggin' time. Like Soundy, I couldn't believe the people calling in. I wanted to strangle the radio. Ha! The left lane is a passing lane. Always has been and always will be. If you ain't the fastest one in the left lane then get the fuck out of it.

I got a speeding ticket for passing traffic in the left lane. Dispute in progress

^^were you speeding at the time of the pass or when you were caught? What are you disputing? Curious more than anything. Speeding is still illegal, whether you're passing or not.

About damn time we started doing something about this!

There's nothing I hate more than highway vigilantes, usually in piece of shit cars like Priuses (Prii?) and minivans who hog the left lane in a pathetic (really, you're putting yourself/your passengers in danger for this) attempt to regulate how fast people are going when it's none of their damn business. If someone wants to speed, let them. From me prior experience, police will catch up to the speeder - no pun intended - anyway, if they are going significantly above the speed limit.

If you want to take the law into your own hands:

How to apply

Otherwise, get the fuck out of the left lane and let people pass.

EDIT: Wow at the amount of people failing pastarocket... I would have thought many RS members would approve of this new legislation, or at least not fail him for being a messenger of relevant news...

Let's face the reality here.
We all know that there's a huge contradiction in this law.

We have problems people doing 80km/h or 90km/h on 80 or 90 zone on the left lane because they are going much slower than the flow of traffic.

Cops with common sense would understand that.
I've seen a police officer(VPD?) talking on TV during traffic enforcement interview and he was saying "I don't usually pull people over til they hit 70km/h or so, because average speed of this road is about 65km/h" and that was on 50 zone. Sure, speeding is illegal but our speed limit is way too low. It's not even safe to go that slow and we all know this by now.

I don't get why so much emphasis is put on speeding at all...

Jeremy Clarkson said it best:

What is it that causes drivers to do this? What's so comforting about cruising in the left lane?

It's about time.

Read below v
Even timpo posted a proper news link

The majority of people who drive in the left lane are either:

A - Completely unaware of the big line of angry drivers behind them who want to pass;
or
B - Completely aware of the big line of angry drivers behind them who want to pass.

You can differentiate the two by flicking your high beams repeatedly behind them.

A will eventually move over, most likely covering about 500m in their terrible lane change manoever;
B will almost certainly brake check you, and then proceed to drive even slower.

I said this in another thread regarding the E/W connector where a large number of B's seem to congregate, but I really want to ram them off the road sometimes.

I wonder this myself. I see people try to get to the left lane ASAP even when the right lane is perfectly free. Might be a safety thing, but how is hugging the concrete wall safe, or even worse, the opposing lanes. The right lane should be safer with bigger shoulders and usually grass on the other side.

Weep for the future.

I think its because then they don't have to worry about people merging into their lane