People routinely admit to being bad cooks, inconsistent parents, not mechanically inclined, lazy gardeners, crappy at training their dogs, and couch potatoes. But never have I ever heard anyone say they’re a bad driver. The 400 series highways last Victoria Day holiday weekend, however, looked like a convention of them, featuring a meeting of the subcommittee, Masters of the Left Lane. 

You know them. They’re the ones who cling to the centre median like pet hair to a black pant leg. You can practically climb from your car into the third row of their SUV (because really, aren’t they always SUVs with their seatback video screens and stick figure families on the back bumper ??) without them glancing in their rearview mirror. I know this because my husband, Jack, nearly did that on many occasions. He’d inch up to their bumper, flash his lights at them, honk, and gesture rudely, all failed efforts to supplant them from their chosen habitat. As we eventually sped past on their right, he’d mutter ‘Masters of the Left Lane,’ through gritted teeth and he’d wave bye-bye with a hand, that, if he were alone, held a lit DuMaurier. 

Jack learned to drive in Europe where clearing out of the fast lane comes as naturally as disdain for America and a passion for football. And that is how it’s supposed to work here. It’s even enshrined in Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act which says: 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. Legal speak for get the hell over. If everyone drove right and moved left only when it was necessary to do so to pass the car ahead of them, well, it would work, wouldn’t it? Just as it does in Europe. 

I have tenants in my house right now from Germany. They’re based here for seven months and have enrolled their kids in the local school but on weekends, they’re taking advantage of my very well located house for excursions out of the city. I asked them how they were finding the driving. The response was an uncomfortable glance downwards to the sidewalk. My question: “isn’t the driving in the left lane awful?” opened the floodgates. Their first two weeks were hell on wheels - literally - as they tried to accommodate their European driving style to local standard. 

And then they asked the question that we often ask ourselves as we’re whizzing up the right hand lane of a six lane highway - is it legal to pass on the right here? My response was to say I think it isn’t but it’s an unenforced law. But it got me thinking - is it actually illegal? Back to the Highway Traffic Act. Sure enough - there it is at section 150: The driver of a motor vehicle may overtake and pass to the right of another vehicle only where the movement can be made in safety and, … (b)  is made on a highway with unobstructed pavement of sufficient width for two or more lines of vehicles in each direction. So do it, but only if it’s safe. 

But that’s where the problem lies. People are barrelling across lanes of traffic plotting their moves kms ahead, taking advantage of the breaks in flow and their expectation that Newton’s first law applies: A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force. It’s that last bit in Newton’s law that can throw a spanner in the works - if the cars were not driven be humans, we could assume they’d continue in the same direction at the same speed. But many of those other drivers have their own highway strategies or games they like to play making the equation more complicated. You cannot bank on meeting that safety requirement that’s imbedded in section 150 when passing on the right. It’s a right ruddy mess, is what it is. And it’s getting worse.

One of the real curve balls drivers have been thrown is the introduction of HOV lanes on a number of the GTA’s highways. These lanes are the inner-most lane to the left of the “left lane” and separated from it by a double line. That double line signifies you’re not to cross it, acting as a median but without any of the concrete qualities of an actual median. HOV stands for high-occupancy-vehicle and was originally intended for vehicles carrying more than one person. When EVs with G series plates became a thing, we too were granted access to the HOV lane. When I first got my Prius Plug-in in 2018, HOV lanes were an added bonus. Reduced fuel consumption AND I could get places faster. Now, however, the HOV lanes are the scariest place on the highway. First, the proliferation of EVs (which I support in theory) has meant these lanes are no longer as car-free. But worse, there are a bunch of people using the HOV lane as just another left lane, weaving in and out of it unpredictably and wreaking havoc in the actual left lane. 

So if you’re out and about this summer, take a look at the highway and I’ll bet you’re experiencing some kind of freaking freaky Friday where the left lane goes more slowly than the middle lane and the middle lane is exceeded by those in the right lane, with the HOV-ers criss-crossing double lines adding to the chaos. Drive safely! 

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