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I was fortunate to grow up in the UK. I learned to ride motorbikes and drive cars there, which many of you know is a different experience to North America!
Everything is short distance, busy roads, fast driving and for the most part, courteous. Unless of course you are hogging the left lane (right lane in the UK). Then it is less than courteous as about 500m away you start to see someone’s high-beams as they alert you to the fact they are coming through and you had best move into the appropriate lane.
In North America? Not so. The left lane replaces an indicator in North America. You drive there eternally because, after all, in 5 kilometres you may be choosing to turn left and you need to be ready. Heaven forbid we consider changing lanes a few hundred metres before the left turn and let traffic move at a normal speed!
It is also a good place to continue making a phone call apparently, blissfully unaware of the 3km line up behind you because you are so distracted by the important call that you are driving 20kph below the posted speed limit. No need to speed up though, it is summer, why doesn’t everyone just chill out?
Because we are not on holiday!
OK, I admit as a rally driver and precision driver I have more than a few pet peeves about North American driving, lane management being just one. My top ten could be so ridiculously simple to write other than not knowing which ones to edit out of the top ten!
So here is the point. A short while ago, we heard that we were going to ticket left lane hogs! Awesome, except how do you do that? They are holding the policeman up in the 3km line of traffic behind them… nobody can get to them to give them a flippin' ticket. Secondly, if the policeman gets to the front, how does he pull over a left lane hog. They are already on the phone so they are distracted too much to believe that all those pretty lights are just for them!
It is a real dilemma, but imagine my surprise on that same day of the announcements, when I drove my wife into Kelowna, and said, “Look, this is just like Europe. People are overtaking and pulling back in to the right lane and traffic is moving smoothly!” Everybody paid attention… at least on that day.
I wondered how long it would last. Not long apparently, then neither did the distracted driving laws.
It was no surprise when the left lane hog this morning was in fact an RCMP cruiser, who, granted was going at the speed limit, but let's be honest, he could actually have pulled over and issued tickets if anyone chose to pass him!
So I guess it is back to the thinking block again. Whoever is doing that, please don’t call me for ideas because my list is significant enough to bung up the system for a long time trying to stop people from:
- Merging by going to the end of the merge lane without enough speed to merge and then stopping;
- Stopping on a perfectly normal two lane road to let someone cross illegally;
- Waiting at the 4-way stop for the next person 500m away to arrive before moving….
Look there I go, just let me go back to my glass of water and cool down, and please - stay in the right lane EXCEPT TO PASS!
Photo: Contributed
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