Slower Traffic Keep Right. Impossible!

[Monarch Butterfly]

You may have seen this sign on Ontario expressways:

In the Driver's Handbook, it means:

Slow traffic on multi-lane roads must keep right.

Good idea, right? So you try to drive in the right lane, leaving the left lanes for passing or faster vehicles. Then why if you try to follow those directions you come upon signs like this?:

It is frustrating that when I try to keep in the right lane, I get the squeeze left sign. Or as it appears in the Driver's Handbook:

Right lane ends ahead. If you are in the right-hand lane you must merge safely with traffic in the lane to the left.

You may have been on the 401 westbound just after the 410, in Mississauga. It drops from 6 lanes down to 3. It is the right lanes that disappear. Try to keep right results in you merging into the left lanes. So what happens? The next time you don't drive in the right lane, but drive in the left lane. The left lane does not merge or disappear.

How can we stay in the right lane for through driving when it turns out that the left lane is the one that stays? This results in the slow drivers having to drive in the left lanes, since those lanes are not forced to merge.

In the Introduction of An Act to Enhance Safety and Mobility on Ontario's Roads, 2002, (link to it here) there appears the following:

Require drivers to use the left-hand lane only for passing on highways with three or more lanes and a speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour. This is designed to encourage drivers to keep right except to pass and reduce aggressive driving behaviour.

How can we follow that request when the road designs don't let us?

I would like to drive on the 401 in the right lane from the Quebec border to Windsor without changing lanes. Same with other expressways in Ontario.

 

[MisterF]

I had no idea that the occasional lane change was such a burden.

Slow drivers in the left lane (and middle lane when there are 3) are one of the most annoying things about driving in Ontario. European drivers are much more vigilant in driving in the proper lane.

 

[doady]

I had no idea that the occasional lane change was such a burden.

I had no idea driving slower was such a burden.

 

[EnviroTO]

When driving you are supposed to be alert enough to handle "complexities" such as disappearing lanes. The slow lanes need to be the outside ones to allow people to pull off the road and exit. I'm more frustrated by exits on the left.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

The fastest, and best flowing, traffic should be in the left so that they don't have to shift into other lanes where merging might occur... doing this would be hazardous as faster vehicles would have to shift their speeds to match the 'slower' vehicles in the right lanes.

I think you're taking that sign far too literally... no one is asking that you have to be on the furthest right lane at all times... do you exit at every exit ramp, then, since it's on the very right?

 

[MisterF]

Doady, why is it so much to ask to drive on the right so that people who want to drive faster can? Driving slowly in the slow lane isn't inconveniencing anyone, driving slowly in the fast lane is. It's like standing on the wrong side of the escalator.

I think you're taking that sign far too literally... no one is asking that you have to be on the furthest right lane at all times...

No, but you should be as far to the right as possible until you have to pass someone. If I'm driving 130 on an empty highway, I drive in the right lane.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

I try to go with the traffic speed in the right lane, usually 100 to 120 for me. If the traffic is passing me on the left, that is okay for me.

However, if the traffic in my lane is slower ahead of me, then I pass to the left and return. That is, unless the left lane is slower than me. There's the problem, having to pass on the right because the left is slower than me.

Worse is when both lanes or all lanes are at the same slow speed. If they could all shift to the right and stay there, that would be fine.

Unfortunately, if the right lane will be merging to the left, they all will not shift to right. So the slow drivers stay in the left lane, because they know the right will eventually at some point merge to the left.

 

[nfitz]

An odd complaint - you can travel 100's of km on the 401 without seeing the right-most lane on the 401 disappear. And when it does, I really haven't noticed much issues.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

The disappearing right lane is really a GTA thing. Outside of the GTA the 401 stays pretty stable wrt to lane width.

That said slow traffic should keep right. And our highways should be designed with this in mind. Lanes should not become off ramps randomly (at worst use split lane off ramps). On ramps should not become the new right lane. Lane reductions should be done with some thought instead of (seemingly) on whims and with efficient flow of traffic in mind.

 

[lead82]

People driving in the wrong lane is in my opinion a big problem in Ontario. It is a cause of aggressive behaviour. However the main fault is the idiotic design of our roads. Take the 401 as an example. In the city, there is express and collectors. Often the right lane disappears into an exit-ramp to a road or to the express or collectors. This causes people to merge left, and since these folks are generally slow drivers they tend to slow down the other lanes when merging. E.g. Driving west on 401 approaching Yonge, the right most lane ends as an offramp to Yonge street, while the middle and left lane continue. Now a smarter design would be to end the left lane just before Yonge and create a new right lane for the exit ramp. All exit ramps should follow the standard procedure and create a new right lane to exit.

Now, in general the driving skills of Ontario drivers are very poor. This is of course the fault of our poor driver's education system and the complete joke of a provincial licensing system. It is ridiculously easy to get a license in Ontario.

I have driven many times on the 401 from Toronto to Montreal and back and quite often I would see an empty road with an idiot in the left lane driving at 100km/hr. I ask myself, who are you passing buddy? If the road is open move to the right. When many of these folks line up together you get congestion, and frustrated drivers.

Another problem is that people here often do not know how to pass properly. People enter the passing lane too early and often do not move to the right after passing but instead try to catch up to the next pack of cars and pass those.

Another dangerous manouver is people passing trucks very slowly. It is in everyone's interest that you pass a truck quickly since they often cause bottlenecks. Yet people are afraid to step on the gas slightly to pass the truck faster and get out of its blind spot.


To solve this I propose that:
1) MTO redraw the lines on the 400's highways so that the right lane NEVER disappears. If a lane needs to be removed, it should always be the left lane.
2) Improve the driver's education system: more mandatory training on the road, better accident avoidance and safety techniques. Also the driving test must be revamped to test drivers on various conditions such as snow, ice, rain. Tests on dry summer pavement are easy. People need to be tested on their ability to handle skids and to avoid collisions.
3) After that is done, increase the speed limit on highways. 400 series should be max 120km/hr for cars and 105km/hr for trucks. On other highways and rural roads the limit should be increased from 80km/hr to 100km/hr. Doing this would help reduce the speed differential between cars and help improve the throughput of all our roads.

 

[kEiThZ]

This issue is discussed quite often in every major paper's automotive section. It is idiotic that the right lane ends at all. You never see that in Europe. Sadly, it doesn't promote the habit of staying in the right lane....because everyone wants to avoid the future lane change....

 

[drum118]

It is common to find Americans driving in the left hand lane under the speed limit regardless if it is in the US or Canada. Could never figure why they did it in the first place considering there are signs alone the US highway telling driver to stay out of that lane and use it for passing only.

It even worst coming upon any driver who is doing 20 or more under the speed limit in that lane at night if you are over the speed limit.

Today divers are poor drivers and they should take their real test on the real roads, not some parking lot of MTO. Over 50% of those drivers who pass on that lot will fail in the real test. I have driven with some of those first time driver.

Coming home from the US a few weeks ago, if you were not doing 115 or more in that lane, you had drivers ridding your rear considering there was no room in the other 2 lanes to move over. Then had to deal with a driver in front of me that had no break lights and an SUV that block the view of what was taking place in front of him for haft the trip along the QEW.

 

[Admiral Beez]

When I exit the DVP onto the 401 East each morning to go to Markham Rd I get into the second from left left. The lane then progressing to becoming the far left lane, to the far right lane and then the middle lane, before becoming the Markham exit lane. This lane dance is silly.

 

[officedweller]

Few comments -

What about driving courtesy which says that you move left to allow cars to enter the freeway? i.e. so you don;t have bumper to bumper traffic in the right lane preventing cars from entering?

What about mountain highways where truck passing lanes are on the right(very very slow lanes for semi-tractor trailers to crawl up the hill)?

There are several places around Vancouver where the middle lane merges left (not the right lane, not the median (left) lane, but the lane in the middle).

BC has now changed signs to follow the US signs - "Keep right except to pass".

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Few comments -

What about driving courtesy which says that you move left to allow cars to enter the freeway? i.e. so you don;t have bumper to bumper traffic in the right lane preventing cars from entering?

What about mountain highways where truck passing lanes are on the right(very very slow lanes for semi-tractor trailers to crawl up the hill)?

There are several places around Vancouver where the middle lane merges left (not the right lane, not the median (left) lane, but the lane in the middle).

BC has now changed signs to follow the US signs - "Keep right except to pass".

"Keep right except to pass, only if the right lane does not end or becomes an exit or ..."