Or “Why Does Nobody Know How To Drive?”

We had occasion to drive along the lovely King’s Highway, better known as Highway 401, today, between Tilbury and Manning Road in Windsor. It’s Ontario’s primary motorway/freeway/autoroute and has a fearful reputation.

Down here at its western end it’s not so bad, though, with three lanes in each direction between Tilbury and Windsor, and relatively light traffic when compared to that in the Greater Toronto Area. However, the wide open spaces do not good drivers make.

Speed has always been an issue. The limit of 100 KpH means to everyone, including the Police, you should drive at a minimum of 120 KpH in reality. Where the limit is 110, then read 130. It’s not really policed seriously, unless you feel like doing 150+, then you may get caught.

Then there’s tailgating, driving too close to the rear of the vehicle ahead of you, which appears to be more popular in Ontario than hockey. That minimum 4 second safety gap is normally 0.4 seconds on the 401, and I’m really not exaggerating.

Today, though, was the day of the left lane cruisers. So many do not appear to know or understand, on a three lane road, that only the right-side lane is the driving lane, and that the other two are passing lanes only; that’s the law. I get it that you might end up in the centre lane for a while if there are too many trucks in the right lane, but today we had car after car cruising along a near-empty road in the left lane. Certainly, they’re only holding each other up and not doing too much harm, but why do they do it? It seems the height of stupidity to me. Mind you, at least some of those left lane cruisers were keeping to the 401’s unofficial 0.4 second gap rule.

It’s long been my contention that driving education and testing in Ontario is sadly lacking. Indeed, the two kids’ driving instructors both imparted incorrect information to their students, one about speed and one about making left turns. If the instructors don’t know, there’s not much hope. As a former instructor, and tester, myself I speak from a position of knowledge.

All that said, if everyone did as they should when driving, what would I have to complain about?

** An after publication edit. Why do so many people visiting from the United States feel that it’s OK to drive at 130 KpH on a Canadian road with a 100 KpH limit? It seems disrespectful to me.