VANCOUVER – B.C.’s Minister of Transportation, Todd Stone, said on Monday he is planning legislation this spring to crack down on left-lane hogs.
This legislation would allow police more power to ticket slow-moving drivers in the left lane who are not using it to pass.
Police can issue tickets now to drivers who do not move into the right lane to let others pass them, but those are often overturned in court.
Stone said on Tuesday he is not going to get into specific details about potential legislation but said he knows left-lane hogs are frustrating to people around the province. “People who tend to camp out in that left lane and seem to think the left lane and the right lane are there to serve the same purpose,” said Stone. “They’re not. In fact the law today is pretty clear in terms of the left lane being there for passing.”
“Challenge is a lot of British Columbians don’t seem to know that or don’t seem to respect that requirement.”
Stone added, looking at data from ICBC and police agencies around the province, “a good number” of collisions are caused, in part, by driver frustration related to people being in the left lane.
Many studies have shown left-lane hogs can be the biggest nuisance to other drivers. However, Stone said aggressive driving, or driving over the speed limit is also not acceptable. “What we’re trying to do here, what we’re looking at, how can we do so to eliminate that tension that exists in that left lane when people are parked in the left lane? They simply should pull over and drive in that right lane.”
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