A short one... almost brought me to a state of road rage

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

MaxPete said:

In Canada this is absolutely drilled into us in driver training and in Ontario - you WILL fail a driving licence test if you don’t yield the left lane to passing traffic

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In day to day driving this doesn't seem to stick. During a number of discussions on this very subject I was told that the right lane is for trucks and dangerous for cars. I have seen several road rage incidents because of a driver thinking they are going 100 km/h so what is the problem. I really think they should ticket these people for obstructing the flow of traffic, they are more dangerous than speeders because they seem totally oblivious to the surrounding traffic.

Gerhard

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

Gerhard said:

In day to day driving this doesn't seem to stick. During a number of discussions on this very subject I was told that the right lane is for trucks and dangerous for cars. I have seen several road rage incidents because of a driver thinking they are going 100 km/h so what is the problem. I really think they should ticket these people for obstructing the flow of traffic, they are more dangerous than speeders because they seem totally oblivious to the surrounding traffic.

Gerhard

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I agree Gerhard. Doing EXACTLY the speed limit on today's crowded roads is not safe - it is selfish and foolish. I was taught to ride by an ex-OPP motorcycle copper and he was adamant that one should keep up with the general flow of traffic and that if the group is doing +10, then you should do +10. Otherwise, you are in the way because you're doing something which is unexpected (by not blending with traffic) and therefore you are a hazard.

Setting aside any discussion of speed - one should always yield the inside lane (the LH lane in NAM and continental Europe and the RH lane in Japan and UK and other “wrong side of the road†countries) to faster traffic.

It is only common sense as well as courtesy. To intentionally block other people is dangerous, dumb and rude.

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

MaxPete said:

It is only common sense as well as courtesy. To intentionally block other people is dangerous, dumb and rude.

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I agree (lived in Europe 7 years) yet where I live in this goes on all day long---it aggravates me when two idiots travel side by side creating a rolling road block and is illegal----cops do nothing.

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

To paraphrase Blue Rodeo, "Just bad driving, that's all."

He was doing a piss-poor job of staying in one lane, that's for sure.

In Ontario so many people ignore the "slow traffic keep right" signs (and there are many) that the right lane is now the de facto passing lane on much of the 401/Gardiner/QEW when there is any amount of traffic. I am not averse to passing on the right but have my spider senses on high to avoid deceleration let-down. I decline to weave as it is both illegal and highly annoying to other drivers. I plan to keep riding well into my 80's so I can afford to slow down and be patient when necessary. In 40 years of riding I have only had two people threaten me with their vehicle and I left them behind or let them go ahead and that was that. I agree with Ibike2havfun, most likely Hanlon's razor at work in your situation.

If that brought you to the brink of road rage, don't come to Toronto.

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

Andrew Shadow said:

Are you sure that you are not kidding about that? Are you sure that they don't teach the opposite in Ontario? It is a long-running joke in Quebec that Ontario drivers education must teach people to always drive in the left-hand lane. Invariably when someone is hogging the left-hand lane and holding everyone up it is an Ontario plate. I have heard radio announcers joke about this openly on the air it happens so often. When welcoming Ontario tourists to Montreal they ask them to stay out of the left-hand lane.

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Andrew: the urban legend here is that people plodding at 100 km/hr in the left lane are invariably from the US, while people blowing their horns in traffic are from Quebec.

I guess every jurisdiction has its legends....and it’s share of twits.

Pete

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

Stump said:

I'd have passed him over the double yellow within the first few moments of the encounter. being anywhere near people who drive that interesting is an anathema to me. Scares me to death. 3 secs to pass and what is now behind me is not important.

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you got that right !!!! He was driving preoccupied or being a bit of a dxxx head... rage, no way I guess he never saw road rage.

Re: A short one... almost brought me to a state of raod rage.

Stump said:

I'd have passed him over the double yellow within the first few moments of the encounter. 3 secs to pass and what is now behind me is not important.

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Surely what I do with such people.

I've lived and commuted around Toronto for 30+ years and before that it Montreal, so I have a fair amount of experience with ignorant, incompetent, aggressive or passive/aggressive drivers.

Lots of Ontario drivers do not move right and it is ignorance, indifference or deliberate lane blocking. I think this is deliberate passive/aggressiveness because he feels you're going too fast, so he just gives you a hard time. I'd pass on the right, or as site lines are good, I'd have no qualms about crossing the double line to pass on the left.

You sounded absolutely enraged on the video , I hope you've had time to calm down.

Andrew Shadow said:

I dislike passing on the right because I don't trust people to not suddenly wake up and go where they should be- I am pretty sure that they are not going to go to the left over the line.

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+1 Just when you decide to do a workaround the subject decides to do the right thing. And if you take them on the left and they move left you've got a better idea of what you're dealing with.

I'm sure we all remember the old man who claimed he was stung. Those incidents aren't that common despite 'they're all out to get us' mantra.

ReSTored said:

You sounded absolutely enraged on the video , I hope you've had time to calm down.

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I picked up on that first thing! I was going to recommend 400mg of Thorazine but figured he might chill a little if given a minute or two.

I'm really tired of other drivers playing games when I'm riding!

I've lost count how many:
Drivers like this one that won't pull to the right lane. (I do pass them on the right...I just go far to the right as I pass - with lots of speed!)
Drivers in the lane next to me that speed up to make sure I can't get in front of them.
Drivers in that single lane road in front of you that that are going slow (below the speed limit), until you come to a passing zone, then speed up (well over the speed limit) to keep you from passing them.
Drivers that will sit on the white line to try to keep me from passing them while I'm lane splitting.

These are examples of drivers that earn a right to either see my headlight modulator on bright, or hear my horn or both! Two tools of the trade of Lane Splitting!

A couple of points...
1. like the camera angle being very wide and everything being closer than it looks, I do have a tendency to speak a little loudly into my helmet mic at speed to compensate for the wind noise.. After the fact, "in studio" voice overs are much more easier to make clear. I think at volume, I sound a little more controlled annoyed... just a few choice words I did not want to make well audible on family friendly YouTube.
2. I have ridden thru Montreal and Toronto a number of times and it is a whole different kind of rush... Los Angeles was too. Interstate thru Portland and Seattle just sucked due to congestion and no speed.
3. oops, more than a couple... in the video I posted on YouTube before this one, I passed on the inside and passed on a double line within the first 5 min. lol... but this was in more traffic and everyone seemed to be doing what you might expect.

I probably should not have used "road rage", because it really wasn't... but it certainly has gotten a lot of views and comments.