Alberta highways: Could left-lane road hogs be ticketed here?
Following Tuesday’s announcement that police in B.C. will soon have more power to hand out tickets to drivers who hog the left-hand lane, many in Alberta are asking whether the same thing could happen here.
As it turns out, Alberta already has a law to deal with people who drive too slow in left lane.
“If you’re driving slower than the normal rate of traffic for the conditions of the road, you’re supposed to drive in the right lane," said Chris Rechner, spokesman for the Alberta Motor Association. "Except if you’re coming up on another vehicle and you need to pass them, or if there’s a left turn up ahead that you’re planning to make.
“Other than that, drivers are encouraged to stay in the right lane."
A driver caught impeding the flow of traffic could end up with a $115 fine, he said.
But Rechner said tickets are rarely handed out to slow drivers since, in the grand scheme of highway traffic violations, they are relatively low-risk.
“It can be frustrating, for sure,” Rechner acknowledged. “What we advise people to do is, have that sense of respect for each other.”
Recipe for road rage
Rechner said changing legislation is often the final course of action, and noted that more education about good highway behaviour often solves the problem.
“When everybody understands the rules of the road, then behaviour tends to balance itself out and everybody’s safe,” he said.
There are several differences between B.C. and Alberta highways that impact driving conditions and safety, he said.
In B.C., many highway speed limits have been increased up to 120 km/h — higher than what is typically seen in Alberta. That speed adds to the problem, Rechner said.
Also, unlike Alberta, many B.C. highways have only two lanes, which makes drivers see left lanes as a limited opportunity to pick up speed and pass someone, Rechner said. Where frustration over speed and traffic flow occur, road rage often follows, he said.
In Alberta, more highways have four lanes, reducing the pressure to use the left lanes.
Two-thirds of all fatality collisions in Alberta happen on smaller rural roads and highways, and speed is a major factor in about 80 per cent of injury collisions, he said.
We asked Edmonton AM listeners what they thought of the B.C.'s crackdown on slow drivers using the left lane:
