New legislation will increase the power police have to pull over drivers who are obstructing the left or “passing lane” of a highway:
As it stands now, there is already a $109 fine for driving in the left lane slow enough to obstruct traffic. Apparently, the problem with this old law was that it was not specific enough and tickets were often thrown out. This legislation, in combination with higher speed limits (up to 120 km/hr) in some areas, is designed to unclog British Columbia’s highways and reduce accidents.
Firstly, it’s interesting to see legislators take a more practical solution to reducing accidents. The knee jerk reaction seems to be to obstruct and slow traffic. This new legislation takes many of the realities of highway driving into consideration. Obstruction traffic can also lead to motor vehicle accidents. The obvious mechanism is via rear end collision, but other scenarios, such as cars sliding off roads are also entirely possible.
I am curious to see what the final wording of this legislation is. Surely, they won’t go as far as to penalize drivers who are driving at or around the speed limit. The goal of this legislation, I’m sure, is to increase the flow of traffic up to the speed limit, not encourage people to exceed it.
