Nailed for driving on shoulder 401 Westney

[ZX600]

Let's not confuse or mix riding in the shoulder with lane splitting.

Shoulder riding is not legal anywhere in the world (Generally) for obvious reasons, lane splitting is legal everywhere in the world except for North America (with some exceptions) and the reason I thought were also obvious.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Theoretically of course, lets say someone is stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and they come up to an exit that they can't exit (i.e. heading East on the 401 at Dixie Road, but you didn't take the Dixie exit 2km back: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Mi...m2!3m1!1s0x882b469fe76b05b7:0x3146cbed75966db

Lets day this biker (in theory of course) left the slow lane at a 90 degree angle, hopped the curb, and took the dirt path the tow trucks made in order to exit the highway. What charge could be laid if this (theoretically) happened and a cop saw him?

"Drive not on roadway." Seriously.

 

[ungoloth]

It's unsettling how many times I get passed on the shoulder when I'm turning left and/or stopped (waiting for traffic) exiting a (single lane)highway.
Once one car commits to passing on the shoulder then a whole host of them do the same thing (sheeple effect). I even occupy the leftish side of the lane to discourage the aforementioned but it just seems to get ignored. This also happens at traffic lights when cars/trucks want to turn right. They just enter your lane and proceed with little regard to motorcyclists.

 

[Baggsy]

Let's not confuse or mix riding in the shoulder with lane splitting.

Shoulder riding is not legal anywhere in the world (Generally) for obvious reasons, lane splitting is legal everywhere in the world except for North America (with some exceptions) and the reason I thought were also obvious.

Saying something as though it were fact, doesn't make it so. Am I the only one who knows how to use an Internet search engine?

http://2wheelersrevisited.blogspot.ca/2015/02/online-petition-legalize-lane-splitting.html

 

[LePhillou]

Honestly everyone i talk to says "oh you're on a motorcycle, so you zip through cars *doing a zig zag motion with their hand*"

So yeah, that's what drivers see motorcyclists as.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Reading this thread it's increasingly clear to me why car drivers seem to now have a bigger attitude towards bikes than they used to have 20+ years ago when I last rode regularly.

Lots of "the rules don't apply to me" mentalities around here...and next thing you know just because a few riders think they're more important than every other motorist on the highway (and spare me the oh-woe-is-me stories of diahreah, it's raining, I was too hot, blah blah blah), we're all painted with the same brush. In perhaps another 10 or 15 years when we're all suffering under even more insane insurance rates and overwhelmingly heavy police scrutiny all the offenders could look back and realize that they're to thank for it.

I'm a commercial driver with 20+ years in the heavy truck trade and I see the same thing happening there - a few people who can't follow the rules end up with every motorist on the road thinking we're all drugg addled sleep deprived road ragers who like to use the size of our vehicles to intimidate. We are not...but others are increasingly looking at me (a consumate professional who prides myself on such) as such.

I also just got out of Jetskiing after 5 years of (mostly) fun - it was the exact same - we just expected to be targeted by the OPP every single time, we were on the water (and I lost track of how many times we were pulled over, inspected, and questioned, albeit politely most of the time when they realized we were mature riders) and all this is courtesy of the many MANY other Jetskiiers who also share that "the rules don't apply to me" mentality. Anyone who spends any amount of time on the water knows that most other boaters look at jetskiiers as scourges.

I don't like being looked at that way, but unfortunately those of us who CAN and DO follow the rules are at the mercy of those who can't be bothered.

 

[Baggsy]

Reading this thread it's increasingly clear to me why car drivers seem to now have a bigger attitude towards bikes than they used to have 20+ years ago when I last rode regularly.

Lots of "the rules don't apply to me" mentalities around here...and next thing you know just because a few riders think they're more important than every other motorist on the highway (and spare me the oh-woe-is-me stories of diahreah, it's raining, I was too hot, blah blah blah), we're all painted with the same brush. In perhaps another 10 or 15 years when we're all suffering under even more insane insurance rates and overwhelmingly heavy police scrutiny all the offenders could look back and realize that they're to thank for it.

I'm a commercial driver with 20+ years in the heavy truck trade and I see the same thing happening there - a few people who can't follow the rules end up with every motorist on the road thinking we're all drugg addled sleep deprived road ragers who like to use the size of our vehicles to intimidate. We are not...but others are increasingly looking at me (a consumate professional who prides myself on such) as such.

I also just got out of Jetskiing after 5 years of (mostly) fun - it was the exact same - we just expected to be targeted by the OPP every single time, we were on the water (and I lost track of how many times we were pulled over, inspected, and questioned, albeit politely most of the time when they realized we were mature riders) and all this is courtesy of the many MANY other Jetskiiers who also share that "the rules don't apply to me" mentality. Anyone who spends any amount of time on the water knows that most other boaters look at jetskiiers as scourges.

I don't like being looked at that way, but unfortunately those of us who CAN and DO follow the rules are at the mercy of those who can't be bothered.

The trucking industry should have the truckers move a smart car from Toronto to Montreal along the 401, and penalize them for not maintaining 110 kph average speed. That should give them some good insights as to the way many trucks pass, i.e. signal, start forcing cars off the road, fall behind the guy your passing, catch him in the next kilometre, and finally get past and pull back over, assuming they survive the trip.

 

[PrivatePilot]

good insights as to the way many trucks pass, i.e. signal, start forcing cars off the road, fall behind the guy your passing, catch him in the next kilometre, and finally get past and pull back over.

So, as a driver let me share my insight on your viewpoints.

signal, start forcing cars off the road

Not our goal most of the time, although as with all drivers, there are bad apples. However, this is almost always this scenario:

1/ We put our signal lights on after patiently waiting for an opportunity where the terrain and inertia give us a hope in hell of making the pass successfully. Sometimes we've been waiting patiently behind another truck for countless kilometers.

2/ We put on our signal. Other cars see this and freak out, mash the accelerator and try to block the lane change in an effort to get in front of of us first...then when we commit to the lane change and start coming over it sure looks like we're "cutting off" a car to most people, doesn't it? NOT the case - if anything the cars often try to cut US off from being able to change lanes to begin with. You'd be dumbfounded how often this happens to us, trust me.

fall behind the guy your passing

Yep, happens sometimes, particularly when we're forced to attempt a pass in hilly terrain when the guy we're trying to pass is lighter and easily starts to overtake again when momentum and gravity take over. Ever pulled 60,000-100,000 LBS and have any idea what it's like? Now, try it when you're electronically governed to a maximum speed and "just stepping on it to get past them" isn't an option because your computer won't let you?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

catch him in the next kilometre

Professionals back out of it when they know they're being passed by someone who's legitimately going faster and just needs to get around them...but of course, with the increasing lack of professionals amongst us you see these "special olympics" type passes more and more often. Sometimes if I'm in that scenario where some other idiot won't let me around them in a reasonable distance I'll back out of it, be the professional, and tuck back in behind the other truck in an effort to not hose traffic for 10 or 20 kilometers. Others with less professionalism or a "screw you" attitude can and unfortunately do act differently.

and penalize them for not maintaining 110 kph average speed

Newsflash for you. As mentioned above we are all (by law) electronically limited to 105KPH max in the province of Ontario, and many fleets are set lower yet at 100KPH exactly. That IS the speed limit, ya know.

 

[Motorcycle Mike]

Regarding truck drivers, from my perspective the professionalism and skill of truck drivers is getting worse every year.

I have an AZ license and was a truck driver until five years ago when I got promoted to management.

I now manage a dock that sees well over 25 truck receipts per shift and is connected to (and works with) another dock that receives over 100 trailers per shift. It is absolutely unbelievable how many drivers we receive that have great difficulty backing up to a dock. When I did my AZ test in 1997, I had to reverse as part of the test -- is that no longer in there? I cannot remember how many times I've had to volunteer to back up a trailer for someone after watching them struggle for 20 minutes.

As I am now part of management, it is unbelievable how many times I have to yell at drivers for unsafe acts... like co-drivers dangerously guiding the reversing hanging off the mirror standing on the step, wearing sandals, no safety vests when demanded, failure to chock wheels, failure to set brakes, and on and on and on.

Truck drivers used to be some of the best drivers on the road and you could trust their skills... no longer, not by what I see. Now they scare me. The under-cutting of the industry over the past 20 years has been a very bad thing... unsafe trucks, unsafe drivers, and now an unsafe industry. This past year I have turned away at least three trailers as their floor was rotten and light could be seen through the floor -- no way I would allow a forklift to go on such a trailer -- and no professional should agree to pull such a trailer.

 

[samurai]

Just a heads up to everyone, I got an $85 ticket for driving on 401 shoulder eastbound.. HTA 150 (2) "improper passing"

The men in black was hiding behind the Westney on ramp barrier. Probably the 3rd time I ever done this.. Nevertheless got nailed...

Came out of the car stood 4 feet away from me with his hand on his gun and said,, why were you driving on shoulder.

Anycase heads up to all Durham riders who want to beat the Friday traffic in the future..


"If i was educated, I'd be a damn fool"

You are lucky to make it on the shoulder.

- all the debris is always on the shoulder on the highway from nails to bolts to exhausts, and that can be lethal
- vehicles in the lane next to the shoulder can come into the shoulder anytime, most people don't bother to check their blind spot before moving into shoulder and sometimes come into the shoulder just to stay away for the traffic in the other lane. They will hit you like the cars sometime hit the bicycles making the right turn.
- someone can see you about to pass them in their rear view mirror who has been waiting in traffic for long and they can come in front of you to block you, etc.

In grand scheme of things, the risks outweighs the benefits in my opinion.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Truck drivers used to be some of the best drivers on the road and you could trust their skills... no longer, not by what I see.

Sadly, as someone who's been in the industry for nearly 20 years, I agree.

You can thank the Ministry of Transportation for not upping the standards. When I got my AZ you learned WAAAAY more than what was required to pass the roadtest. Now there's a driver mill in every city pumping out guys that are learning JUST enough to pass the road test, which in the grand scheme of things is laughably easy...and low and behold they're granted a full class A licence and are set loose on our roads with no real-world experience nor the skills to safely gain them.

Until the ministry gets serious and makes it harder, this won't change. I'm still shaking my head that all us guys are burdened with graduated licensing (as with glass G, which I agree with more so) yet decades after it was introduced for cars and motorcycles...still NOTHING for the biggest, heaviest, and most complex vehicles on the roads - which a class A lets you drive. Some of these driver mills are pumping guys through 7 day courses and blammo, full class A... yet us guys poking around on motorcycles are spending years to obtain a full M.