OHTA.ca

Hello, I looking for any help and/or advice for my situation. I have been driving for 22yrs and have never lost 1 point on my licence and never any accidents. Only thing I ever had was an outdated sticker fine. I am a slow and cautious driver.

I was driving in southern ont. on a 4 lane (2+2) hwy. I crested a hill, at the bottom exactly 1km away were flashing lights, not on the shoulder but on a median directly beside the shoulder, thought it was a tow truck waiting, as I got closer realized it was an suv opp cruiser x2, checked my mirrors and blind spot, 3 cars in passing lane going much faster than me, neareset one very close to me, I decided it was not safe to change lane, might get rear ended. So I proceeded safely by. Officer jumped on me right away. I was shocked when he explained the ticket, I told him that I could not change lanes due to vehicles too close. He insisted I could have.

I am 100% innocent and very upset over this ticket. I am going to take this to court and fight it. I cannot afford any legal help. I am looking for any advice and/or experiences from anyone concerning this subject. I thank you in advance and your help is definitely appreciated.

You and everyone else on the road travelling in that direction were obliged to proceed with caution (slow down) and move over one lane if it could be safely done. If something can be safely done may be up for debate but did you make any effort to proceed with caution? If you testify that you saw the lights flashing 1 km away but could not differentiate a service vehicle (orange flashing lights) from an emergency vehicle (red/blue flashing lights) you will be surely convicted. Arguing that you had no opportunity to move over for 1 km will not get you far considering most merge lanes on a highway are not more than 200 meters.

Post the officers notes when you get them.

I agree I should be able to differentiate between a service vehicle and police/emergency vehicle. I decided I should pull over probably 200m before I passed. However I am a slow driver, was going 90km in a 90km zone. The vehicles in the passing lane were traveling much faster than I (estimate between 100-120km). I feel it was unsafe to merge, rather safer to pass safely by, which I did. I do not know if this makes me innocent in the eyes of the law? Perhaps not. Should I plead

guilty, and ask for the courts mercy, or plead innocent, noting the above? I have not received notes as I have not replied to the ticket as yet.

You can wait and see what the actual evidence against you is before making a decision.

New this spring, tow trucks are included in move over law....have to find the amendment and post link

hwybear wrote:New this spring, tow trucks are included in move over law....

But who is going to protect us from Tow Truck drivers?

MacCharles said besides this "dubious" behaviour, tow truck drivers have an extraordinarily high collision rate, 20 per cent compared to 1 per cent for other commercial vehicles.

I have a court date end of june.....have asked for disclosure...however I have not received it yet and the court date is next week. Will it get thrown out if they do not provide it?

Hi I have a question. If you are traveling on the left most lane - and it is unsafe to make the lane change to the right (okay of course that is debatable but say it was nighttime, the lights obscured your view and you thought there was a car in the right lane and to make the lane change you would have to speed above max speed limit which you were already traveling at), so is it wrong to slow down, try to pull to the next curb i.e. left sided curb wait for it to pass and then move to the right? The emergency vehicle is moving very fast behind you and there is no time nor is it safe to move to the right.

I feel if the emergency vehicle REARS END you it should be their fault right? Obviously if you were speeding or not stopping but if you were trying to slow down and stop and move to a curb, is it your fault?

If you did not receive a ticket for this, would insurance find you at fault?

#1 you should only be temporarily in the left most lane in order to pass vehicles to your right. At no point should you be "travelling" in the left most lane unsure of whether there are vehicles to your right. You should have heard the sirens and seen the emergency lights well before they were right on top of you. For me this spells out very poor situational awareness from the driver.

Most emergency vehicles expect you to drive predictably, reading HTA S159(1) moving to the right or stopping on the left curb on a freeway is acceptable.

In other countries vehicles literally mount the curb in order to give way to emergency vehicles: https://youtu.be/Z_Tl3G4sDPs?t=40s

Germany:

For the most part, the drivers left a wide open channel. That would never happen here. "This is MY lane dammit!" Also note there was no rubbernecking by drivers on the other side of the Autobahn staring at the Feuerwehr (firefighters) or Polizei (police).

Are they not supposed to be aware of their surroundings too? Like even if someone doesn't react fast enough if bad lighting or weather whatever to make the lane switch right away, they shouldn't ram into a vehicle unless they were sure they were already in the other lane? That seems like negligence on the emergency vehicle who should also drive at a higher standard than normal rules because they are (legally) disobeying usual traffic laws.

Because they are expected to get to an emergency situation, should they not be more aware of their surroundings and not just EXPECT other people to do as told when there are other factors at play like not being able to maneuver as quickly as they are trained to do?

Actually according to (2) when on a roadway having more than two lanes for traffic and designated for the use of one-way traffic, as near as is practicable to the nearest curb or edge of the roadway and parallel therewith and clear of any intersection. 2009, c. 5, s. 49.

So you could move to the right OR left. Right if it's SAFE to do so, and if not safe, then left if there is not enough time. They still shouldn't rear end you. It's not like day one they have dealt with people reacting to them coming. It's not ILLEGAL to drive in the left lane - you can't even get a ticket for simply being in a left lane otherwise.

That is so stupid - breaking laws to let emergency vehicles pass like driving on non-roads. That's putting yourself at danger so now the EMS has to go save your life too.

The whole point of clearing is to be safe - if you do stupid things like that or do unsafe lane changes to "clear way" it's counter productive, you're just creating more accidents.

flyingfree234 wrote:They still shouldn't rear end you.

No one on here claimed it was okay for emergency vehicles to slam into others.

flyingfree234 wrote:It's not ILLEGAL to drive in the left lane - you can't even get a ticket for simply being in a left lane otherwise.

You can absolutely get ticketed for driving in the left lane if you are either moving slower than the speed of other vehicles, or if a faster-moving vehicle is approaching from behind and wants to pass. See section 147 and 148 (1) and (2) of the Highway Traffic Act. And then there's the signs "slower traffic keep right" and "keep right except to pass," which are official signs and you can also get ticketed for not complying.

flyingfree234 wrote:The whole point of clearing is to be safe - if you do stupid things like that or do unsafe lane changes to "clear way" it's counter productive, you're just creating more accidents

No one said to make an unsafe lane change or to put your vehicle into the ditch at high speed. What iFly55 was saying is that you need to be aware of your surroundings so that you know if it is safe to change to the right or not, and if you're just "guessing" if there's a vehicle there, you're not paying attention. If there is a vehicle there, don't change lanes in to it. iFly55 said that in other countries, people will pull up on the curb if necessary. In his video, or in the one I showed, how many people getting out of the way crashed? None.

flyingfree234 wrote:That is so stupid - breaking laws to let emergency vehicles pass like driving on non-roads. That's putting yourself at danger so now the EMS has to go save your life too.

Slowly pulling your vehicle onto the curb or shoulder where there's nowhere else to go is neither breaking the law, nor is it unsafe. Come on.

Um yeah driving on NON roads i.e. actual curbs is against the law. If EMS and emergency vehicles wanna do it, fine, but if a civilian does it then they will get ticketed for sure. That's just being stupid and if your car flips because you aren't doing what you legally are allowed to do then um yeah, you're totally responsible for it. So maybe don't break the law in the first place?

And who said you were driving slower? If you are driving at MAX speed in the left lane, you can't exactly be ticketed because if you drive any faster, you're breaking the law by speeding. So where are you supposed to go? 1) Drive faster - illegal 2) Lane change UNSAFELY into a car that already is in the right lane - cause a crash from unsafe lane change - cause more accidents, break laws, um no 3) As the highway act says, SLOW down and try to pull to the left curb - yes pull TO the left curb, not ON the curb and cause your car to flip because that's actually not what you were trained to do - you're not a stunt driver.

If it's nighttime and you don't have a good view of the right lane because there is not enough time to react before that vehicle wants to slam onto your car, then yeah I think it's safer not to just randomly slide into the next lane and hit another car. Because then you would be 100% breaking the law and involving more innocent people.

You are right in the sense that the correct thing to do is to pull to the curb in almost all cases... HOWEVER...

flyingfree234 wrote:Um yeah driving on NON roads i.e. actual curbs is against the law.

PASSING off the road is illegal. Pulling the vehicle on to the curb and stopping until the fire truck or ambulance passes you is not illegal in a situation like this. Please quote the section of the Highway Traffic Act that says it is illegal to pull onto the curb to clear the way for an emergency vehicle. Oh that's right, you can't, because it doesn't exist.

flyingfree234 wrote:If you are driving at MAX speed in the left lane, you can't exactly be ticketed because if you drive any faster, you're breaking the law by speeding.

Read my post again, and also the Highway Traffic Act. It doesn't matter what speed you are driving at - if there is faster moving traffic, you must move to the right. There is no exception given if you are at the speed limit. If you got in the left lane and you weren't passing other traffic, there was no reason for you to be there in the first place, unless you're about to turn left. I'll be very clear: You're required to move right at the first safe opportunity, not just wildly change lanes or stay right where you are, when faster moving traffic approaches. If an emergency vehicle is coming up, you can move left or right.

flyingfree234 wrote:So where are you supposed to go? 1) Drive faster - illegal 2) Lane change UNSAFELY into a car that already is in the right lane - cause a crash from unsafe lane change - cause more accidents, break laws, um no

I'll cut-and-paste from above:

No one said to make an unsafe lane change or to put your vehicle into the ditch at high speed. What iFly55 was saying is that you need to be aware of your surroundings so that you know if it is safe to change to the right or not, and if you're just "guessing" if there's a vehicle there, you're not paying attention. If there is a vehicle there, don't change lanes in to it.

flyingfree234 wrote:3) As the highway act says, SLOW down and try to pull to the left curb - yes pull TO the left curb, not ON the curb and cause your car to flip because that's actually not what you were trained to do - you're not a stunt driver.

Yes you are supposed to pull to the curb, if that gets you out of the way. If pulling to the curb won't create enough room, slowly pulling on to the curb is not dangerous nor will it get you ticketed. Slowly pulling your vehicle onto the curb will absolutely not cause it to flip, sorry. I've done it before to get out of the way, when there was nowhere else to go. Bringing one edge of the vehicle up 4 inches is not going to offset its centre of gravity, even if it's a transport truck. Your statement above is hysterical nonsense. You're not dealing with people who have no driver experience, so cut the hyperbole.

flyingfree234 wrote:Because then you would be 100% breaking the law and involving more innocent people.

Again, you're resorting to over-the-top exaggeration. And again, for emphasis NO ONE, MYSELF INCLUDED, SAID TO CHANGE LANES INTO OTHER VEHICLES. You put those words in our mouths. If you're trying to make a point by doing so, you're not helping your case.

It's pretty simple: Pay attention to what's behind you. I've never had an emergency vehicle come rocketing up behind me to the point I thought I was going to be rear-ended. That's because I watch my rear-view mirrors and also realize I'm sharing the road with other people, including first responders who have to get places quickly. If you suddenly find an emergency vehicle behind you and it came out of nowhere, you weren't watching the road. I always also know if there are vehicles left or right of me, because I'm also paying attention to that. I can do it, you can do it.

flyingfree234 wrote:If EMS and emergency vehicles wanna do it, fine, but if a civilian does it then they will get ticketed for sure.

I've been on this forum a long time. I've dealt with literally hundreds of traffic ticket cases and I've got over 20 years of driver experience. This above statement is only true if you were attempting to pass other vehicles while driving off the roadway. Pulling off the road when getting to the curb wasn't giving enough room is not going to result in a ticket. And I'd rather put my car at 20 km/h or less onto the curb or shoulder and then slow to a stop to get those first responders past me (again, where there's nowhere to go) than have them try to go down the sidewalk or on the grass at a higher speed.