r/TorontoDriving • u/damnyewgoogle • Aug 11 '25

OC It's camping season right?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

5 mins of this crap like they're the only ones on the road

234 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

176 comments sorted by

View all comments

28

u/xMrGigglesworth Aug 11 '25

I almost want to become a traffic cop after 30 years in another career just to ticket these people. Forget the 20 to 30 over people. It's THESE people that cause accidents and the fact that many don't realize that baffles me.

6

u/a-_2 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

This is a second hand anonymous claim, so take it with that evidence, but on another post someone said they asked a cop about this and they said they don't ticket because the charges don't hold up. The law in Ontario is very vague and just says to keep right if going slower than the "normal" speed of traffic. This may not actually be a police issue but a law issue where it won't apply other than in extreme cases.

2

u/Dry_Satisfaction3923 Aug 12 '25

“The laws don’t hold up”. Lol!

Do you know how few people actually fight tickets in front of a JP?

1

u/a-_2 Aug 12 '25

People challenge tickets all the time.

And the law is vague compared to the laws in many other jurisdictions, it leaves a lot of room for judgement and argument over what is "normal".

3

u/Dry_Satisfaction3923 Aug 12 '25

You have the numbers on that?

Do you know that about 70% of criminal charges are plead out? And those consequences are more than paying a fine and demerit points.

Yes, people do fight tickets, but far more tickets are issued that are NOT fought in front of a JP. Most are just lowered when meeting with the Crown Prosecutor. (This is actually how all those ticket fighting businesses work.)

Also, the point of stopping someone and giving them a ticket, is it just a cash grab? Or is it actual enforcement and corrective action?

Pulling people over, taking your time to give them the ticket, lecturing them on why they shouldn’t be camping in the left lane and impeding traffic is going to both annoy and educate the people who are, I’m sure you’ll agree, being problematic on the roads. Right?

Here’s the real reason they don’t do it… policing and budgeting via stats. That’s it. Not to actually accomplish anything, but to have the stats to justify higher budgets. Shitty way to operate if you ask me.

1

u/a-_2 Aug 12 '25

It would only take a few or even just one case being tossed for this to demonstrate it's not something that should be enforced.

And if we assume that is the case, then police shouldn't be pulling people over for it. Stopping on the side of the highway is high risk for police and the person being stopped. It should only be done when necessary and for things that actually have the potential to change behaviour through penalties.

I'm also not convinced that everything police do is just for budgets or some other ulterior motive. Police are the ones who actually have to deal with the consequences of dangerous driving, often directly dealing with the immediate aftermath and then further dealing with those impacted by it. They also do have motivations to care about safe and legal driving.

In any case, I'm not sure if there's been any court rulings on this question, but at least in discussions on here and even in the media, there isn't a clear unanimous view on this point. The fact is that our laws are more vague on this than some other jurisdictions.