Gov't to euthanize left lane hogs: Let a rider dream

By Paul Fenn

Contributing Editor

You won't get her attention flicking your high-beams, because her rearviews are all angled at her exquisite visage. You can’t wake him up by doing one-arm pushups on your horn, because he's deaf as well as dumb. You can’t nudge them into attentiveness because motorcycle front tire and car rear bumper kisses do not a happy ending make. And you can’t shoot 'em – not without accruing unpleasant and lingering after-effects.

This living, breathing irritant has been making the news lately, which of course means it’s of vital national importance that it be resolved right now. Never mind that your federal government wants to vastly increase its spying powers on you and I so it can take out a few additional tree huggers. That doesn’t even come close to being as maddening as that stick-figure family in a Volvo blocking what is essentially my lane, the one in which I am entitled to go as fast as I bloody well want, without interruption, for so long as I choose.

Unpacking this beast

Just what is one to do about the creature known to road science as Sinistro angiportus porcus, or to road users as the left lane hog?

First we’ll need to examine some of the reasons drivers commit left lane hoggery.

Sometimes they’re just new to town, to driving or to getting life, and no one’s given them the drill. Maddening but slightly forgivable. Though it would be pleasing to see their cars explode in your rearview, knowing you might’ve had something to do with it.

Other times they are deep into it with girlfriend about their intolerable life/husband/working conditions and have forfeited awareness of the fact that they are in a slow-moving vehicle on the 401 (the bit of Trans-Canada highway passing through Toronto that is one of the world’s fastest, busiest, angriest and most incompetence-rich thoroughfares) and that they are blocking dozens of others, all impolitely focused on the task at hand.

Let's not omit the passive-aggressive middle manager, self-appointed Lord of Tar in his four-door silver Hyundai Bureaucrat automatic who’s decided 106km/h is just fine for the whole planet, even though riders and drivers are screaming past him at 140+ in the centre lane, hoping to grind off a few mils of the rightward edge of his front bumper while crossing back into His lane.

Then there are the elderly; safety conscious by nature, and as such not to be over-harshly criticized, because we shall all one day occupy their shoes, should we share in their good fortune and favorable genetics. But still, Gladys, wouldn't you feel more comfortable over on Hwy. 2?

But back to the premeditated offenders. ‘Ignorance of the law,’ goes the saying, ‘is not a defence.’ Neither is being a schmuck, whether willful or just visiting. So given that this sort of personality designation is non-negotiable, be it resolved that we must devise novel solutions to curb the LLH’s appetite, educate the recidivists and shame the lame right out of the game.

Research suggests that no jurisdiction has worked out a way to contend with this scourge. British Columbia has announced new legislation for raised highway speed limits and an intention to remove the LLH from the system. But no definite means to that demise have been announced.

Send them a well-formatted message

It’s accurate to state that highway signs reading ‘Slower traffic keep right’ are classic works of literary ambiguity. Anyway, cagers don't read roadside signs; how could they possibly keep up with their texts?

Thus, I propose actual text messages in cute iPhone voice bubbles painted boldly into the middle of the passing lane with statements like ‘lol, move to the right or dude behind will PIT maneuver yo ass,’ or ‘omg ur in da passing lane!’ or the much simpler and paint-saving ‘Passing Lane Only’, with a few hundred feet beyond that ‘Fuckwit’.

Since automobile users are becoming demonstrably more dull-witted, and less embarrassed about it, the above solutions may not succeed.

Droning in on it

Perhaps we could put all those new drones to better use: Pay the owners to plant their aircraft in front of LLHers’ faces and flash them a digital sign saying ‘You’re blocking traffic. Move to the right’ and if they don’t, the drone operators have permission to open fire with real blood-filled paintball machineguns. Explain that to cops, wife, hubby.

Or maybe drivers need to do a highway driving course each time they renew their licenses. I remember taking one in Alberta in the ‘70s, when I’d started a job driving a Kenworth truck. I was 18, knew everything there was to know about driving, and anything else worth knowing about, and was deeply insulted at having to undergo the humiliations of this mandatory course.

I walked out of there shocked at my own ignorance. The course was not only entertaining and funny, it was fascinating, loaded with cool science, and it changed my driving forever, for the better – yes, me, one of the most willfully unaware fools who ever shuffled along this earth.

Casting the first stone at my glass house

I have wondered, while riding my F800GS at speed, whether some people simply do not understand what the ‘passing’ part of ‘passing lane’ means. Might they think it refers merely to the passing of trees and buildings? Or passing the time? Or wind?

I have also questioned whether I am as perfect as my own semi-occasional personal driving assessments always attest. And what of other motorcyclists? Do we LLB? I'm unable to recall ever witnessing it.

Give us your ideas to terminate this plague

Address them to @champers in the Comments section below. If they’re funny or at least smart, we promise to tweet them to Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, Steven Del Duca.

Drink more champers here: https://eatsleepride.com/rider/champers

champers is the nom de guerre of Paul Fenn, ad man by weekday, motojournalist by weekend. The recent confession of ‘occasional involvement’ in the motorcycle realm to his one remaining parent did not result in her immediate expiry due to cardiac arrest, thus he is finally able to reveal his true identity to the world. Are those crickets?