Toronto's Pet Peeves for Driving

A couple of weeks ago, I asked Toronto via Twitter and Facebook, "Hey Toronto. What's your biggest pet peeve about other road users? Let me know. I'll be writing about it."

Well, here is the writing about it and the results. I'm not surprised by any of the responses. Hey, I'm a driver too and what upsets me, are the same things that upset you. What did surprise me were the order of popularity of the responses.

Here are honourable mentions that didn't make the top ten. Fail to clear intersections, quick stoppers, late mergers, left on amber/red, fail to assist in passing, fail to lower high beams.

# 10 - Slow drivers.

I don't agree but it is your list. This wasn't laid out as drivers who are in the passing lanes too slow, but just slow drivers in general. Maybe it's not that they are too slow - maybe you are too fast.

# 9 - Slower moving vehicles that pull into your lane while you are travelling faster.

Often the driver looks only at the immediate space around them and not at the big picture of time zones and space.

# 8 - Late left turn signals.

Argh!! Drives me nuts too. Inconsiderate and by not communicating soon enough can really destroy traffic flow. If you would have let me know what you were doing, I wouldn't be stuck behind you now.

# 7 - Distracted Drivers.

Quickly becoming the norm for serious risks to public safety. 27 X increased risk in collision. By the way...hands free does not mean you are minimizing the distraction. It only means you are complying with the law. You are still distracted.

# 6 - Cyclists who disobey the HTA.

Only because this is your list did I include it. All of the responses have a degree of lawlessness to them but there were enough responses that specifically said cyclists, I had to include it here.

# 5 - Left lane bandits.

Most people think this is reserved for the expressways and freeways, but anytime there are multiple lanes you can see this happen. The order of populating lanes is from the right to the left and you only use the left lane for passing...pass over, return to the right.

# 4 - Unsafe lane changes.

These are horrible for so many reasons. The actions of unsafe lane changes can have a domino affect with other drivers over reacting and causing further problems.

#3 - Follow too closely.

Who doesn't get this? You are too close, vehicle in front stops, you can't stop in the space you left...problem. This is the laws of physics explained so simply anyone can get it.

# 2 - Lane cue cutters / Use lanes that end to ram themselves to the front.

This came in most described as the drivers who leave curb lane on an expressway jump on an entrance ramp and pass cars just to cram themselves back into the curb lane again. Illegal, rude, inconsiderate and for what...to pass four or five cars...wow you got so much further ahead.

# 1 - No signals,

By a land slide! No wonder, take a look and see how many people don't use their signals. What is very disturbing about this offence is that you can't fail to use your signal and not be causing a potential problem. Turn? Need to tell people about it. Lane change? Have to communicate with everyone.

So that's the way you responded. Watch for another question coming soon. In the meantime, here is my top 5...

# 5 - Amber and red light runners.

# 4 - Distracted drivers.

# 3 - Drivers who don't move over, slow down or get out of the way of emergency vehicles.

# 2 - Speeding / aggressive drivers

# 1 - Impaired Drivers.