seriously, if you drive anywhere in Europe driving in Canada (snow storms excluded) is an absolute sinch. The worst British driver will feel SOOO superior driving amongst Canadians, they are trully aweful at it!

Yes roadsigns are rubbish, road surfaces are rubbish, no one ever indicates or lets you in so just bully and push your way Euro-style (it really pisses them off too!) no problems! That is of course, until you reach Montreal. There you will find a sort of 'placid parisian' driving if there is such a thing. In fact, when I am missing Kent I take myself off for a calming drive around Montreal, it feels like reaching civilisation after months in the wilderness....

Canadian drivers at the worst can be seen doing there worst in the nations glorious capital. Anyone ever tried joining the 417 in heavy traffic... Ottawa drivers drive ONLY using their Cruise Control (something to do with the huge amount of civil servants i gather..) making joining the highway rather exciting/agrivating. if you move in front of them at a different speed from them it either causes blind panic, swearing and some sort of strange canadian hand-gestures, or an accident! You get used to it though, and remain feeling superior.

querky stuff like turning right on a red light and flashing school buses and 4 way stops you get used to quickly though and from my experience as well as talking to other expats, Euro-drivers are far more observant in terms of watching for rozzers so we don't get caught as much.

Oh another querky one, you can also turn left on a red light if you are coming from a one-way onto a one-way. Little known one that..!

As someone else mentioned, turning right is OK in Quebec apart from a couple of places - at least I hope so or I've been breaking the law for the last two years.

Its very odd reading about these awful canadain drivers. Round here when I first came I was amazed at how polite everyone was, and how often I would get waived into trafic.

Sometimes i think I live in a different country completely to some of the people who post here. There is the odd bad or overly aggressive driver (usually a kid in a civic, or an OAP in a mercury grand marquis), but thats life everywhere. Driving here is so much less stressfull than it was in the UK, even coming from a relatively sleepy place like Norwich, with its horrendous one way system and congestion.

I still find the drivers round here very courteous. Maybe its just me Montreal though was another experience entirely

Quebeckers dont just turn right on red lights. They just drive right tru dem!

Hi,

Canada (Ontario) roads are quite different from in the UK. We drove around Toronto, over to Niagara and then down to Windsor and noticed some pretty major differences in the actual quality of the road surfaces. Feels about 20 yrs behind the quality (in the main) that you find on UK roads. It is also fairly easy to get yourself lost as the motorways dont signpost well and in major towns you need to know the road name for the junction you have to come off at, which we found very hard ie 'Matchete Road' etc, so if you are being given directions anywhere ask what sign you need to look out for.

We also found a lot of surface water on the motorways, which was not helped by the huge trucks having no anti spray mats/mudflaps. Also a lot of them don't have any side bars to stop you going under the sides of them in the event of, don't be frightened, just be aware.

We found driving a lot more relaxed and courteous than in the UK. There are either two way or four way stops in the built up areas every few hundred yards, so you don't build up the speed between unless you have maniac tendencies. The first to arrive at a four way junction has right of way, but it is important to remember that if you are the car behind the one who has right of way, YOU DON'T have the right to follow if others are waiting their turn from other directions.

In the built up residential areas there are also no Kerbs, the grass verge comes right up to the edge of the road. Some areas also do not have pavements, so people walk in the road.

The biggie for us was that people are allowed to overtake and undertake, so be really careful when changing lane, you need to be looking everywhere!

If there are roadworks on the main routes or in the built up areas you have to be very careful to stick within the speed limits as they are strict about that. If there are 'actual people working' on the road and you get caught speeding it automatically doubles your fine!!!!

It is fun, so just relax and enjoy the experience.
regards
Stef

I find the standing water on the highways to be really alarming. There are lots of spots along the Gardiner/QEW where cars passing through puddles cause splashes over into the other carriageway, suddenly blinding drivers there. Generally I think it's worst on newly constructed or newly surfaced roads, after a few months the roads get cracked and split and that allows some drainage. I try to be careful where the surface looks smooth.

I did go under the side of a trailer on the QEW; the rear wheel came through the passenger door of my car and stopped on the passenger seat. I was trapped due to the wheel being on seatbelt buckle. My car could not be towed as it lacked structural rigidity; they lifted it and it fell in half. Still, through all this we were tidy enough to allow a flow of traffic on both sides of the accident, unlike those loathsome people who hold up hundreds of commuters for fifty dollars worth of damage to some ugly little grey thing.



Technically undertaking is not allowed but, of course, one would never know that by looking. Lane discipline is something that makes driving in the US so much nicer than driving in Canada.

Out here in the Wild East where money for road maintenance is hard to come by, the problem on the highways are the ruts left by overloaded transport trucks. (The Provincial Govt previously closed many of the roadside weighstations as an economy move, go figure!). These fill with water when it rains and are bloody dangerous as without care and attention its easy to hydroplane. People get killed or injured most months when there is a significant rainfall.

One has to adopt a technique of driving slightly out of the normal line, verging on the hard shoulder. Either that or stay in the 'fast' lane!

That's an issue on the 401 too. In an incident unrelated to the one above I was rear ended by a hydroplaning car, bounced off a bunch of others, "like pool balls" said the cop, and ended up propped up on the central barrier. All this because the ruts in the roadway were full of frozen water. That accident was a lesson in vehicle deformation, the car, a Suzuki Forsa Turbo ended up 2/3 the original length but the engine went properly under my feet and the rear crumple zone crumpled under as well. Modern small cars would reasonably safe if the seat frames didn't break every time there's a little bump.

You may want to consider the following regarding road surfaces.

1) The weather creates surface stress with temperatures below freezing in the winter and in the 90's in the summer.

2) The amount of paved road is considerable in Canada. The UK is the size of a Walmart parking lot by comparison.

Do you have a link for that statistic? Canada's big but most of it is empty of people and roads, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more paving in the UK.

Not only freeze/thaw damage to roads (you'll find the same in Northern US states btw) but snowplows do significant damage to the road surface. Ever wondered why there are no cats eyes in the roads here?!

Hi

Everyone we spoke to said that undertaking was allowed, so maybe it a lack of education rather than flouting the rules. When overtaking trucks I felt a bit vulnerable sitting on the right (as a passenger, hubby driving) next to the truck. I was also aware that when you are alongside one, they may not see you if you are in the 'blind spot' and pull out.....no side impact bars....potential for a serious accident. The best thing to do is to get past it as quickly as you can. Is that what happened to you? :scared: We found Gardiner express and QEW bad for surface water and puddling.
regards
stef

Hi,
You are right, but as we don't have the same extremes of temperature, it's not something that you give much thought to when you go somewhere else.
I was just advising extreme caution due to poor surfaces really. At least if you are aware it's easier to adapt and doesn't come as a surprise.
Regards
Stef

Where do you get the impression that passing on the right is not allowed?

If you do a Google search for the Ontario Highway Traffic Act and then look for Section 150 you'll find you are incorrect in that assumption.

Trailer = lorry? Wow. I've noticed many lorries don't have the whatever-it's-called that stops you from going underneath as they do in the UK (must be compulsory there?). An old lecturer of Mr B's did a study about head and neck injuries in crashes with lorries and most of them pre-these thingys being installed were lack of head and neck remaining after going under the side :scared: Wonder why they haven't been brought in here (although I've seen a couple lately).