Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Why do you follow clients? I can understand why you may want to follow a target:confused:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Oops my bad

i ment customers.

Clients are known as requesters now. It changed 2 yrs ago.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Does a 6 week Police driving course count ??????

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Maybe that's why the drivers are so friendly; they're sozzled as they wave you across with a "I love you, man.":rofl:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Only if you passed I assume! :rofl:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Yes I passed and are you still considering renting a vehicle?
I hope you are landing in Toronto and driving on the 401 :rofl:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Biggest issue in BC is thye amount of people that run through red lights... strangely 4 way stops seem to work but lights are ignored!

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

When stoned it can take a while to notice if things change, hence confusion on the slowly but forever changing pretty lights above the road.
The stop sign, no change...

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Just reiterate that of i2c and her special mate, drinking and driving and hitting pedestrians is common. This is a crossing I make often when popping down to GI and I have seen many people simply run through the red light. This is not an isolated case.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/dea...133/story.html


And I agree with Alan2005, driving anywhere in Canada is a soulless, grey and dispiriting experience.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Yes....Halifax.....and I have no idea but I get your sarcasm non the less! Cheers!:p

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Halifax is a doddle. Only becomes an issue when following tourists on their way to Peggys Cove. Try driving over the 2 bridges into Halifax but have change handy.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

When you are the only car on a twisty back country lane, surely its entirely up to the driver how soulless, grey and dispiriting the experience is:confused:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Just like the Mersey tunnels....joy of joys! Hopefully the NS bridges will be much prettier, not smell as bad or full of scousers!

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Kids are allowed to drive way too young here. Sitting at the traffic lights and seeing 14 year old CHILD in the driver's seat of his big Dad's truck always scares me....bloody crazy :thumbdown:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Really they have twisty back lanes here? :confused:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

They are bridges not tunnels :lol: These go over the water not under them.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Ha ha, I meant having to pay to use them!:p

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

I take the kids down one at break neck speed to school nearly every day...

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Besides, Cant be FULL of scousers, half are woolybacks going the other way:p

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Chavving it up in the scooby?

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Only when management isnt... Maybe I should get a coffee can exhaust for the new Honda...:decision:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

When the wife picked me up from Pearsons we joined the 401 and she immediately hogged the middle lane (she had been driving in the Toronto/Mississauga area for 3 months before my arrival) and I thought wtf with the middle lane hogging? She just smiled and said shut up and watch. Jesus I thought after passing a few junctions they are clueless on how to join the highway, everything from 140kph slip road direct to outside lane manouvres to trying to merge at 60kph with 20 ton of truck steaming up their ass. I even saw one muppet stationary on the slip road with his indicator on (waiting for a gap I guess lol) Since moving to Belleville things are a little less hectic on the roads but who thought it would be a good idea to give drivers and pedestrians the green light/white man at the same time! Now it might just be this area but nobody seems to want to let you out when you are trying to exit a shop car park even when the lights are on red and they're going nowhere they still block the exit to the car park. Other things I've witnessed is drivers refusing to move for an ambulance on blue lights, red lights being treated as optional and people driving because they are to drunk to walk. As a pedestrian you can get high here on the smell of 'wacky backy' from passing vehicles.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Not where I live. Everything is straight with roads that are either parallel or perpendicular to each other and all cornering is of the 90 degrees variety.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

And another thing, there's a road nearby which is 104th, and then further along there is another 104th but they aren't joined up. In fact there are 3 or 4 "104th" streets that aren't connected. I understand the reason is that they are at the same latitude, but really how is that not confusing? :confused:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

must piss the postie off.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

At least in Calgary they put N S E or W on roads with the same name:)

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Try the GTA, the same road can go from E to W and then back to E and back on to W as it passes through diffrent municipalities...

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

What about parking? Do people park on 'yellow lines', park badly or are they pretty considerate?

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Most places dont have yellow lines like the UK. Street parking is governed by signs i.e no parking, parking on this side only, parking only between certain hours. Same as the UK park illegally and you either get a ticket or towed. Most places dont implement boot or clamping of vehicles.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

For the most part Canada doesn't have the narrow streets such as in the UK. Apartment buildings generally have underground or off-street building. You must park in the traffic direction. No hood (bonnet) to trunk (boot) parking. Many suburbs have three hour overnight parking restrictions. This allows for municipal snow plowing. With perhaps a few exceptions, we do not have the parking nightmares they do in the UK.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Most people do not need to park and so have no ability to drive a car backwards. It's a sad thing to watch someone taking 15 tries to get the SUV parked at Costco.

I forgot a feature of the 401 that drives me bonkers. Suppose you're in the left lane, having just passed something in the middle lane, you come up behind a car, today a grey Mazda 5, going at 80 or so. You can't undertake as there's another vehicle to the right also going at 80. You flash, blow your horn and wiggle around from side to side 1/2" behind the Mazda, waving gayly and chit-chatting with your passenger about the probable ethnicity of the Mazdist. After a few minutes the driver notices you and pulls into the middle lane. You pass and also pull to the centre lane, as you do so you look in mirror and the ditherer is moving back to left, no doubt congratulating him or herself on being a polite Canadian and having moved over. Hopeless!

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Parking? See attached. This was outside my apartment in Toronto, a narrow residential street. The car had been there for some time in that position. I was stunned that someone would just leave it like that, now things like this don't surprise me so much.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

don't forget you have to park the direction you are going too.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

I can't imagine there's anything about driving on the 401 that doesn't drive YOU bonkers.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Well, I dislike the hell along the sides, Mississauga, Milton, places that make one shudder and press hard on the loud pedal.

I dislike the lack of camber and the consequent way that way that rain puddles on the road so that vehicles in the "fast" lane on either side must drive through waves of spray from the other. I'm not comfortable with the wall of lorries in the centre lane obstructing the signs and making it difficult to find the exit.

You know how I feel about the drivers on it.

But! We made it from the centre of Guelph to Bay and College in 45 minutes this morning so, if you're willing to hold your nose and pass on the wrong side, it is, I admit, possible to drive really quite quickly along it.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

The 401 is great at the mo, while school is out. I drove Ajax to Weston Road in 30 mins easy peesy at 7am, wens thur fri.

Be back to same ole crock o shite next week. :thumbdown:

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Although there are no yellow lines, if the curb is painted yellow there are parking restrictions up to and including no parking.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

You have to bear in mind the road system in Alberta is pretty awful, especially how some of the exits and merges are laid out on the Deerfoot Trail, Glenmore, etc.

It's not quite as horrendous in BC and Ontario I find. What blows my mind on the QE2 is that the exit for Olds is simply a turn lane in the middle of the road, it's so dangerous and there have been bad accidents there, you'd think they'd put an overpass in. Then you go down I-15 in Montana and they have overpasses for Joe Blogg's farm, it seems to me.

But there are lots of really bad ones on Deerfoot, Memorial Drive being the main one that comes to mind, way overcapacity. Also the Bow Bottom Trail exit is a nightmare in rush hour.

Also total lack of consistency in how merges and exits work, every possible way of doing a merge or exit or slip lane appears to exist on the Deerfoot. When I first moved to Calgary it took me ages to learn the layout of each junction so I knew what to do at each one.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

What lines (in Alberta)? You can't see them in the winter and they get worn off by gravel, and they take until late summer to repaint them.

Also I find in Alberta you have to be really careful not to be fooled by paving lines on the road, i.e. due to construction. I can think of several accidents on Calf Robe bridge where people made the mistake of following the lines in the paving slabs (which are diagonal) and ended up driving into the barrier. Saw it happen once. I think they've resurfaced it since to cover up the lines, it was such a problem.

Re: Differences between Canadian drivers and UK drivers?
 

Lots but I think the two you will notice first is that people don't flash their headlights to mean whatever it is they mean, which I like because I never knew what they meant. In Canada the junctions are too large to be able to see them and cars have daytime running lights so it's impossible.

So I found one good thing.

The other one is that people are less keen on letting you into traffic.

There is a myth that circulates the world that Canadians are good drivers because of the weather. That myth is very, very wrong.

The thing that immediately blows your mind is the sorry state of some of the cars. People driving rust buckets with nearly bald tires in the middle of winter. Bald tires are illegal, the police will stop you for it, but OMG I can't believe some of the things I've seen. No equivalent to the MoT test in Alberta. Some provinces have vehicle inspection requirements but none of them are anywhere near what you have in Europe.

Probably the main reason car insurance rates are so much higher in Canada, but I don't think my rates are that bad. Not as cheap as in the UK but some of the figures people have put up on here blow my mind.