The Passing Lane

I don’t know about the rest of the country but here in Southern Alberta drivers appear not to have heard the phrase “passing lane”. If they have heard of it they simply do not understand the concept of what “passing” means. I took my driver’s education in high school in Winnipeg and then got my driver’s license in Ontario after taking professional lessons so I know “in theory” at least both provinces stressed the purpose of a passing lane. In other words, I was taught that you do not sit in the passing lane, it is for PASSING.

My brother John also took his training and license in Manitoba. He is an exceptional good driver but I must say being his passenger can sometimes be a strain because as he has gotten older he has become more and more intolerant of sloppy driving. He will do a 10 minute monologue on all the bad drivers on the highway (or on Macleod Trail or Deerfoot Trail if we are in the city). The worst he can say about a driver is that he or she is “a dangler”. Someone who is sitting on the far left lane, just driving along like they own the road. Anyone wanting to pass is stuck behind this dangler for miles on end until someone has to blow the horn or get right up to the rear end. I admit that there are an awful lot of them on the road, especially on the Deerfoot Trail which is extremely rude and selfish behaviour. 

I do point out to John that during rush hour traffic there is no passing lane on Deerfoot because it is wall to wall cars in all three lanes and none of the lanes are moving at more than a crawl. I used to drive it when I was parking downtown and even though I left just before 4 p.m. in order to avoid the worst of it I would often be stuck (especially around Southland, the funnel). My strategy was always to try to get into the passing lane as soon as possible and just move with the flow because once passed Southland I could move into the middle lane fairly quickly and the traffic would usually stream faster. I was NOT a dangler despite being in the passing lane because there were 100 cars in front of me also stuck.

On that exculpatory note I give you this quote via one of my classmates . . .

"Don’t smoke too much, drink too much, eat too much, or work too much. We are all on the road to the grave – but there’s no reason to be in the passing lane."     Robert Orben