What about turning your car off while you’re waiting for the train to pass?

I had the opportunity to live in Switzerland for a summer and I was always amazed at how environmentally conscious the Swiss were. Get to a red light, turn your car off. Get to a rail crossing, turn your car off. No matter what the idling circumstance they always turned their car off. How come Canadian’s can’t adopt the same habits?

Congestion costs Toronto $2.2 BILLION per year

Congestion in Toronto is almost unbearable at times. It is not only the highways that are congested it is the city streets. And much of that congestion leads to idling – where you sit in your car and go no where. Unfortunately it is somewhat unreasonable to turn your car off on the highway, wait ten minutes and then drive again. The idling I’m referring to is when you’re waiting for a friend, picking something up, dropping something off, etc … or waiting for a train!

In Toronto there is a by-law that prohibits idling. If your car is sitting still for more than 3 minutes out of every 60 minutes than you could be charged with idling.

Of course there are those people that believe that idling is necessary. There are individuals who believe that you need to warm your car up for at least 10 minutes on a cold day. Modern technology and modern cars actually only need 30 seconds to warm up. Or the individuals that believe that is uses more gas when you stop and start the car. The reality is that you use more gas when you idle for more than 10 seconds. More on these myths can be found here.

In the end the message really is to turn your car off whenever you can. Perhaps in the future Toronto will have a fourth colour to the traffic lights, so we can turn our vehicles off and turn them back on when it is our time to drive again.

The new laws
As of May 1st new legislation came into effect that should help to deter people from drinking and driving. Before May 1st if you were caught drinking and driving with a blood alcohol concentration between 0.5 and 0.8 you received a 12hr suspension, now the offence is much more serious.

• First Time: 3-day licence suspension and a $150 Administrative Monetary Penalty
• Second Time (within 5 years): 7-day licence suspension, Mandatory alcohol education program and a $150 Administrative Monetary Penalty
• Third Time (within 5 years): 30-day licence suspension, Mandatory alcohol treatment program, Six-month ignition interlock licence condition and a $150 Administrative Monetary Penalty
• Subsequent infractions (within 5 years): 30-day licence suspension, Mandatory alcohol treatment program, Six-month ignition interlock licence condition, Mandatory medical evaluation and a $150 Administrative Monetary Penalty

Not only that but instead of retrieving your license from the police station now if you are caught drinking and driving you have to go to the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) Licensing offices.

How do you know how much you can drink before driving?
The safest thing to do is have a designated driver that doesn’t drink. Of course this isn’t always the case. The way your body absorbs and handles alcohol varies amongst individuals; it is very difficult to assess your own BAC or impairment. Generally speaking impairment from drinking is affected by:

• How fast you drink
• Gender
• Body Weight
• Amount of food in your stomach
• Tiredness
• Mood

Last summer I lost my cousin in the horrific drinking and driving accident up in Muskoka. His fate was an unfortunate lesson to us all.

(More on the MTO news release can be found here and here)

New Legislation to better protect young drivers.

Under the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario’s announcement yesterday drivers under the age of 21 would require a zero-blood alcohol level. Under the Road Safety Act other changes included higher fines for serious highway offences (i.e. running a red light or failing to remain at the scene of a collision) and immediate impoundment of a vehicle if the driver is impaired.

The proposed legislation that limited the number of individuals in a car with a young driver was dropped. However, the government may lengthen the required time under the graduated licensing system (from a minimum of 20 months under a certified driving school to a minimum of 36 months).

The full release can be found here.

Eyes on The Road and Hands on the wheel

A second bill went though its third reading on April 22nd, the bill that would restrict the use of hand-held devices. Under the new legislation individuals will not be able to talk, text or email while driving, unless using a hands free device.

The full release can be found here.

Here’s what happened: The bus driver pulled into the right hand lane approaching the Eglinton intersection. I went through the intersection behind other vehicles in the left-hand thru-lane to continue going north on Royal York. Just north of the intersection is a bus stop where the bus was proceeding to. No one wanted to get on or off the bus so the bus never slowed down or stopped. Instead of merging when it was safe the bus pulled over into the left lane without checking to see if there were any vehicles. But there were, I was there and have to slam on my brakes and veer into the right lane. Who needs caffeine when you have drivers like that!

Ontario Highway Traffic Act 142.1

I decided I would look up the law governing buses merging back into traffic, HTA 142.1. The requirement on yielding applies to buses merging back from the bus bay. The law states:

Every driver of a vehicle in the lane of traffic adjacent to a bus bay shall yield the right of way to the driver of a bus who has indicated his or her intention, as prescribed, to re-enter that lane from the bus bay.

But the law also states when the bus must wait:

No driver of a bus shall re-enter the lane of traffic adjacent to a bus bay and move into the path of a vehicle or street car if the vehicle or street car is so close that it is impractical for the driver to yield the right of way.

Buses are governed by the same driving laws as the rest of us.

My issue this morning was that the bus merged into my lane without checking to see if it was safe to merge. The bus is governed by the same laws as the rest of us, it must only merge when it is safe. I was lucky in that no one was coming in the south direction and narrowly avoided being hit by the bus.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to have a close call with a bus. I suppose it is about driver education, both vehicle and bus, and possibly about changing the Highway Traffic Act.

In 1994 The Ontario Government passed a law for graduating licensing. What does that mean? A G1 is granted if one passes a written test and is of at minimum 16 years of age. The G2 is the middle stage and one has to pass a driving test, that does not include highway driving. A finally an individual must do a second highway driving test to achieve their full, G license.  From the time one gets their G1 it takes a minimum of 20 months to get your full license, depending on whether or not you use an accredited driving school.

Drinking and Driving.

Government put forward a motion to have a zero tolerance policy for individuals 21 and under. For those individuals who get their license after the age of 21 there is a one-year imposed zero tolerance policy. This is more a modification to the original legislature for the graduated licensing protocol. Under the original protocol an individual only holding their G2 license had a zero-tolerance policy enforced. Once they had their full license, a G-license, than there is a tolerable limit of 0.08% blood alcohol level. I agree with the legislation, anything to mitigate drinking and driving amongst teenagers.
Speeding. The new legislation is again a zero-tolerance policy. A first offense warrants a 30-day suspension, your second offense gets you a 90day suspension. Upon a third infraction the driver is reverted back to their G1 license.
Passengers.

The new proposal is to limit the number of teenagers in the car to one. Previously the legislation did not limit the number of teenagers during the day, but during the first six months of a teenager could not have more than one teenager in the car between midnight and 5am. Some teenagers are saying that this will only cause more drinking and driving. I have to say that I think that is a little excessive, I’m not sure that any law, television show, media, etc advocates drinking and driving.
This new legislation is in reaction to several recent accidents including the horrific accident up in Muskoka on Lake Joseph. I wrote about the accident here back in August. Unfortunately a cousin of mine was in the accident up in Muskoka. I agree with this legislation, if it prevents accidents, even just one, and a family doesn’t have to go what Allan Mintz went through than I am in favour of these new laws.