After having an information session from a Liaison Officer of Peel Police, I learned they have a way for Citizens to Report unsafe driving so that it may be monitored and followed up if action is necessary.

I found on the site where to look for this “Road Watch Citizen” Form and found it here:
http://www.peelpolice.on.ca/Specialized%20Units/Traffic%20Enforcement/Roadwatch.aspx

So it looks like the following happens:

1st Offence: Letter to owner of Vehicle
2nd Offence: Letter to owner of Vehicle plus Phone Call
3rd Offence: Visit from the officer plus possible charges

As before this I never knew this existed, I’m sure many citizens don’t either.

GTS Blogger.

I drive every morning to work and I never fail to find a number of people with their taillights not working! It really isn’t hard to change them, and on most cars can be done in minutes. Don’t know how? Ask a friend or take it in.

There is no reason why you should be driving like that. Now I know most will say “Oh I didn’t know”. In some cases this may be true, but I know there’s lots of people out there that totally ignore it. When I find my taillight not working I go fix it. I’ve fixed it for my brother and others as well. You need all 3 working! There should be a blitz to ticket these people, although I know if they fix the light and go to court it will get thrown out. Not enough to scare people because they could have the excuse “oh it just happened, i was on my way to fix it”.

I was following a person who i’m sure was named Sandy and was possibly on her “6″th car. She was driving a car like this:

Hers was light blue. Well she had only one functioning light. While, yes you can still see, but what happens if during your morning commute that tail light decides to “not work” and you have to stop from 100 to 0. Rear end alert! Yes, it’s that easy.

Please, please fix your taillights! You should not rely on just one working, because if it fails it could be a catastrophy!

GTS Blogger

I received an email this morning linking me to this article on the Wheels web site that was stating “Drivers stunned by new speeding law” in Ontario.

I witnessed my first case where I seen someone pulled over, who looked to be about 55 - 60 years old with his wife. The cop was clearly writing up a ticket, and a tow truck was taking away his Nissan SUV. Actually, he had TWO cops talking to him. Stunned by the age of the person getting their vehicle seized? I’m not.

I knew this would happen when the “Street Racing” law was put in place. While the article states the most common age of the person caught is 21. The average is at 30! Meaning as much as the 21 year olds are getting caught, there a lot of people over 50 getting caught.

Street racing won’t get stopped by this law, but I’m glad they are enforcing it to all vehicles and not stereotyping cars that “fit the bill”.

It’s definately worth the read on the Wheels Web Site:
http://www.wheels.ca/article/32623

One last note, that I found interesting was this quote:

Looks like they have officers out specifically looking for this! It definately brings in a nice fat amount of money due to violations.

Now is your chance to give your input on what you think is the worst roads in Ontario! Do you drive a road every day and curse til your voice goes out?

Well let CAA know which road that is.

Visit their “CAA Worst Roads” web site at:
http://www.worstroads.ca/index.asp

At the time of visiting their site this is the “Ontario Municipal Roads” numbers I seen:

My guess is the 401 Will be the worst road picked by everyone at the end of the poll. Why? Because its the busiest highway in North America. All traffic gets funneled through the 401. One accident and your done. Plus the construction and the potholes on the 401 is just miserable. Let’s see if I’m correct.

My vote used to be the Burlington Skyway left lane, but finally someone has listened and fixed those over the past weekend. Thank you Mr. Construction guys and whichever boss told you to fix the skyway! My Car’s suspension loves you for it.

GTA Traffic Sucks Forum will have a forum post dedicated for our users to discuss what they think are the worst roads in Ontario. Obviously we will have a bias to Toronto & Greater Toronto Area Roads.

Go to the forum and make your Post:

Ontario Worst Roads Forum Post

Give us your opinion of what you think. If your not registered, Registration is free and can be easily completed by going to the Register page.

Discuss this on our forum at GTA Traffic Transit Expansion

The liberals came out with a huge proposal this past Friday, announcing a plan to increase the Transit in the GTA. Plans are to improve Go Train access and include “Bus Rapid Transit” to help get travellers to where they need to go quicker.

Does the $17.5 Billion dollar price tag and the completion date of 2020 entice you to vote back in the liberals and be happy with the transit expansion?

What are the biggest promises made?

MoveOntario Transit Plan By The Numbers:

A lot more has been promised and for Hamilton people it should help their commute. Unfortunately for me I’m still just on the outskirts of where these expansions will help commuters, so the only way it helps me is if it removes lots of the traffic on the highways so my drives in are easier.

Am I for it?

Yes, simply because who knows where I will be by 2020 when it is all done, and wherever I move these expansions could definately help me and my decision on where to move and how my commute will be affected.

Here’s a smaller image of the proposed layouts (image is linked to the PDF of the changes):

To discuss this further, please join our forum and voice your opinion at:
GTA Traffic Transit Expansion

The story as reported by City News:
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_12058.aspx

Why must people throw stuff out the window while driving?

Today there was rain and I knew a slower than normal day ahead, but this really rubbed me the wrong way. My story starts with my normal drive in and I am following a lincoln onto the On ramp. For whatever reason, I can see his window open. Here I am thinking why is his window open? He’s going to / is get drenched.

And then the reason comes out. Not only did he fail to follow the rules of the road and only accelerated up to a constant 80 km/hr to merge on the traffic (which made it lot harder for me to merge because there was a big truck coming in the right lane), he starts sticking his hand out and what do I see next? These small pieces that were white came flying at my car and just bouncing off my hood! Now they weren’t big enough to cause damage or anything like that, but it just rubs me the wrong way that people are polluting and annoying other drivers by basically throwing stuff at their cars!

If I had drove by him and stuck out my hand with some garbage and hit his car he’d be furious. Why does he do it to others? No respect on the roads these days. People throw stuff out, drive really slow and merge unsafely and just are a general nuisance. Keep a bag or something in your car to throw your garbage in and then throw it out when you get home in the garbage.

This also happens when with cigarette smokers. Fine, go ahead and pollute your lungs. That is your choice but having your cigarette flung out your window to hit my windshield or car is not necessary! Thats why car manufacturers put an ashtray in your car. Use it! Don’t have one? Don’t Smoke! It’s your car and you can do whatever but stop throwing your cigarette “butts” onto the road. One time my friend was driving and a driver did this and the cigarette still litten got stuck on his windshield wiper. He had to pull over and throw out the cigarette. Was that necessary? No. People need to drive with respect. If they did that to a cop, they would be pulled over in a heartbeat, but they do it to everyone else without care.

This reminds me of the time when I was stuck in traffic to see someone conveniently left their Tim Hortons cup right on the yellow line in the left lane. Like they were literally stuck in traffic and instead of waiting to get to work to throw it out they must have opened their door, put the cup exactly on the line and drove off. Like why do that? Stop being so lazy.

End of my rant today, but for the respect of all drivers stop throwing your garbage out the window!

We’ve added a new section to our forum titled “Funny Traffic Signs“.

Post any of the funny traffic signs you see around the GTA for everyone to comment on. Have a funny sign you seen that not from the GTA? Include it too. Maybe they will bring that same sign to our Toronto roads for us to laugh at while stuck in traffic.

To see our first funny traffic sign coming from the Niagara Falls area visit this post:

Marineland: 1 MILF that a way

Post away and give everyone a good laugh.

As many know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Toronto to sign agreements on climate change and stem cell research with Dalton McGuinty.

The news story from City News of Arnold arriving to Toronto:

Arnold Arrives in Toronto

You think Arnold may face the lovely Toronto traffic? Nope. He just created some more traffic with his arrival. He was escorted to his locations and this just caused even more havoc everywhere he went. Peoples travel times doubled or more yesterday.

It’s all great though since the plan is to reduce global warming. I guess all the cars idling for twice as long helped global warming too.

Welcome to Toronto Arnold!

The folks over at driving.ca have a neat little questionnaire to test your Driving IQ. The questions and the possible choices are just way too funny! You have to fill it out. Oh and you better get them all right and be a Roads scholar.

And you can even win some money too

Here’s the link to Question 1:

http://autos.canada.com/community/drivingiq/question1.html

One of the funniest choices in the questionnaire:

Remember: