During our roadtrip to Jasper, I made a quite surprising discovery. Apparently, Canadians don’t care much for traffic rules. They are still very polite drivers and seldom honk or anything like that, and they always stop for pedestrians, but for the more subtle traffic rules there seems to be no respect.
A car can pass you on the right side on a highway, and drivers will frequently drive a lot slower than premitted in the fast lane, so that even if you want to follow the rules, you might eventually be forced to drive past the slower car on the right side in order to get anywhere on time. And all this, even though there are signs saying “Slower traffic keep right” at regular intervals by the road.
Most drivers also drive far above the speed limit and they have huge pickup trucks and city jeeps, which makes the speed even more intimidating. One reason is probably the extremely straight roads here on the Albertan prairie. But still. They don’t stop at stop signs and sometimes don’t even respect traffic lights, especially if there isn’t much traffic.
As a newly hatched driver, fresh from a Swedish driving school, I’m horrified by this unruliness and I’m not sure if I will ever manage to drive here in North America without being terrified every second of the drive.
Katja Malmborg 