The Editor,
The B.C. government's new "lane hog" law is bad legislation.
The law prescribes fines of $167 plus three penalty points to anyone who stays in the left lane on a highway where the speed limit is more than 80 km/h.
There are many places where traffic congestion has been a problem and the only solution has been to increase the number of lanes.
Head west on Highway 1 over the Port Mann Bridge, for example. The posted speed is 90 km/h. We spent who-knows how much money building the widest bridge in the world, and now we're prohibited from using all the lanes.
We've paid an enormous amount in taxes and tolls to build our multi-lane highways.
Allowing traffic to spread out across all lanes permits safer spacing between cars, easier merging, and better overall movement of traffic.
Forcing some lanes to be kept empty will increase congestion, and is a waste of taxpayers' time and money.
We already had laws against driving too slow and impeding traffic. The new law is an ill-conceived cash grab that will penalize drivers for using our highways in a normal and accepted manner.
Richard Koett, Surrey