Here's why DRIVING in TORONTO CANADA is TERRIBLE!

Driving in Toronto is awful. Even outside of the Greater Toronto Area, driving in Canada isn't particularly enjoyable as compared to Western Europe. Here's why.

I’m an American expat who currently lives In Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Thanks for watching! Please consider subscribing if you like what you see.

Here is my previous videos on Drivers in Europe and Speed Limits in Europe:

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:34 - Thank you to 3000+ subs
00:54 - Overview of my trip
02:27 - Bigger vehicles taking up a lot of space
03:38 - Highway 401
04:47 - Lack of driver discipline
06:33 - The left turn situation
07:43 - Highway speed limits are too slow
09:42 - It hasn't been all bad; some better road design elements
10:46 - Closing, please leave a comment below!

----------------------------
#expat #AmericanInEurope #Toronto #drivingvideo #Canada
----------------------------

[tomwilson]

As another Fake Londoner who lives in Toronto, I totally agree with Kerleem on this! It's frustrating to drive here. The only thing that was missing was what the 401 looks like for 6 hours a day with rush hour.

[jfungsf]

I'm waiting to see if Jason from the YouTube channel *Not Just Bikes* has anything to say about driving in Toronto or anywhere else in Ontario Province😜

[gdkid]

I've driven to Toronto a few times like on vacation and lemme tell ya, it doesn't matter if it's rush hour or the weekend, all 16 lanes of the 401 are gonna be choked with trucks and SUVs as far as the eye can see. If you google "busiest highway in the world", first thing that pops up is the 401. It's all too familiar now that when we enter Toronto, my dad picks up his phone, calls his friends we're meeting for dinner that night, and telling them "gimme like another hour and a half"

[LEOMARIANOCA]

I live in a neighborhood that is mostly populated with people with different cultures. And it inlcudes driving culture. 95% of the people fail to stop in a stop sign, respect preferences when there are multiple cars in a all-way stop sign, yield to pedestrians, turn right on red sign, parking in prohibited areas, etc. I feel that people don't want adapt their lifes to Canadian rules, and they live by their rules ignoring that they are in a different country. I'm not canadian but I try to respect and adapt to this new reality and it is very frustrating that people disrespect the law and they are 100% they are on their right, because they just assumed here it's like in their country and never searched, or suspected that a different country may have a different way of life. Poor Canada. If you want to know what is Canada, don't go to Toronto or GTA.

[mr_movieguru]

Problem is that in the USA you learn driving from your parents who also learned it from their parents....in The Netherlands we learn driving by teachers. Professionals. Also much more difficult to get your driver license. Also is our road design much better. Understanding how to let traffic drive slower in certain ways when it's needed.

[MayContainJoe]

Using blinking red brake lights as turn signals is terrible and banned everywhere else in the world. Especially with blinking brake lights now being used to signal emergency braking.

[Grandhoy]

I'm from Ireland and lived in Canada for a bit. I've never understood the left turn traffic light thing. Also why do you guys not have roundabouts in the USA/Canada?! They would save so much time and make things safer. Instead there are traffic lights at almost every junction...ridiculous if you ask me!

[Interceptor]

7:10
I LOATHE traffic light intersections like this with a passion. This could have been a roundabout but far too many Americans and Canadians dislike them because they dont understand how they work

[reneotten]

North American road design sucks. Stop signs everywhere, traffic lights on a timed cycle only. And because there is no good alternative, everyone needs a car to go from a to b. If you like driving or not your stuck in the car.
Dutch in Quebec.

[ParkerJonesmtb]

Vancouver & BC has notoriously low speed limits. Most of the trans Canada highway is 80 - 100 km/h and some of the big roads (Such as Gaglardi Way up to SFU) are a 60 zone when its a wide highway in a desolate area. It's annoying as hell

[FisheeC]

It's WAY too easy to obtain a driver's license in Ontario.
We let every moron and incapable fool through the system (more drivers = more insurance, more cars, more repairs, more gas = more tax revenue).
Lower speed limits = more tickets = more revenue for the province.

[redpilledtrooper]

I implore you to do a video on Vancouver and the GVA. It is deplorable. Our drivers drive slower than our already slow speed limits, our lights are all off balance and against the flow of traffic, our highways and suburbs are always clogged with traffic, and driving from Langley to Abbotsford during rush hour takes about an hour.

Sometimes it takes me 25 minutes to get from my house out onto Highway 1, and im up the hill from a connecting highway!

We need more lanes, less lights and better drivers.

But instead the provincial government and municipalities like Vancouver hate drivers, and we have bike lanes everywhere and bus lanes and HOV lanes.

The HOV lanes are filled with single passenger cars because most of the time all the lanes are clogged and the HOV lane is moving.

I personally dont break the rules as I got caught once and ticketed.

But I see the reasons people do it.
Another bizarre move is a lot of streets in cities will have trees in the middle of the road surrounded by medians and it serves as a divider between opposing lanes.

But every season we have lanes being blocked off so the city can take care of the plants and trees. This causes more traffic, and more spending just to put some foliage which arguably could be on the side of the road instead, or better yet- not there at all.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a war on the driver. We are put in terrible driving conditions and never truly experience real "driving" until you pass hope, and even then there are tons of cops along the highway wanting to ticket you.

Its all a sick game.

[lawrenceweston]

The lack of left turn signals is appalling.

[carmenl]

I think Dutch and German drivers are very disciplined; I am not so sure about the rest of Western Europe. Especially in France and Denmark, people are glued to the middle lane. Very annoying.

[pingpong]

They should do a system similar to Amsterdam on highways where the speed limit changes depending on the conditions

[RVBizzy]

Nothing in Europe will ever work in Canadian/USA cities for one reason - no one cares, lol. Born in raised in Toronto myself, and it's simply lack of care. My lane, my speed, my time, my way. Left turns are as normal to us as a roundabout is to Europe. With the amount of intersections in the city, there's no way that could ever be implemented. In the far-out suburbs, yes, in the city, no.

[leadnsteel]

Toronto sucks. People speed, drive aggressively, and tailgate.
Driving Downtown is worse because you hit every red light
The 401 is jammed for like 7 hours out of the day.
Also photo radar is also annoying

[CrystalClearWithBE]

Toronto's worst drive definitely is the 401. It's the world's busiest highway and there's the 407 and tolls of it are very high and requires transponders.

[HeadlessChickenTO]

I'm born and raised Torontonian...but, yeah. Our infrastructure, our driving culture, its all crap. But I say this without a lot of experience in other jurisdictions. Outside of the GTA, I've only ever driven down to Boston both through Niagara Falls crossing, and out east in Quebec. But I have been to Miami and Ft Lauderdale Florida, Indianapolis Indiana, New Orleans Louisiana, Las Vegas Nevada, Manhattan and Long Island New York, San Francisco California, to experience the driving culture as a passenger.

Back in my kid days, large and medium sedans ruled the road with small sedans starting to be introduced. SUVs didn't really come in till the mid 90s, but picked up quick after 2000. I've only started driving in 2006ish...bit of a late bloomer since I lived and worked downtown so car ownership and being licensed to drive was a low priority. And the SUV makes up almost my entire driving experience since. But I found this helpful when I did occasionally drive a smaller car like a Honda Civic CS or a larger vehicle like a Ford Transit 250. An SUV falls nicely in between both sized vehicles.

In all that time of driving, people have become less courteous. People use to wave back at the very least when you let them in, same with bicyclists. Pedestrians use to look and see if its safe to cross, and wave thanks to those who stopped. The worst driving you'll find are from Beck taxi drivers who comes to a screeching halt for a red, coming within a foot of hitting a pedestrian thats in the middle of the zebra lines crossing on a green (yes, this happened to me a lot). Nowadays; people will cut you off, run red lights and stop signs, ride your 6 like you've got their favourite chocolate bar stuck up your butt, road rage when you give a light toot to wake them up from their cellphone coma, pedestrian dash across the road mid intersection at 5seconds worth of distance, cyclists cross 4 active lanes without so much as a glance (unless you honked at them for doing so 3ft from your bumper, and its just to glare at you), and my list goes on. Sure, there are more people living here now. Hence, theres a higher chance of running into more morons. But a lot of these attitudes I find are by people who are not naturalized Canadians. I take this from very close experience, as my wife whose been here for 12 years as this mentality. A traffic accident report that should take about 20mins to fill, takes over an hour with my help. I have to ask her 6 difference questions just to answer "At the time of collision, which direction was your vehicle facing?" since she kept giving me "I was on the road" "straight" "what does it matter?" "why is this relevant?"...

But what makes things really bad is our infrastructure, coupled with some of our laws, add in expectations. For example; Adelaide and Richmond street back when I use to work downtown, were one way 3 drivable lanes across with an additional 1 for parking. And traffic during rush hour was bumper to bumper right through the core. Its now down to 2 drivable lanes, 1 barriered bike lane, and 1 shared parking and turning lane during weird hours, dates, or circumstances unless it states otherwise. Throw in the constant state of construction of roads and buildings, and its a total mess. I was downtown for a gig just 2 weeks ago. Without driving on the highway, it took me a little over 30mins to get to the jobsite just around rush hour. I finished around midnight, and it took me nearly an hour to get home with the highway. This was due to turn restrictions, construction causing traffic, streetcars causing backups, and a change in traffic light coordination.

[christianmagtangob]

Torontonian here from Not Just Bikes new video. Great vid!