Sami is an award-winning automotive journalist from Toronto, Ontario. When he's not pouring over the latest car news, he's teaching karate, geeking out over new tech and watching basketball. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @Sami_HA.

HOV 403

When Ontario introduced the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes in 2005 on highways 403 and 404, the reasoning was to encourage carpooling, reduce congestion and reduce emissions. The gist of the HOV lane is that instead of everyone driving around in a car all for themselves, drivers should buddy up with coworkers or friends and commute to the big city or a workplace together.

In theory, this leads to fewer cars on the road, which has significant benefits: less traffic and fewer emissions. According to Statistics Canada census data from 2016, carpooling made up a decent chunk (anywhere between 11 to 14 per cent) of commuters using sustainable transportation methods, suggesting it positively impacted the environment.

It must have been viewed as a moderate success, as HOV lanes eventually expanded to include more highways in the province. Some vehicles even received special treatment, as they met some of the goals of the HOV lanes, like reducing emissions.

Motorcycles and electric vehicles sporting a green plate could access the lanes without additional passengers, which seemed fair considering they were also contributing to the reduced emissions, and the HOV lanes weren’t overly congested, offering the bandwidth to accommodate these vehicles.

The benefits of carpooling are huge. Beyond taking a car off the road and cutting down emissions and traffic, research shows that commuting with someone can reduce stress levels.

Naturally, these lanes are only effective if used properly. I’ve known people to check their Waze or traffic monitoring apps to see if there’s any enforcement along HOV routes. Those willing to risk the penalties will then jump into the HOV lanes without any passengers to take advantage of the less congested lane.

Get caught in the HOV lane when you’re not supposed to, and you'll face a fine of $110 and three demerit points. If you can afford the tickets, you only need to worry about the demerit points - you get a warning letter after accumulating six points, and a sternly worded letter after nine. At 15 points, your license gets suspended for 30 days. Demerit points stay on your record for two years from the offence date, so if you commit zero other traffic violations, you can get caught driving in the HOV lane about five times every two years before needing to worry.

The lengths and justifications people go to save time on their commute are incredible and point to issues with city planning and better transit options. Instead, Ontario is expanding access to the HOV lanes to drivers who can afford to bypass traffic.

A few years ago, the Ministry of Transport introduced the High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane permit trial program. Simply put, it offers drivers the chance to pay to use the HOV lanes on the QEW, 410 and 403. The trial term is three months long, costing $60 per month or $180 total, with up to 1,350 permits sold during each term. You can get the permit through an online draw or lottery, but once you get one, you can automatically renew it twice before needing to re-enter the draw.

Much like my concerns about speed cameras impacting less affluent motorists, it feels like Ontario is ignoring the initial benefits of the HOV lane program and just catering to wealthy commuters.

The program itself points out a few benefits including “optimizing traffic flow and maximizing the number of users in the lanes,” “improved air quality and greater roadway efficiency,” and “improved and more reliable travel times for paying users of the HOT lanes.”

Not to mention, “non-tax revenues generated by HOT lane permit fees are used to support provincial investments in services Ontarians rely on, such as transportation infrastructure.” I’m not naive enough to take that last point at face value.

However, the rest of the points sound fair. The HOT user gets out of the general-use lanes and into the HOV lanes, which have the bandwidth to accommodate more vehicles. This should help improve the traffic flow of both general lanes and HOV lanes. In dense traffic, it could lead to less idling and result in fewer emissions.

In reality, it’s at odds with the original goal of HOV lanes. The HOT doesn’t promote carpooling, and it doesn't take cars off the road to reduce traffic, emissions or road wear. All it does is give the already pricey 407 (where one can spend $50 alone on a one-way trip) competition.

Inflation is hitting hard. The costs associated with motoring are constantly increasing, with higher fuel bills, the pricey new and used vehicle market, and rising insurance premiums. It seems counterintuitive to give drivers another thing to spend money on and preys on the psychological concerns of drivers about being late to work or being stressed out in traffic.

In my experience, the commute is always smoother when I have others in the car and have access to the HOV lanes rather than another expense on my monthly bills.

Sami Haj-Assaad is an award-winning automotive journalist from Toronto. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @Sami_HA.

Ontario is letting drivers buy their way out of a commuting nightmare

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I’ve wasted countless hours doing something meaningless. From scrolling (and contributing to) social media, to rearranging couch cushions, window shopping and more, there’s been plenty of time I’ve done something useless instead of something important.

But sleep, that’s not on the list. Deny me as much as an hour of sleep and you’re guaranteeing some kind of chaos.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one saying that. Research shows that those with disrupted or shortened sleep schedules are at a higher risk of being involved in a traffic accident. It’s recommended for drivers to get between seven and nine hours of sleep every 24 hours, and to have a somewhat regular pattern of sleep.

So why do we still change our clocks twice a year for daylight saving time? Every spring, we set our clocks an hour ahead and lose an hour of sleep. Data suggests this small change can significantly increase the risk of accidents on our roads.

Springing forward disrupts drivers' sleep patterns, which reduces situational awareness, reaction times, impacts decision-making, focus and even vision on the road. Drowsy driving factors into 21 per cent of all car accidents in the country, and daylight savings potentially injects sleepy, drowsy and underprepared drivers on the road.

The time change also introduces glare from the sun during the commute. It’s no surprise that traffic accidents increased by 23 per cent on the Monday following springing forward according to the Occupational Safety Group, which trains businesses about health and safety.

Drivers that know about the impact of daylight saving time might leave earlier to anticipate higher commuting time, but what about the impact of switching our clocks back to return to standard time each fall? According to a 2001 study that analyzed 22 years of U.S. crash data, there’s also an increase in fatal accidents after that time change.

During standard time, from fall to spring, the frequency of accidents on the weekend increases, compared to daylight saving time, from spring to fall, when accidents tend to occur on the weekdays.

The hazards occurring between fall and spring tend to involve more pedestrians, too, as the daylight hours impact the visibility of both pedestrians and motorists.

One U.S. study conducted in 2007 reported that there were more deaths in the evening hours of November than compared to October. Pedestrians saw a 186 per cent increase in risk per mile during the fall time change, it found.

Drivers may be more rested, but the driving conditions during November mornings are fairly dark, requiring strong situational awareness in inclement weather, and properly functioning headlights.

Is this all due to the time change? Maybe infrastructure isn’t helping with situational awareness. You might have noticed that streets are lined with new streetlights that use energy-efficient LED bulbs, which require less maintenance but seem less bright than old ones. Due to a manufacturing defect, some of these streetlights are even glowing purple, as reported in Vancouver this month, further impacting visibility during a critical time of the year.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has calculated that switching to a year-long standard time would help save 200 deaths a year in the U.S.

The easy answer to prevent these issues is to give up daylight savings. Saskatchewan and Yukon both stick to one time all year long, while countries around have stopped the practice of changing the time. Stopping the practice is said to do more than just improve traffic safety. There are convincing arguments and research that says this practice results in an increase in heart attacks, strokes and cardiac arrest, not to mention less serious concerns like workplace injuries and a loss of productivity.

In 2020, Ontario passed Bill 214, The Time Amendment Act, to help make daylight saving time a permanent fixture and abolish the need to change our clocks. However, since then, the province decided it can’t make this change alone, and is seeking support from Quebec and New York State to finalize the change. These partners have stagnated, leaving Ontarians to wait and see.

It’s a strange hesitation to see, given the overwhelming evidence that suggests that it’s not only unnecessary but unsafe. While far from a simple change, it’s certainly one that could save lives and improve the quality of our commutes.

Save lives, not daylight hours

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When selling a used car, good documentation is the golden ticket to maintaining resale value. That means having logs that show when and where a car was serviced, and if any important services or checks were performed.

It might sound like a concern for classic car buyers seeking provenance, but even new cars seem to be worried about resale values. Consider the upcoming 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale, which includes the first standard non-fungible token (NFT).

Now, NFTs have a stigma due to people spending wads of money on what is essentially a special digital collectible, but Alfa Romeo wants to use this technology to help owners deal with resale value. Poor documentation can kill as much as 20 per cent of a car's resale value, so these NFTs will record vehicle data and then generate a certificate to assure a prospective buyer that the car has been properly maintained.

Both the buyer and seller can benefit from this technology: the buyer receives peace of mind that the car won't be a lemon, while the seller uses the NFT as a way to protect and record the car’s life, ensuring it earns its maximum value on the market.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-172167" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AR023_021TNb02uumcg5nkne4l8s40aa1hmb-scaled.jpg" alt="2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale Veloce European spec" width="2560" height="1440" />

Now, we still have to see how this all plays out in person, considering the new Alfa Romeo Tonale hasn’t hit the road yet, nor the used car market. However, the Italian automaker isn’t the first to exhibit this idea.

The Motor Chain is one third-party solution offering car owners and enthusiasts an opportunity to do what Alfa Romeo is proposing. Car owners subscribe to the service, paying 50 euros a year per vehicle they want on the service.

Owners will have to verify their identity and then provide accurate documentation of their vehicle. Information like the make, model, year, chassis number and VIN have to be verified before The Motor Chain creates an NFT on its private blockchain.

The owner of the car owns the NFT, but when a service is performed or checked, or any change to the car occurs, the garage can include that information on the NFT, maintaining the level of documentation of the vehicle. The shops are the only ones that can make these changes, meaning the documentation is irrefutable and immutable. So far, just a half-dozen shops have signed up for the service.

Julio Sainz, the founder of The Motor Chain, said the idea for this platform came to him when he was purchasing a 1977 Ferrari. The car was an hour away, and he had to drive back and forth to the owner three times before agreeing to a purchase.

He said while performing a pre-purchase inspection (a must when buying a used car, no matter its pedigree) he found a huge envelope that was loaded to the brim with documentation. While the documentation was good (likely leading him to purchase his new stallion) it was disorganized, fragile and messy.

The Motor Chain started with classic and collector cars which feature communities devoted to the preservation, conservation and documentation of cars, although the founder assured me that there are plenty of modern vehicles on his platform as well. He’s looking forward to having motorbikes on the platform too.

With thousands of NFTs on the platform, Sainz said that the whole model is about trust. It’s not just the owner saying “this car is good” but everyone involved in the car's history is saying it too. Furthermore, those endorsements can’t be changed all willy-nilly since they’re vetted, screened and proven. Cars on the platform have won awards at vehicle shows for being the best-documented, displaying the confidence and enthusiasm of the solution.

But hasn’t this all been done before? We take VINs to Carfax to see if the car has been in a serious or minor accident, which helps us understand and negotiate its value. Sometimes there are weird gaps or poorly explained services in those records which force a mild conflict when the buyer asks the seller about that concern and demands a document to back up their explanation, and here’s where tech can take over.

The blockchain and NFTs may help with the verification and organization of these records, but it requires buy-in. Owners have to subscribe, garages have to participate, and buyers will have to take over the NFT after the purchase, which means they not only bought a car but a digital envelope full of service records that requires a running cost. Especially when it comes to cars, every little cost adds up, so it’ll be interesting to see how or if this method of record-keeping gains mainstream adoption.

Can NFTs and blockchain help you buy or sell a used car?

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When it comes to traffic safety, there are a lot of rules designed to help us navigate our streets in an orderly manner. But what happens when you see people acting selfishly or in ways that are prohibited?

I wouldn’t go as far as to call the streets surrounding the Greater Toronto Area the wild, wild west of motoring, but spend 30 minutes driving around and you’ll see what I mean.

Intentions on the road are no longer clear as drivers become more unpredictable. Motorists find loopholes to skip through lights, bypass traffic, use their phones while driving, and more during their commutes. What should we do when we see these uncooperative driving behaviours?

Let's start with the obvious one: impaired driving. In Canada, impaired driving killed 155 people in 2019, and injured 540. By comparison, only 108 people died from all other criminal offences causing death (excluding homicide) in 2019. That year police services in Canada reported a total of 85,673 incidents of impaired driving, the highest number since 2011.

We know drunk driving is wrong, and the police encourage the public to take action against it. If you spot a dangerous driver on the road and suspect they’re impaired, you can call 911 to report them. The police will head on over and check it out, and you can go about your day feeling like you helped make the roads a bit safer.

But what about distracted driving, like texting or fumbling with a mobile device while driving? About 100 people are killed and 16,000 are injured by distracted drivers every year in Ontario. Although it's not a criminal offence like drinking and driving, it seems to be just as dangerous. You can call 911 or the authorities if you see someone texting and driving, but will it have an impact?

When you call about drunk drivers, the police can conduct a sobriety test (if they follow up on your report). In the case of distracted driving, they can’t check if someone has sent a text recently or prove that it wasn’t done via a hands-free function, so the dangerous driver has to be seen with their own eyes to make the charge.

Other kinds of driving behaviours feel unsafe. More people on the highway are getting out of live lanes of traffic and using merge lanes to pass people. This move feels like the follow-up to the “I’ll just pass you on the right,” which is a byproduct of people not having proper lane discipline on the highway.

Now the merge-lane bypass might seem like an innocent loophole to exploit, but it, too, can lead to accidents, especially to cars entering the highway via the onramp and getting a surprise in their lane. Additionally, in really dense traffic, some react aggressively to those using the merge lanes to pass and will block them from merging in later, like vigilante traffic police. You can just imagine the kind of road rage this can lead to.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to do. Since passing on the right and re-entering merge lanes aren’t against the Highway Traffic Act, motorists are free to pull this move as much as they want. Interestingly, people can get tickets for using the shoulder or unmarked lanes of a highway, meaning there are rules in place to stop people from using routes they’re not supposed to.

However, not all is lost as citizens should be able to petition or request changes through their elected leaders to possibly change the lane markings on those merge lanes to be solid on one side and dotted on another, perhaps discouraging those to cross over and impeding on-ramp users.

If you feel helpless about these traffic conditions and behaviours, know that there are online reporting tools that may help get the message across to a repeat exploiter. Both the Ontario Provincial Police and Toronto Police Services have websites for you to fill out, to help with traffic or driving complaints. If the complaint is deemed appropriate, the police will follow up.

In the case of the Toronto police, the website said “a letter will be sent to the owner of a vehicle outlining the date, time and location of the incident. The letter will also include important messages encouraging the owner to ensure all who drive their vehicles do so in a safe and responsible manner.”

Now of course this system can be exploited too, and I can imagine disgruntled neighbours sending off reports and wasting the police’s time. Fortunately, information is required from the person making the complaint, and there’s a pretty big warning about the consequences of filing a false report.

While we have to use the roads together, there’s a fine balance between over-policing each other, and letting everything slide. The police may currently seem unable to keep up with traffic enforcement, but they could just as easily be flooded by reports of someone crossing a lane when they shouldn’t have, leaving the real solution somewhere outside of their grasp: education. Just like the warnings of impaired driving, safe motoring comes with repeated messages about the benefits of defensive and predictable behaviours, and until that’s implemented, everything else feels a bit reactive.

Sami Haj-Assaad is an award-winning automotive journalist from Toronto. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @Sami_HA.

What can you do about selfish and unsafe drivers?

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One of the great joys of being an automotive enthusiast in Toronto is the abundance of cool, rare and stylish cars around the city. There are Instagram accounts and Facebook groups dedicated to sharing photos of various drool-worthy rides parked on our city’s streets, drawing eyes and attention.

Occasionally, you’ll find a photo of an expensive car with a parking ticket under the wiper. These wealthy exhibitionists would rather park where it’s convenient for them, knowing they can afford the fine – or  find a loophole to get out of it.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-171328" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/shutterstock_1872866995-scaled.jpg" alt="McLaren parking ticket don't care" width="2560" height="1707" />

Simply put, these parking tickets don’t deter them like they do to the general public and have no long-term impact on their lives or car ownership.

Some believe that Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) or speed cameras installed in our communities may fall victim to a similar pitfall, allowing the wealthy and privileged to speed where they want to, and swallow the fines as they wish.

Of course, any new form of enforcement is met with criticism, but this concern may carry some weight, seeing how other forms of mindlessly fining drivers can be exploited.

The speeding fines from cameras are the same across the board, but the impact of those penalties differs based on the individuals. Those who can pay the fines can go about their lives as normal. They can renew their license and plates (and maybe enjoying higher insurance rates) since the tickets don’t carry demerit points. No matter how many tickets one racks up they'll be okay if they have money to spend.

But a driver who can’t (or doesn’t) pay the ASE fines will encounter difficulties when renewing their plates. They may consider driving with unexpired plates, risking further fines or serious penalties like a suspended license, which could impact one’s ability to work and make money.

The system seems designed to be a mere inconvenience to those that can pay the fines, but a serious problem for those that can’t. One mistake can cost a driver their livelihood. Just driving 50 kilometres per hour through an empty Royal York Road or on The East Mall at 2 a.m. can trigger this kind of hardship thanks to an automated speeding ticket, even though they posed no safety risk.

Income-based fines

There are a variety of solutions to resolve these concerns. Consider the Day-Fine, or the process of levying a fine on someone based on their income. A day fine is calculated by how much one would lose in a day if incarcerated without salary. The number of day fines would depend on the severity of the crime.

Only a few countries apply day fines to speeding infractions, including Finland. There, you’ll see fines that are sure to raise eyebrows. In 2002, a former Nokia director was ordered to pay a fine of 116,000 euros ($150,000 CDN) after being caught driving 75 kilometers per hour in a 50 zone on his motorcycle. More recently, a Finnish businessman was fined 54,000 euros ($71,000) in 2015 for driving 22 kilometres over the 50 kilometre per hour speed limit.

Unlike set fines, day fines are designed to impact all walks of life fairly. Switzerland and the United Kingdom apply these kinds of income-based fines to help deter speeding. Another option might be to fine repeat offenders with higher fines.

Make no mistake, speed cameras can be effective. For starters, they can help negate the over-policing of minority communities and racial profiling. It may also help deter excessive speeding. That's when a car speeds more than 50 kiometres per hour over the speed limit. Excessive speeding is a Part III offence and if an ASE camera catches a driver doing it or more, it will send a court summons to the registered owner of the vehicle, which is a very serious matter. So far, 430 of these charges have been laid out since the beginning of the ASE program in 2020.

Mississauga has also reported that the speed cameras are improving compliance with speed limits. Following the rollout of 35 speed cameras throughout Mississauga, the city found that each ASE location has improved compliance with the posted speed limits. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the streets are safer or that there are fewer collisions in the city, just that the enforced streets are flowing at the rate they’re designed for.

Other factors to consider with the Mississauga data, is there have been 8,258 tickets issued or $725,708 worth of fines handed out. Held against the $618,698 it costs to operate the speed cameras, the city collected $151,698. It looks like the city has found a new revenue stream. Would another 35 locations double that pot?

If the goal is for safer streets, the speed cameras seem to be delivering. But the city needs to understand that some systems and fines are felt differently across income brackets.

Sami Haj-Assaad is an award-winning automotive journalist from Toronto. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @Sami_HA

Sami Haj-Assaad

Articles by Sami Haj-Assaad

Ontario is letting drivers buy their way out of a commuting nightmare

Save lives, not daylight hours

Can NFTs and blockchain help you buy or sell a used car?

What can you do about selfish and unsafe drivers?

Speed cameras don’t impact drivers equally