Is it illegal to pass on a solid yellow line?
Is it illegal to pass on a solid yellow line in Ontario? Simon Says: No! Well, not necessarily…
People often assume that it is illegal to pass a vehicle by crossing over a solid yellow line to overtake the other vehicle. This is not necessarily true. Yellow is an “advisory” or “warning” colour on the roads in Ontario. Yellow lights advise that you should prepare to stop, yellow speed limit signs suggest, but do not dictate, the safe speed for an on/off ramp to/from the highway, and yellow lines on the road are a guideline as to when it’s probably not a good idea to pass. The solid yellow lines are painted around the area where a driver’s view of the upcoming road is obstructed to the point where it would probably not be safe to pass another vehicle. However this does not necessarily make passing on a yellow line illegal.
Section 148 (8) of the Highway Traffic Act deals with passing vehicles going in the same direction. It says, “No person in charge of a vehicle shall pass or attempt to pass another vehicle going in the same direction on a highway unless the roadway, (a) in front of and to the left of the vehicle to be passed is safely free from approaching traffic; and (b) to the left of the vehicle passing or attempting to pass is safely free from overtaking traffic.”
This basically means that the area around both vehicles has to be clear, as is dictated by common sense. This section does not indicate anything about the lines on the road and there is not a separate section that deals with passing over lines or passing on unmarked road. This is the section on passing.
Section 149 (1) expands upon this. It deals with driving left of the centre line and says, “No vehicle shall be driven or operated to the left of the centre of a roadway designed for one or more lines of traffic in each direction, (a) when approaching the crest of a grade or upon a curve in the roadway or within 30 metres of a bridge, viaduct or tunnel where the driver’s view is obstructed within that distance so as to create a potential hazard in the event another vehicle might approach from the opposite direction; or (b) when approaching within 30 metres of a level railway crossing.
This clarifies that the illegality involved in passing (driving left of centre) is not determined by the lines on the road but rather by whether the driver’s view is obstructed to vehicles that may be approaching at one of three locations: the crest of a hill, a curve in the road, or within 30 meters of a bridge, viaduct, or tunnel. It is also illegal to drive left of centre to pass within 30 meters of a railway crossing, regardless of whether your view is obstructed.
The fine for these offences under 148 (8), 149 (1) (a) and 149 (1) (b) is $85 and $150 in a community safety zone. For an officer to lay a charge and get a conviction under any of these sections they would have to observe and be able to articulate in court the position of your vehicle, the position of any other vehicles around your vehicle and the distance from your vehicle to the grade, curve, bridge, viaduct, tunnel, or railway crossing and how exactly your view was obstructed from the position you were in at the time. It is not enough for him to simply rely on the lines on the road as evidence that the view at that point is obstructed.
So remember that while yellow lines often correspond with points on the road where it would, for one of the reasons outlined above, be unsafe to pass, it is not illegal to cross over the line just because it’s a solid yellow line.
About the author: Simon Borys is a former police officer who is currently studying law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario to become a criminal lawyer.
Posted in Police Myths
18 Responses to “Is it illegal to pass on a solid yellow line?”
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Simon Borys
Simon Borys is a former police officer, a law student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and an aspiring criminal defence lawyer.
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Thanks for this post, I look forward to reading more entries, this is a great blog!
Thanks!
Cool blog! There’s lots of stuff I didn’t know about, such as this post. I’ll be checking your blog regularly.I wanted to know if you get can pulled over/get ticketed for not signaling a lane change?
Thanks! The ambiguity surrounding signaling is another good topic. Look for a post about that soon!
Wow! Who knew?I guess it’s better to be safe, the advisory was obviously put there for a reason, but definitely good to know!
Great topic. I know of a good many rural roads where former dotted-yellow-line sections have arbitrarily and for no apparent reason (laziness? town councils think they are doing something constructive?), been repainted with double yellow. I knew the wording of the law, though, so if it’s safe to pass, I do it anyway.If town councils are thinking that they are doing any favors by doing that, I think they’re wrong. I’d rather have dotted/solid lines applied in an absolutely consistent manner, with every zone having adequate visibility marked as a passing zone and every zone without adequate visibility marked as a no passing zone, without exception. But, that’s just me.
[...] } Prompted by one of the comments to my blog post, Is is legal to pass on a solid yellow line?, I will be writing today about whether signalling a turn or a lane change is always required. Simon [...]
This is one of the rare cases where the law does not try to regulate common sense and where Ontario is ahead of many other jurisdictions, in Canada and abroad. The recent trend in the civilized world seems to be to impose fewer strict rules of the road, dismantle old traffic signs and lights, even remove stop lights. Third world countries never had many rules to begin with, nor the resources to enact and enforce prohibitionist laws, and they seem to be doing just fine traffic-wise:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W3-HoKGZNEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPModTuJA_M&NR=1&feature=fvwpOne of the things I first noticed as a newcomer to Canada was the abundance of stop signs and extreme scarcity of yield signs. Responsible, law abiding drivers/riders are forced to a full stop at almost every intersection while inattentive and self-centered ones roll through willy-nilly.
Awesome point! You’ve really hit the nail on the head! I am a big fan of deregulation in situations like this. I think it has the potential to make things run a lot more efficiently, as long as people are all on the same page. But remember, the problem with common sense is that it’s not really that common
My take is that we have to work on changing the culture by changing the environment that enforces that culture. Pushing for deregulation is one side of the coin. Better driver education and licensing (how many don’t even know how to parallel park or don’t drive on the highway because they are too afraid?), mandatory periodical medical exams after certain age (how many over-70 would pass a basic vision or hearing test, lat alone reflexes?)…It’s a feedback loop, and neither can or should be done overnight. The question is what should we do first? You can’t for example slap a fee for driving downtown like they did in London before you build decent public transit system so people have an alternative, and you can’t build a decent public transit system because suburbanities are used to driving their SUVs to work. There will never be a subway to Brampton because there’s just not enough population density to support good public transit to there. The population density is low because everyone thinks that they “need” a 3000sqf house and can’t afford to live close to where they work. In the end, I think this city will have to learn to live vertically or it will collapse under it’s own sprawl.
Well said!
What about High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes? Can you only move in and out of those lanes when there is a dashed line, or can it be done anywhere (assuming you have 2 or more people in the car)? It’s very inconvenient only using the dashed line sections.
Great question Nigel! The answer is found in section 154.1(1), subsections d and e, which state that the Minister may:(d) provide for the erection of signs and the placing of markings to identify high occupancy vehicle lanes and the entry and exit points for high occupancy vehicle lanes;(e) prescribe the types of the signs and markings referred to in clause (d), instructions to be contained on them and the location of each type of sign and marking. 2005, c. 26, Sched. A, s. 25.This means that any sign that specifies how you can enter or leave the HOV lane are legitimate and enforceable, and I do believe they say you can’t cross on the solid. If you disobey the sign you can be charged under section 182(2) of the HTA for disobeying a sign. Fine is $110.
Well written article Simonborys. I’ve been looking for the last hour for a situation I encountered and was ticketed for and maybe you could help me. I was ticketed for speeding while passing a dump truck on the left of a two way highway over a yellow divided line. What are the laws regarding speed while passing left of a vehicle over a yellow line?Greatly appreciative.
Thanks for your comments. While I can’t give you specific legal advice on your situation, I can tell you that, to my knowledge, there is no difference with regards to speeding while passing or speeding on the other side of a yellow line or anything else. Speeding is speeding. Hope that helps.
The yellow line means that the traffic on the other side of the line is oncoming traffic. For example on a road with 2 lanes in each direction you’d have white lines separating the lanes going in the same direction and a yellow line in the middle separating lanes going in opposite directions. Yellow painted lines is not an advisory.As a Traffic Engineer, I can tell you that the the double solid yellow lines are used on hills, curves and other places where sight distance is not available for safe passing. Under normal conditions with good sight lines, dashed yellow lines are used. Note that the colour is still yellow because it’s still oncoming traffic.In your post you state that section 149 states that no vehicle shall operate left of centre when approaching a hill or curve. Since it is a hill or curve that the solid yellow line is indicating, you cannot pass across a solid yellow on your side of the road.If for whatever reason the road is flat and straight and has a double solid yellow line or a solid yellow on your side and a dashed on the other side of the road then you would be permitted to pass but the paint lines would be in error.
Thanks for the post. I wasn’t aware of the precision with which the lines are apparently planned and painted. Indeed it seems that most of the time the solid yellow lines will coincide with areas which passing would be prohibited under s. 149, but the important thing to remember; the point I was trying to make with my post, is that it is not the crossing of the yellow lines that is illegal, it is passing in situations that are prohibited by s. 149. If, as you say, the solid yellow line is painted in error on a straight section of road, it would not be illegal to cross it, which means that the lines ARE, in fact, advisory (though, as I said, they usually seem to coincide wither areas where passing is prohibited anyway).
The reality is that there are no regulations defining yellow lines. These arguments appeared in courts for over a decade and some judges tokk a position – Just because someone painted a line there and failed to bother defining what it means it is not enforceable.