{"id":610017,"date":"2026-04-17T10:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/610017\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:31:08","slug":"can-we-blame-montrealers-for-driving-badly-look-at-what-they-are-dealing-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/610017\/","title":{"rendered":"Can we blame Montrealers for driving badly? Look at what they are dealing with"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Bumper to bumper driving westbound on Sherbrook Street.Andrew Clark\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Saturday morning and I\u2019m driving along Montreal\u2019s notorious Notre-Dame Street East (which Montreal\u2019s mayor has called a \u201cdisaster\u201d). It has not been pleasant. The turbulence caused by one deep pothole was so extreme that, if we were in an airplane, they would have cancelled the in-flight service. <\/p>\n

My bumpy experience is hardly unique. They say the streets in Montreal are riddled by potholes. This is simply not true. The potholes in Montreal are riddled by streets. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve lost a hubcap [and] many friends have had flat tires,\u201d a friend who\u2019s a diehard Montrealer warned me before I arrived. <\/p>\n

La Presse<\/a> reported that CAA-Qu\u00e9bec recorded a 75-per-cent increase in the number of flat tires in Montreal and Laval (from January 9 to 20) compared to the same time last year. <\/p>\n

And the CBC<\/a> reported that between January 1 and February 15, the city\u2019s 311 service centre received 5,556 requests for pothole repair.<\/p>\n

I came to Montreal, in part, to see if it was home to the country\u2019s worst drivers. <\/p>\n

For decades, at least back in the 20th century, Montrealers were notorious for their aggressive, reckless driving. I\u2019m finding that this old stereotype is not holding true. Sure, there are speeders, honkers and yellers, but that kind of behaviour is now endemic across Canada. <\/p>\n

The most signature \u201cMontreal\u201d bad driving move I see is a driver who uses the shoulder on a bridge to pass cars. Montreal drivers are bad, no question, but I can\u2019t say that they are any worse than the ones I encounter in the Toronto area. But the city of Montreal \u2013 its roads and infrastructure \u2013 just may be the worst place to drive in the country. It plays a factor in people drive badly.<\/p>\n

For instance, Notre-Dame Street East is one of the city\u2019s worst roads and it lives down to its bad reputation. It\u2019s a straight stretch lined by bleakness on both sides. It\u2019s Montreal\u2019s \u201cValley of Ashes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notre-Dame acts as an overflow at the end of the A-720 and A-20 highways<\/a>. It\u2019s also the main surface route for freight trucks working the Port of Montreal.<\/p>\n

Weekday commutes are a nightmare. I\u2019m driving it on a Saturday morning and the traffic is light. <\/p>\n

It has the feel of a gritty crime movie set and I imagine the other drivers are all there to do a drug deal or dispose of a body. I take it all the way to its end at Bout-de-l\u2019\u00cele and then loop up to Quebec Route 138, which turns into Sherbrooke Street East. Traffic is bad on Route 138. <\/p>\n

Sherbrooke \u2013 another main street famous for bad traffic and poor road conditions \u2013 is just as pothole-ridden as Notre-Dame. I pass one sinkhole so large it has multiple orange caution bollards sprouting out of it.<\/p>\n

Quite a few of the streets in Montreal don\u2019t have lanes, at least none that are marked. Sure, lanes were once painted on them, but they have long since vanished. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Driving north on Rue De Bullion with cars parked illegally on the right.Andrew Clark\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the day, Montreal drivers were known for speeding, rolling stops and aggression but I don\u2019t think they\u2019re the worst today. They are a distant third to what you see in the [Toronto area],\u201d says Tim Danter, head driving instructor on Canada\u2019s Worst Driver. <\/p>\n

Danter, who now works as a driver rehabilitation specialist, says Montreal\u2019s crumbling infrastructure may play a role in bad driving. \u201cRoad conditions can contribute to aggressive driving styles, since a driver may be used to speeding in congested traffic to avoid a pothole,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

To an outsider, Montreal\u2019s traffic signals can be a challenge. Most of us know that turning right on a red light is not permitted on the island of Montreal. However, drivers are also confronted by a green-light arrow pointing forward, which means cars can drive straight through the intersection but can\u2019t turn right until the green arrow turns to a full green light.<\/p>\n

Parking is an extreme sport. In residential neighbourhoods, the rules are so arcane they are impossible to understand \u2013 in French, English or any other language.<\/p>\n

Montreal has a parking app system, Mobicit\u00e9<\/a>. Drivers create an account and identify their spot by the number attached to a short pole. You then log the number and how long you will stay in the app. Unlike apps in other cities (Toronto\u2019s Green P, for instance), you can\u2019t top up your time once you\u2019ve paid.<\/p>\n

One practice that seems popular in Montreal is turning on your hazard lights, abandoning your car and leaving it to block traffic. I see multiple examples of vehicles that have been parked illegally and left with lights flickering. Not even briefly.<\/p>\n

I witnessed one guy do this and proceed to sit down in the restaurant and eat. <\/p>\n

\u201cLeaving your car empty in the middle of the street with the flashers on seems to be a God-given right,\u201d my friend says. \u201cA new way of shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downtown Montreal is awash in orange. Construction is so bad and so disruptive that in 2013 a local artist named Tania Mignacca created a city mascot called \u201cPonto<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each Wednesday, online readers are treated to the exploits of this \u201clittle road barrel who decides to leave his hometown along Highway 30 to fulfill his dream to live in Montreal.\u201d (I guess his dream is blocking traffic).<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

“Rue Baree” Street off Sherbrook closed for construction.Andrew Clark\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Every street, no matter how small, has been given an orange tint. If there was a drinking game where you took a shot every time you saw a \u2018Rue Barr\u00e9e\u2019 sign, there wouldn\u2019t be a single sober person in Montreal \u2013 they seem to spring up overnight.<\/p>\n

All of which is why, when I normally drive to Montreal, I park my car and leave it parked until it\u2019s time to retreat back to Ontario. The best way to drive in Montreal is to walk. The second-best way is the metro followed by taxi. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Montreal, do as the Romans would do if they were in Montreal and leave the driving frustration to the Montrealers.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re used to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Bumper to bumper driving westbound on Sherbrook Street.Andrew Clark\/The Globe and Mail It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338,2922,30296,60071],"class_list":["post-610017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal","tag-noastack","tag-ordid10000","tag-roadsage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}