B.C.’s Transportation Minister says he’ll introduce legislation in the spring to crack down on drivers who hog the left lane and some are calling on Alberta’s law makers to do the same.

Todd Stone says B.C. drivers are frustrated with people who “camp out in that lane and seem to think that the left lane and the right lane are there to serve the same purposes.”

He says police data shows a number of collisions are caused in part by driver frustration and that introducing legislation will give police more power to deal with the problem.

The problem persists on highways across the country and some Albertans say the Prentice government should also take a look at legislation.

“I run mainly between Winnipeg and Calgary and it’s crazy at times,” said truck driver Tom Kingsbury. “I think our society has become a ‘me society’, they only worry about themselves, they don’t care about anybody else, there’s no consideration on the road, there’s no common courtesy anymore.”

Calgary police say the left lane is not officially designated as the passing lane but generally speaking most people understand the concept.

“What the law here says is you can be in the left-hand lane of a highway outside of an urban area and you can stay in that lane so long as you’re going at or very near the speed limit,”  said Staff Sargeant Paul Stacey from the CPS Traffic Section. “Most people respect the fact that it is viewed as a passing lane and they tend to stay in the right-hand lanes unless they are passing, but you do come across people that will park in the lane and just, they’ll stay in it.”

Sgt. Stacey says the practice of slow cruising in the left lane can upset the flow of traffic and be a bit frustrating for some.

“It can cause people a little bit of frustration and potentially cause them to do something that may be unsafe just to get around that vehicle,” said Stacey.

He says a law limiting use of the lane wouldn’t work in the city because of congestion but it could have value if applied to highways outside of urban centres.

“If people would go in and around the speed limit and if they stayed in the right lane, unless they’re going to pass, I think that you’d see traffic moving a lot more smoothly on the highways.”

The B.C. government says some people are just unaware and it is also considering more highway signs to ask drivers to move to the right except to pass.

(With files from vancouver.ctvnews.ca)