Road engineers go to a lot of trouble designing massive interchanges and clover leaves to make sure that people can drive smoothly on the highway and exclusively in one direction: forward. But what if you have to back up? Is it illegal? The answer may change depending on where you are.
Although driving is a tightly regulated activity, there are still grey areas. In spite of — or perhaps because of — the large number of rules, drivers sometimes run into situations where the correct course of action isn’t clear. In this series of articles, we will seek to answer whether a variety of driving behaviours are explicitly illegal or just rude, and today we’re tackling backing up on the highway.
As noted above, this is a tricky question to answer definitively. As you can imagine, reversing on the highway (even if you’re on the shoulder) can be quite dangerous since you’re moving against the flow of traffic on a high-speed section of road. You hardly need a physics degree to imagine how badly this could end.
As a result, most provinces have rules on the books discouraging this kind of behaviour. For instance, the Ontario Highway Traffic Act section 157 (1) states that “no driver of a vehicle shall back the vehicle upon the roadway or shoulder of any highway divided by a median strip on which the speed is in excess of 80 km per hour.” But not every province is so explicit.
In Newfoundland, the rule is open to interpretation, and the highway act there simply states that “a driver shall not back a vehicle unless the movement can be made with reasonable safety and without interfering with traffic.”
The rules are similarly broad in Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, and elsewhere. However, that doesn’t mean that drivers can be in any gear they like on the highway. A representative from the Ministry of Transportation and Transit in B.C. told us that although the rule is vague, drivers are required to reverse safely “in any event or at any place.” As a result, if a driver is caught reversing unsafely, they can face a fine of $109 and two Driver Penalty Points. In Alberta, a driver could face a fine of $162 once you factor in the victims of crime surcharge. In Quebec, reversing unsafely could get you a $200 ticket and three demerit points.
Even in Ontario, where the rule is spelled out quite clearly, there’s still room for interpretation, according to Stephanie Columbus, the training manager at X-Copper, a law firm specializing in automotive cases. She told AutoTrader over email that “most, if not all charges can be disputed.”
She pointed out that people caught driving backward on the highway might be able to raise a due diligence defence. If you can show that you really had no choice but to reverse on the highway, and you took all reasonable care to make a safe maneuver, you could dispute the charge or, at least, enter a plea bargain for a lesser charge.
“However, the bar is set fairly high in order to meet the test for a successful due diligence defence,” she warns. “There is also ambiguity to the wording of many sections, leaving it open to the interpretation of the courts. This interpretation is fact-specific on a case-by-case basis.”
This means that it’s never acceptable to reverse on the shoulder if you’ve missed your exit on the highway — it’s not safe, and any reasonable driver should just keep driving forward and use the upcoming exit. But if you’re stuck in a traffic standstill behind, say, an accident that emergency services are responding to, you may be entitled to back up safely.
So, is it illegal? Well, the specifics change from province to province and case to case, but one thing remains true no matter where you are in the country: backing up on the highway is strongly discouraged. As a result, unless you really have no other choice, leave the car in Drive when you’re on the highway.
