Bill 38 makes targeted amendments to the Highway Traffic Act to tighten roadside and winter-season safety rules. The Act adds a new permission for roadside assistance operators to place temporary traffic control devices (subject to regulations), and it introduces specific requirements for drivers encountering winter maintenance vehicles and bicycles.
The changes aim to reduce collisions and improve protection for roadside workers, winter maintenance crews and vulnerable road users by clarifying duties for drivers and delegating technical details to regulation. The Act also amends ancillary provisions (including French wording adjustments) and comes into force by proclamation.
At a Glance
What It Does
Authorizes roadside assistance operators to place temporary traffic control devices on highways in accordance with regulations, creates a new set of definitions and duties for winter maintenance vehicles and their surrounding traffic, and mandates a minimum one-metre lateral clearance when passing bicycles. It also adds regulatory authority to govern the use and placement of temporary devices.
Who It Affects
Tow and roadside assistance operators, provincial and municipal winter maintenance contractors and their crews, drivers of passenger vehicles (especially on highways with speed limits above 80 km/h), and cyclists and power-assisted bicycle riders. Traffic authorities who write regulations will also be directly affected.
Why It Matters
The bill shifts certain operational decisions (use of temporary traffic control devices) onto regulated operators and traffic authorities, while imposing precise distance and passing obligations on drivers—measures that could change on-road behaviour, enforcement priorities, and liability assessments after regulations are made.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Act inserts a new short provision permitting the operator of a roadside assistance vehicle to place temporary traffic control devices on a highway, but only “in accordance with the regulations.” That means the Legislature authorizes the practice now but leaves the technical details—what devices, where and how they may be placed, who may place them—to be specified later by regulation.
A new block of law (s.109.2) defines key terms—warning lamps, winter maintenance activities, and winter maintenance vehicles—and limits the application of the new rules to winter maintenance vehicles that are engaged in or preparing to engage in work and that have their warning lamps on. Those limits narrow the law’s reach to active maintenance operations rather than all vehicles that happen to be winter-related.The statutory duties are precise.
Drivers behind a winter maintenance vehicle must maintain a following distance that depends on the posted speed limit: at least 30 metres where the limit is 80 km/h or less, and at least 100 metres where it is over 80 km/h. The law separately bars overtaking and passing if the movement would interfere with maintenance or if blowing snow or ice crystals obstruct the driver’s view.
Drivers meeting a maintenance vehicle must take care to avoid collision and interference, and approach/entering intersections where maintenance vehicles work must be done only when safe.For cyclists, the Act amends the overtaking provisions to require a minimum one-metre lateral clearance when a motor vehicle passes a bicycle or power-assisted bicycle, both for passing on the left and when passing on the right. The Act also amends the statute’s regulation-making head (s.319) to add an express power to make regulations about use and placement of temporary traffic control devices by roadside assistance operators.
A handful of French wording changes appear in the text and the Act comes into force by proclamation, which lets the government time the regulatory work before the rules become enforceable.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Section 76.0.2 authorizes roadside assistance operators to place temporary traffic control devices on a highway, but only “in accordance with the regulations.”, Section 109.2(3) sets a required following distance behind winter maintenance vehicles: at least 30 metres where the posted speed limit is ≤80 km/h, and at least 100 metres where the posted speed limit is >80 km/h.
Section 109.2(4) makes overtaking a winter maintenance vehicle illegal if the pass interferes with maintenance activities or if blowing snow/ice crystals obstruct the driver’s view.
Sections 114(1.1) and 115(3) add a mandatory minimum one-metre lateral clearance when a motor vehicle overtakes and passes a bicycle or power-assisted bicycle, including when passing on the right.
Section 319(3) gains a new clause (d.1) explicitly authorizing regulations that govern the use and placement of temporary traffic control devices by roadside assistance operators.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Temporary traffic control devices for roadside assistance
This new short provision grants authority for roadside assistance vehicle operators to place temporary traffic control devices while engaged in certain roadside activities, subject to regulations. Practically, the clause creates the legal hook that will allow tow operators to set up cones, signs or other devices once the government defines permitted devices and practices in regulation.
Clarifies roadside assistance equipment references
The bill edits the existing list of equipment and tools applicable to roadside assistance to explicitly include “temporary traffic control devices or other” items. This is a technical but consequential insertion: it integrates temporary devices into the statutory description of roadside assistance tools, supporting enforcement and regulatory design.
Definitions and duties around winter maintenance vehicles
Section 109.2 defines ‘warning lamps’, ‘winter maintenance activities’, and ‘winter maintenance vehicle’, then limits the rules to vehicles engaged or preparing to engage in those activities with warning lamps on. It imposes two-tiered following distances (30 m and 100 m), bans overtaking that interferes with work or where blowing snow obstructs the view, requires caution when meeting such vehicles, and sets special rules for intersections. The section also exempts drivers on the opposite side of a divided highway from these duties, which is important for large multi-lane roads.
One-metre passing rule for bicycles
Two new short subsections require drivers to keep at least one metre of lateral space when passing a bicycle or power-assisted bicycle—both for passing generally and when passing on the right. These are affirmative distance requirements layered on top of existing overtaking rules, which will affect driver behaviour and, potentially, enforcement in urban and rural contexts.
Minor bilingual wording adjustments
The French text is adjusted to replace the adjective translated as “suffisante” with “sécuritaire” in two places. While this looks small, bilingual provinces treat French wording as authoritative; the tweak could affect interpretation in francophone contexts and during enforcement or litigation.
New regulation-making power about temporary devices
The Act adds clause (d.1) to the list of matters on which the government may make regulations, specifically about the use and placement of temporary traffic control devices by roadside assistance operators. That delegation is where the operational specifics—device specifications, procedural rules, training or certification—will be set.
Proclamation timing
The Act does not come into force immediately; it will come into force on a day fixed by proclamation. That gives the government time to draft regulations and guidance before legal obligations take effect, but also introduces uncertainty about when drivers and operators must comply.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Roadside assistance and tow operators — gain explicit statutory authority to deploy temporary traffic control devices, which can reduce risk to crews and clarify when such devices are legally permitted.
- Winter maintenance crews and their employers — receive statutory backing for safe working zones through minimum following distances and overtaking restrictions, reducing close-approach incidents.
- Cyclists and power-assisted bicycle riders — benefit from an explicit one-metre passing requirement that enhances lateral safety and provides a clearer enforcement standard.
- Traffic authorities (province/municipalities) — obtain a targeted regulatory lever to set technical standards and protocols for temporary traffic control, enabling coordinated public-safety rules.
Who Bears the Cost
- Drivers — must adapt driving behaviour (maintain 30 m/100 m following distances, refrain from certain passes, give one-metre clearance) and face enforcement risk if they do not; this is both practical and behavioural cost.
- Roadside assistance businesses — may need to purchase compliant traffic control devices, train staff, and change operational procedures to satisfy forthcoming regulations.
- Traffic authorities and regulators — must draft detailed regulations, guidance and possibly training/certification programs; creating and enforcing those rules will consume administrative resources.
- Private contractors who operate winter maintenance fleets — face operational constraints (e.g., slower vehicle platooning) and potential scheduling impacts if drivers are required to maintain larger gaps for safety.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is safety versus practicability: the bill shifts clear responsibilities toward protecting roadside workers and cyclists, but it does so by imposing behavioural obligations that may be hard to measure or enforce and by delegating key technical details to regulations—solving one problem (legal authority and standards) while creating another (operational ambiguity and enforcement burden).
The Act delegates most technical decisions to regulation, which is efficient but shifts the crucial details—device specifications, placement protocols, training and liability rules—out of the legislative text. That delegation means the statute creates expectations without immediate clarity on how they will work in practice, and the safety outcomes will hinge on regulatory content and the timing of proclamation.
The two-tier following-distance rule (30 m vs. 100 m) is simple on paper but awkward to enforce: measuring distances on fast-moving highways is imprecise, and the >80 km/h trigger creates abrupt legal differences between adjacent roadways. The prohibition on overtaking when the driver’s view is obstructed by blowing snow introduces a subjective assessment for enforcement officers.
Similarly, the one-metre bicycle rule is a helpful objective standard but will be difficult to apply on narrow roads or where infrastructure forces closer passing; it also raises questions about culpability when a driver cannot safely provide one metre because of oncoming traffic.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.