I meant to say that there are a lot of cars on the road but everyone is going fairly fast.
Similarly, in Virginia, I have never heard of it referred to as a passing lane, either. There’s the fast lane, the slow lane, and the unnamed lane in between 
IIRC (and I can’t cite at the moment, but I’ll look- this is something I was told), in VA at least, it’s the law that if someone is coming up behind you and is going faster than you’re going, even if they’re breaking the speed limit, you are required to allow them to pass. I think this goes along with the let the cops enforce the laws, thing. I’ll try to find a cite, but if not, my memory isn’t as great as I thought.
Reading these posts I can hear my fiance (he’s a CHiP–for those of you not raised on 70’s programming that’s a California Highway Patrolman [a well paid traffic cop/public security guard]) yelling: “Have a sense of urgency people! Goddammit, now what is THIS jackass doing!? Urgency, goddammit!”
Regarding the passing lane v. “fast lane” thing, oy that ticks me off. If you’re not passing someone, move the heck over, who cares? Do you really want to own the lane? Look at all the garbage to your left, nah, you don’t want it…
Also, and this isn’t solid (yes, I know I should get a cite) but I’m pretty sure you can get a ticket if you are obstructing traffic in the passing lane. That’s why there are all those cheery little signs proclaiming “Slower Traffic Yield Right.” Plus, if a CHiP sees you doing such a lame-ass and dangerous thing, s/he’ll pull you over just for spite, but trust me, on paper s/he’ll have a legit reason–got too many stickers on your back window? all your lights/car parts working/auto glass intact? anything hanging from rear view mirror? S/He’ll have a reason by the time you get the ticket.
Did you know you can get a ticket if the light bulb in your glove box has burnt out? The officer might have probable cause to pull you over but nothing definite until you get out your reg. and insurance and oops…That’s why you’ve got to be a nice person and take it like a responsible grown-up if you don’t want to see how annoying a ticket you can really get.
We live in Sacramento, CA, where the worst drivers in the world come to collide. My truck was parked and a woman T-boned it by reversing her Saturn into it. She got out and blustered, “You were in my blind spot!”
One of the most irritating habits of the average Sacramento driver is to go the same speed as all the other cars in all the other lanes, i.e. we’ll have four lanes of traffic where all the cars are going speeds in the 55-60mph range. And nobody’s passing anybody, that’s why I really believe in the whole different speeds for different lanes crazy idea thing. And damn the speed limit if you’re driving safely, focused, and relatively with the flow of traffic.
I really can’t wait to move.
what zen said
No, there is no such law in Virginia.
IAAL - a Virginia one, no less.
- Rick
PS - A smack to whoever mutters, “There is no less,” under his or her breath.
YES! YES! YES!
Here in Oregon, it’s called a passing lane. And signs direct traffic, “slower cars keep right”. No, they don’t say “slower cars who are law-abiding citizens own the left lane”, for Pete’s sake!
You don’t own that left lane because you’re lazy. You use it to… uh… PASS people in. Then you get over to the right.
Rant rant rant. Not that I’m a speed demon. I go 72 in a 65. Reasonable. And, I pull over after I’m done passing. But these doggoned Washingtonians in Lincoln Continentals who grew up wanting to be cops, but settled for less exciting jobs, and now want to be the “speed limit hall monitors”! Grr! I’ve passed them on the right, then seen a half-dozen other cars pass them on the right, and STILL they don’t pull over!
Aaaaaghh!
OK, I’m done now. All calmed down and ready for bed. Thanks for listening.
-Another, who doesn’t flip anyone off, or cut anyone off, but who has been known to do some headlight-flashing.
If someone is coming up behind you, and your location makes it difficult for them to get by, it is your responsibility to move over (or get in front of or behind the car you’re running in tandem with–give the faster car a way to go around).
Whether that car is or is not exceeding the speed limit is immaterial.
You have rear-view mirrors for a reason.
The biggest problem on the road is that this is what everynody thinks they’re doing.
But I digress. I never said anything about people being in the passing lane just because. But if THEY ARE passing someone, just AT THE SPEED LIMIT (it still just sounds crazy, doesn’t it?), then no one short of law enforcement or Jesus has the righteous authority of telling them they’re a idiot, jerk, and a menace to all the other drivers on the road.
Although I must confess, semis passing semis has been known to make me shake my fist more than once. They must do it just because they’re bored, because they never widen the gap after they pass, they’re still stuck behind the other semis. At most they’ll get to their destination 10 minutes faster.
I hear a lot of ‘conventional wisdom’ and legends here (and not necessarily ones that i disagree with).
But I will go to my grave believing that
A) No one has a right to break the law
B) I have no responsibility to assist someone in breaking the law
C) It is unreasonable of me to expect someone else to assist me in breaking the law
That’s it in a nutshell. Speed all you want, but to expect other people to conform to your expectation of having an ability to break the law with impunity is unreasonable.
Want to go faster? Want that lane reserved for people to break the speed limit? That’s what you have state representatives for, people. Use them. It worked to get the limit up to 65, right?
See what you got me into, Dave? You’ll pay for this.
I’ll pay for this? Ha! You did it to yourself.
On the one hand, you are 100% correct, JC. There is no justification for breaking the law. Having said that, let us now depart fantasy and find our way back to reality.
The speed limit is set artificially low. Studies and experience have borne that out. Thus, it is violated with impunity. People want to get where they’re going relatively quickly, and on a highway that is fairly easy to do. Except for when some knucklehead decides he’s gonna make an example out of everyone that day and stay in the passing lane (as you call it).
That, my friends, is my only objection. I hate it when I see people in ther 300-horsepower muscle cars go whizzing by at 80 miles per hour when everyone else is going 55 as much as you do, although I myself have been guilty of that on occasion. That is patently unsafe. But hells bells, going 75 in the fast lane when everyone else is going 70 is no big deal, except to the cops, who want your ticket money, and the people who are absolutely determined to make an example of how they think you should be driving.
You are under no obligation to help anyone break the law, for certain, but guess what? John Q. Schmuckatelly doesn’t care what you think. All he wants to do is go faster than you. So you have to ask yourself one thing: Is it worth my life to make a point here, or should I just move over and let the jerk go? I say let him go. And maybe you’ll have the pleasure of seeing him sitting on the side of the road with some guy in a Smokey Bear hat leaning in his window.
But, again, my point is a simple one. If you’re NOT passing or going faster than the general flow of traffic, get out of the left lane. It’s only common sense.
What YOU can do to help.
So I’m posting my experience from last night. As this is about damned drivers. Of which I apparantly am one and was also subjected to one.
it was a dark and stormy night. No, really, it was. and I was in a short line of cars, travelling the speed limit or slightly below. Fine. It’s rainy. Never mind that I usually drive like a bat out of hell, I don’t have the right to inflict that on everyone. Right? Fine.
So this car, at the head of the line, either drunk or a tourist, tries to pull into a spot that usually rents cabins in the summer, but now is closed. So are their driveways. They proceed slowly past, fine, confused, ok. They keep slowing down. The guy between myself and the slowing car in front passes. We’re now doing 50 in an 80 zone… and slowing. Curvy rural road. You get the picture. It’s pitch fucking black, we’re coming around a curve, and the guy JAMS on the brakes. We’re now going 20 in an 80. I, having been swearing a blue streak, think that I have a straight line of sight for some reason I don’t know what the hell I WAS NOT THINKING, pull out around him and hit the gas, to discover, oncoming traffic. And the crazy beside me is accelerating. Time for a judgement call…
So I step on the gas.
Need I say how close it was? |_| that close. I do believe my brother did shit himself. I almost did.
Someone, please, shoot me. (Slip? I know you’re out there)
Terrific link, FlyingDragonFan. I had thought about that before, actually, although, unlike Chas.E, I don’t fancy myself an expert just because of that. 
Hell, I’m no expert at all. I’m just your typical annoyed driver who can’t understand why people do the things they do on the road sometimes.
Technically, I just call it a lane. But I’d argue that it is not set artifically low. That would imply that there is some form of ‘proper’ setting. If I recall correctly it’s a balance of highest incidence of accidents and convience of time-consumption issue. I agree that it’s lower than I would like (and obviously many would agree with us) but that’s because my perception of the proper balance point is different from that of my state legislature.
Let me reiterate here that you can change the law. Heck, with enough clout in some states you could require local law enforcement to wear green tutu’s. Then we’d never get tickets because they’d be too embarassed to get out of their cars.
Again, my real point here is that they are the law abiders here. If they go the speed limit in the left lane and you hit and kill them, you’re the one staring at a judge.
I just like to tilt at windmills on this particular subject. They’re obeying the law. If you want the law changed the work to change it. The best argument I heard for raising the limit to 65 was that it would make law-abiding citizens out of 90% of the country.
Hmm… I guess it backfired then. Most people want to push it to the limit. People like going at least 5 mph over. They are talking about raising the speed limit to 80 in Texas (IIRC). That means the trucks will have a harder time keeping up the speed limit. That will create a bigger differential between the right lane and the left lane. The worst traffic problems I see on the interstate are when a truck is in the right lane with another truck trying to pass it on an uphill. This will mess up traffic for about 5 miles at least. The other is the cars towing other cars and everyone needs to pass them because they’re barely pushing 55.
Left lane traffic slows to a crawl due to the “merging syndrome” as orignally described. People will tailgate in the right lane. Then they don’t have room to move up to speed before entering the left lane to pass. Therefore the closer you get to the slow car in the right lane the more it slows down, because people are pulling into a lane trying to go 75 and they are doing 55. It creates a chain reaction.
Increasing speed limits increase the severity of the accidents. It won’t change how any of the above works. It may make the speeders happier because they can go 10 mph faster than before, but it won’t change anything about how traffic acts on the interstate.
Incidentally, if you calculate how much faster you get places, it’s really not worth speeding. If you are going somewhere that is 35 miles away, increasing your speed from 60 to 70 only saves you 5 minutes. Doesn’t hardly seem worth is when you get that ticket does it? To save a half an hour, that means you would need to go somewhere that was 210 miles away.
Screw the speed limit. I just want the people behind me to remove their heads from their large intestines long enough to notice when I’m not moving!
Yesterday morning I was stopped at a red light. The light is suspended from a cable strung across the intersection about 20 feet in the air, so you can see it from the previous traffic signal, which is located about 300 yards away. See? When you pull away from the first light you can glance down the block, see what color the next light is, and use that datum with the other information you process about traffic, pedestrians, weather, etc. to adjust your speed accordingly.
Anyhow, I’m at the red light, having caught it just as it turned red. I’m the second or third car in line and just sitting there minding my own business. The traffic light is red, both my taillights are working, and my Dole light (the high-mount stoplight in the rear window) is working. I know this because I checked them the night before when I bought gas. After about 45 seconds of sitting. . .
THUMP!
A Honda Accord has pulled up and aparrently mistook the red traffic light and my three (count 'em) activated taillights as party decorations. So she smacked the rear of my car at about 10 MPH. We pull over and get our respective insurance and registration info and the chickie’s first words to me are. . .
wait for it. . .
it’s coming. . .
“I didn’t realize you were stopped!” :eek:
I guess those pretty red lights and the woodgrained tailgate with the big chrome “Oldsmobile” emblem on it looming larger and larger in your windshield were drug-induced hallicunations, huh?!? :mad:
That’s almost as good as the time I t-boned a little chicklet in a brand new Hyundai Scoupe with my '71 Ford and totaled the Hyundai. The cop on the scene didn’t believe my car had hit her, since all I did was scratch the paint on my hood and chip the grille.
Zap!
To paraphrase Dave Barry:
“The one thing that unites all people, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, is that we all believe that we are above-average drivers.”
Preach it, Eternal.
Here is a state by state listing of “keep right” laws. Almost all have adopted the Uniform Vehicle Code.
There are some highways in my area that have a posted speed of 55mph, but the traffic is almost always moving at 70. The HP usually only tickets for speeds over 70, and to drivers weaving thru the lanes. They will get behind drivers going 55-60 in the passing lanes and force them to move into the right lanes.
Our state MVC states:
“E. A person shall not drive a motor vehicle at a speed that is less than the speed that is reasonable and prudent under existing conditions.”
If traffic is moving at 70, and you are going 55, you are in violation because your speed is not prudent under existing conditions. You are a hazard.
JC, Eternal I don’t argue with your logic, but don’t be surprised if/when you become the victim of road rage. Refusing to yield the right of way, on principle, to someone intent on speeding, (IMHO) is not wise, nor is it good driving technique.
OK, JC, I guess I’m not making myself clear here. Let’s use a much more pointed example.
Say someone, namely YOU, are going the speed limit in the left lane, whereupon someone crashes into you and kills you. Do you think your obstinance in that situation is gonna be any consolation to your family? I think not. And so what if the guy goes to jail, because you’ll be gone and your family will be without you forever. But you were following the law to the letter. Was it worth it? HELL NO!
[sub]Realize that I would NEVER wish that upon anyone, least of all you.[/sub]
To reiterate my point: right, wrong, or indifferent, is it worth it to you to cause a potential accident and personal catastrophe to prove that you follow the law to the letter? Absolutely NOT. So get out of the way, and live another day, OK? Let the jerk go, whether you agree with him or not.