First,. I’ve actually seen someone pulled over for driving in the left lane, in NJ. I’ve never actually seen anyone arrested for murder, but that does not mean the law against it does not exist.
Speeding so that you are going much faster than the general flow of traffic is a dick move. Speeding when you are keeping up with the flow of traffic is not. For long stretches of I5 in California driving at exactly the speed limit, even in the right lane, would force people to maneuver around you. Legal, fine if you are too feeble to drive with traffic or if your car is not in good enough shape to handle the speed, but still dangerous. Driving at the speed limit in the left lane there is a dick move, assuming no weather issues.
Fine - if you’re the kind of person who liberally sprinkles obscenities through normal conversation, then I suppose it would be a problem for you not to do the equivalent while driving. But others are unlikely to know your personal habits - they may mistakenly expect normal human standards of behavior and thus misinterpret your particular notion of coolness and grace.
Do you offer those curse-laden sentences and finger gestures to strangers in everyday situations - say, in a store? What sort of reaction do you get?
From Wa State Patrol, regarding last year (2010):
Sgt. J.J. Gundermann
“Gundermann says it’s very possible many of the drivers pulled over for a left-lane violation were, in fact, cited for something else, or even arrested. Lane violations, for example, are often the cause cited by troopers to pull over an erratic driver who might then be arrested for suspicion of DUI or another offense. You can’t assume that all those 10,000 drivers pulled over for a left-lane violation this year were simply let off the hook.”
I know of one person pulled over for hogging the left lane and have seen a truck pulled over for it.
Generally I’ll flash my lights if the person is not over taking the traffic to the right. If they are over taking the other traffic, but by only a very minor degree, then I hang back and wait.
What I really, really hate is being on a 2 lane highway on my motorcycle with a truck in the right lane and a car either keeping pace or very slowly overtaking it on the left. I can not stand being anywhere near a large tractor trailer on my bike and would really appreciate being able to pass it quickly.
What I hate slightly more than people blocking the passing lane are those who overtake on the right when you are tailing someone who is passing in the passing lane very slowly, then try to cut in in front of you because while you are tailgating, you mistakenly have physically left enough room for the competing car to fit in, space which it rightfully takes as its own. Right behind the slow car. Accomplished a whole lot it did there. That’s when I break out the high beams.
I think we’re just picturing different ends of the spectrum of human reactions. While I can easily imagine someone boiling over with frustration cursing and flipping people off, I also think it doesn’t have to be that way.
In the USA, in case anyone in other parts of the real world missed it:
We get upset not because we feel we are entitled to something, and not because we are ignorant, cry-baby Americans. We get upset because X number of people have determined that being a prick and loafing along in the passing lane is a giagantic “FUCK YOU” to the other drivers. We want that ‘FUCK YOU other drivers’ mentality to stop!
The majority of people wish there were more UNWRITTEN but ACCEPTED codes of driving – just the little things that exist in other facets of society, and that make the world a bit improved over the basic “the only thing that matters is the law (or my interpretation thereof)” approach.
In the USA, there’s a disproportionate number of drivers who accept the law only as it serves* them*, and they cannot even remotely fathom that there are accepted practices that often supersede the law for society at large… but not for this subject! Ohhhh noooooo!
God forbid we try to drive with some sort of common-sense approach. We’ll be here in 50 years under the never-ending false impression that the left-hand-lane fucknut is going to stop all this speeding nonsense once and for all!
Nope, it doesn’t. Using it as a pretense for PC might happen, but just pulling people over that are going the speed limit in the left lane and giving them a ticket - no, it doesn’t happen. Sorry.
No, he would write you a legitimate ticket for impeding the flow of traffic if you could safely move to the right lane but refused to do so when faster traffic approached you from the rear. And it would hold up in court.
The relevant subsection, if you don’t want to click the link:
(b) Upon all roadways, any vehicle proceeding at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic, or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway, except when overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction or when preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
The laws cited thus far either don’t mention the speed limit or specifically state that the speed limit is irrelevant to blocking traffic, moving over, etc.
So lawmakers have either specifically stated or by omission indicated that the speed limit is a lesser concern than impeding traffic.
In other words, the person driving in the left lane is a bigger dick than the person speeding.
But offering such gestures, whether or not with elevated blood pressure, is tolerably likely to provoke a regrettable reaction in the person to whom the gesture is offered. Because of a fair probability of harm and low chance of any benefit (other than some transient and puerile satisfaction), this practice earns the classification of Bad Driving.
No, it is always illegal to exceed the speed limit in any lane, and speeding causes physical danger which driving the speed limit in the fast lane does not.