That’s irrelevant. People will always drive however fast they want or feel is safe, regardless of what the speed limit is. See http://www.dot.state.az.us/ROADS/traffic/speed.htm#two.
Drive the way you want all you like. It’s the where that’s causing problems. Pinhead.
Um, if everyone drove the speed limit, there wouldn’t be any passing.
What kills me is that the LLDs really think that the rest of us are going to say " :smack: Good Lord! Look at how fast I’ve been going! I’m just going to stop that kind of behaviour right this darn minute!"
Seriously, just get into the right hand lane. What’s with the roadway junior modding? If you’re in the right lane, and someone screams by you on the left, no harm done. But if you’re in the left lane and force someone to undertake you, YOU have created a situation that’s more dangerous than a speeding driver.
Ah… aha.
I’ve just remembered that you’re all in America. Where you drive on the right. So… you’re talking about people driving slowly in the lane you’re supposed to use for overtaking, right?
I thought you had all gone NUTS there for a second. Seriously. Take a read of the thread from my point of view (especially given that I’m just starting driving lessons).
The funny thing is, in this case, you are also a self-important jerk who is just too precious to heed the law.
And if you don’t feel comfortable merging in and out of traffic, you shouldn’t be on the road.
While LLDing in this state isn’t completely illegal, if you get passed on the right twice and remain in the left lane, you can cited for it. Thankfully, they do enforce it, but not often enough. 
You mean, “Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.”
And to make the quote even more accurate, I’ll add the emphasis, as delivered by Mr. Carlin:
“Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac!!!”
The emphasis makes it so much funnier. 
Anyway, just to further explain how danderous LLD is, picture this: a LLD, holding up a line of cars who wish to go faster (regardless of speed-limit breaking or not). If I want to use the middle lane to pass this person on the right, I have to pray to God that someone in the right lane isn’t about to get in the middle lane to pass someone on the left. I also have to worry about the X number of angry drivers behind me, who are also thinking of passing X number of us on the right to get ahead of the LLD.
When the flow of traffic is this messed up, it’s very stressful for everyone but the LLD.
[Seinfeld] “It’ll be anarchy!” [/Seinfeld]
That should be:
grumble grumble damn coding grumble
Well, a lot of LLDs I’ve seen are driving slower than the speed limit in the left lane - so not all the people passing them are even breaking the law.
But the issue with LLDs is not that they are blocking a few maniacs who want to go 20 or 30 mph above the limit, but that they are blocking the 90% of traffic who is moving 5 - 10 mph above the limit in light traffic conditions. That’s where the congestion comes from. I bet you could compute a cost in lost time from the congestion caused by these people - I bet it would be pretty steep.
There’s also the “flow of traffic” rule. I don’t know which actual laws apply to this situation (the laws is question may well be different from place to place), but if everyone is generally going ten clicks over the speed limit except for one person, that one person could get cited for “disrupting traffic”.
Anyhoo…
Like Ross I’ve had to do some mental L/R flipping to understand this thread. I guess our native potential LLDs are too chicken to hog the fast/overtaking lane. If they did they’d have a constant stream of traffic passing on the inside going 15-20 mph faster than them many giving them the finger. Loads of people do “LLD” in the centre lane probably because they have little confidence changing lanes but aren’t quite prepared to sit in the slow lane with all the lorries. You often see someone pootling along in the centre lane when there is no traffic at all in the inside/slow lane for as far as the eye can see (Johnny L.A.'s Zombies I guess) More than once I seen such zombs passed on both sides at once, doesn’t that strike them as a bit odd?
I’m not sure if it’s in the highway code but I have read somewhere that you shouldn’t cause an accident just because you are in the right and the other guy is not.
[judgement-hat-on] I’d lump the LLDs with the fools that weave in and out overtaking wherever and flash you if you don’t get out of their way quickly enough*****. They don’t really care about the common good of keeping traffic moving or care if they piss off fellow drivers[/hat-off]
*****disproportionately Audi drivers.
I did some research on this (must be a year or more ago) for one of these threads and I’m pretty sure I discovered that this is an urban legend.
As for me? Heck, I speed. But it’s always been my position that…
- The posted speed limit is XXXmph
- Therefore the faster anyone should be going is XXXmph
- Therefore someone going XXXmph is not, by law, causing a disruption in traffic as no traffic should, technically, be exceeding the speed limit.
- Therefore I should not get angry at someone going XXXmph in the left lane. Buddha-like I travel around them, fully aware that my speeding is the one breaking the law.
And as for the ‘the left lane is for passing only’ argument? It is to laugh. I’d have more faith in that if I didn’t see 99%+ of the drivers out there NOT using it that way but instead seem to feel that it’s the ‘speeding’ lane and stay in that lane whether passing or not.
Really, the amount of emotion I see in this thread is dismaying. It’s driving, folks, nothing more. I, like Johnny LA, have probably driven 500,000 miles in the last ten years (a 60 mile one way commute will sure do that to you) and I’ve learned that it’s a waste of energy to get in any way annoyed at the way other people drive.
Carlin’s quote is very revealing.
I get aggravated by these drivers every day.
Fine if you can take your leisurely time getting to where you need to go, but some of us are in a hurry!
Those guys are worse, because they are being an active menace. They are also rarer. I was behind one of those idiots who lost control, clipped a car in the left lane, then crossed two lanes of heavy traffic to stop in the breakdown lane. And then he claimed that the poor woman in the left lane caused it. I had the great pleasure of telling the cop, and then this guy’s insurance company, who was to blame. An unexpected benefit of stopping to serve as a witness. 
I know someone who actually got pulled over and ticketed for “travelling in the passing lane” here in Michigan. It was bizarre because it was like 5:30 am with extremely light traffic - nobody was being hindered. The cop told my friend that pretty much the only time they ever ticketed anyone for it was during low-traffic hours, because when traffic is any busier they just have to hear arguments about having just passed someone or coming up on some vehicle they were intending to pass.
I don’t understand the laws against driving in the left lane. I thought the left lane was for those going fast, as fast as they wanted to within the parameters of common sense and not going ridiculously over the speed limit. When the left lane is for passing only, then doesn’t that mean that faster drivers have to continutally change lanes to pass? That sounds more dangerous to me.
On a somewhat related note, it reminds me of the road between L.A. and Palmdale, where I drove once for a job interview. At that time the road had three lanes in each direction, maybe still does. But the weird thing about this road was the lanes were staggered the entire way. You’d be in the left lane, and then a “new” left lane would appear to your left, and at the same time the right lane gradually disappeared, so now you were driving in the middle lane. Then the new right lane–what used to be the middle lane–would dissapear, and then you were in the rightmost lane. If you wanted to stay on the road you had to merge continually to your left.
Ummm if I am doing the speed limit how am I driving too slow?
Tail gate me and I drop to the speed limit… back off a bit and I will merge right soon as I have an opening.
Usually I am doing 5 or so over and I get tailgated by some jerk. I’m a Utahn, our immediate reaction is Kiss my Bumper
My recent Traffic School, yeah I have a lead foot, instructor said there is a “flow of traffic” law BUT you are NOT allowed to go over the speed limit. So if everyone else is speeding and you speed with them and get caught you are most definately in the wrong.
Heck I just got to get updated on traffic laws!
You’re going too slow because the speed limit is set too slow. Just because it’s a law doesn’t mean it is wrong or unsafe to break it. Most speed limits in the US are set with the expectation that drivers will break them. Don’t believe me? Sit in on one of your town’s DOT meetings the the next time the topic of speed limits comes up for discussion.
That’s perfectly reasonable. I often drive…uh, above the speed limit, but I never tailgate someone when I come up behind them. All I do is turn on my left blinker, and they get the idea sooner or later.
Please give my your address so you can pay my car insurance AND the next however many tickets I get because according to you its all right for me to drive faster than the speed limit.
:wally