cracking down on left-lane campers,

[TuffguyF4i]

You're missing the point...the left lane is a passing lane. What that means is, you pass and then pull back over no matter what speed you're doing.

Try your method on the autobahn and you'll be paying one hell of a fine, not to mention get a popularity award.

I'm not missing the point at all.  Left lane hangers are annoying and cause cause congestion and are breaking the law.  Its about as simple of a concept to grasp as an apple being the color red.

I'm just saying cracking down on left lane hangers, could be very difficult if they are already doing the speed limit.  

Here in CT, people go 75-90 in 50 zones.  You hang up traffic even if you are making a 20+ pass.  It's actually very unsafe here with only 2-3 lanes at your disposal.  
Should the guy going 75 in a 50 get a ticket?  Well sure, i'd like to see him get a ticket too.  But the reality of it is that a cop isn't going to touch him since he was already speeding.  

I can see that in court....

Cop: you where impeding traffic
Left lang hanger:  I was going 20+ over the speed limit!

Case closed.

[blackbuell]

Like Paulie already said....around here when you finally get around the idiots clogging up the left lane you are likely to see them with cell phone in hand. Unfortunately, the problem is getting worse all the time.

Jon

[Stray Cat]

I'm not missing the point at all.  Left lane hangers are annoying and cause cause congestion and are breaking the law.  Its about as simple of a concept to grasp as an apple being the color red.

I'm just saying cracking down on left lane hangers, could be very difficult if they are already doing the speed limit.  

Here in CT, people go 75-90 in 50 zones.  You hang up traffic even if you are making a 20+ pass.  It's actually very unsafe here with only 2-3 lanes at your disposal.  
Should the guy going 75 in a 50 get a ticket?  Well sure, i'd like to see him get a ticket too.  But the reality of it is that a cop isn't going to touch him since he was already speeding.  

I can see that in court....

Cop: you where impeding traffic
Left lang hanger:  I was going 20+ over the speed limit!

Case closed.

Not exactly.
In Washington you must keep right except to pass. So even if you are doing 20 over if you aren't passing anyone, you are technically breaking the keep right law by hanging out in the left lane.

[Dan K]

Talk is cheap.  Enforcement?  Cops have enough to enforce already.  I foresee very few of these tickets actually being issued.

Open road, riding in left lane may get ticketed, but the ones that are blocking?  The ones that really piss you off?  Not going to get enforced.  Too much traffic.

- Dan

[bomber]

SPent a couple of days motoring through part of Canada last summer -- along with the generally friendly people, the biggest eye-opener was the almost total lack of left-lane bandits . . . .

Wonderful experience -- of course, on the way home, we had to go through Detroit, so that pretty much made up for it ;-}

Illionois supposedly has a law against being in the left hand lane for more than ten minutes -- I've never heard tell of it being enforced, though -- given the design of the statute, I'd guess it's aimed at big-rig truckers that wish to pass someone that's moving 1/10,000 of a mile per hour slower than they are -- it can take most of the state for these passes to be accomplished.

[2RR2NV]

So there I was, my wife is in labor, her water broke, and I'm on I-5 trying to get to St. Joseph's in Tacoma.  I'm flashing my highbeams, leaning on the horn simultaneously while trying to go as fast as my Isuzu will allow.  95% of the drivers got out of the fast lane right away.  4% after they took a long look in their rear view... some I didn't wait for and went around if I had the opening.... still flashing away the whole time..... then there was this total biotch in a Jaguar who REFUSED to move over, then when I tried to go around her on the right, she jumped over and blocked me!  So I did what every SUV driver has always dreamed about doing, I gave her a tap with my brush guard on her trunk.  Sure hope it left nice dents... she got over after that.

My daughter was born exactly 12 minutes after we entered the hospital parking lot, 4 minutes after we got her in the room...... probably about 25 minutes after the water broke.

grats gettin there safe and sound. reminds me of a story that happened this past week, lady being taken to the hospital, got pulled over and ticketed because they were breaking the limit. Nice Cop!!!



WTF!!??

[ctbandit]

But how do you give a "holding up traffic" ticket for a guy thats going 65 in a 55?  

Where's the R.Markus wisdom on this one?  

[Hickey]

Illinois supposedly has a law against being in the left hand lane for more than ten minutes -- I've never heard tell of it being enforced, though.

It is easier to catch speeders and ticket them.  Catching and ticketing left-lane-campers almost certainly requires more time and effort.  It seems to me that the only way to catch them would be to follow them relatively closely for many minutes while recording it on the dash camera.  So one ticket ends up costing the officer as much as an hour, including the time spent pulled over while issuing the ticket.

That said, if the law is on the books and the state troopers are going to be driving around anyway to get from one speed trap to another-- why not put some effort into enforcing it?

[bomber]

Very good question, Bill -- one I, sadly, have to rational answer for --

now, irrational answer, I could probobly cobble something up!

[Walker]

And so, you risked killing four people because your wife was having a baby? Real sensible, dude.

   Oh please.  I've been racing cars in the SCCA since I first got a license, and go carts before that.  The Army had also been kind enough to send me to driving course (run by the DSS).  

Giving a car a 'love tap' with less than a 1 mph speed differential at under 50 mph (after she pulled in front of me and hit her brakes) didn't even trip my danger radar.  I was nowhere even near the edge of control for that vehicle.

Sure, I could have hit my brakes and avoided it, and it wasn't my proudest moment, but you have your wife next to you screaming in pain, with your child being born three weeks too early, and lets just see how sensible you act.

Nope, my proudest moment came less than 20 minutes later.

[Global Rider]

Cop: you where impeding traffic
Left lang hanger:  I was going 20+ over the speed limit!

Case closed.

We're not discussing speeding.

If you are doing 20 over and the driver behind you wants to do 25 over, then get the puck over and let him pass. It isn't your place to enforce the traffic laws.

In a friendly exchange of words at a traffic light:
Me: do you know what the left lane is for?
Him: but I was already doing 20 clicks over (12 MPH)!
Me: Oh, so that means someone else can't do 25 clicks over?  

[bomber]

If folks insist on acting like a mobil chicane, they shouldn't be surprised to get a love tap from time to time

stand tall, Walker -- ya done good.

[kevin_stevens]

   Oh please.  I've been racing cars in the SCCA since I first got a license, and go carts before that.  The Army had also been kind enough to send me to driving course (run by the DSS).  

Giving a car a 'love tap' with less than a 1 mph speed differential at under 50 mph (after she pulled in front of me and hit her brakes) didn't even trip my danger radar.  I was nowhere even near the edge of control for that vehicle.

Sure, I could have hit my brakes and avoided it, and it wasn't my proudest moment, but you have your wife next to you screaming in pain, with your child being born three weeks too early, and lets just see how sensible you act.

Nope, my proudest moment came less than 20 minutes later.

And what about the other driver's edge of control?

KeS

[jfurf]

The real problem is that here in the U.S., passing on the right is not taboo. It's more or less accepted and not a big deal. It will take years to fix this, but it can be done. Try teaching new drivers to pass only on the left. That's a good start. And require state DOTs to launch awareness campaigns.

I was amazed when I drove in Europe and got into the left lane on the French autoroute (freeway), only to find a Citroen three feet off my bumper at 90 mph.   THAT will teach your ass a lesson in road etiquette, real quick. They ain't goin' around your right!

[Bounce]

Almost 100% of people in the left lane are speeding.  So giving a ticket for holding up traffic really can't be given if you're going the speed limit or a touch over.

wrong. it depends on how the state statutes are written. if it's "left lane passing only", "slower traffic right" or "impeading the flow" then it may be unlinked to the posted limit. it doesn't matter if the passing traffic is speeding or not in those locations; move right. what it boils down to is that it's not the job of the citizen driver to play traffic cop by making their vehicle a rolling road cone.
Posted on: December 10, 2008, 03:21:32 pm

Cop: you where impeding traffic
Left lang hanger:  I was going 20+ over the speed limit!

judge: admission of guilt while under oath, guilty of speeding as well as failure to obey posted traffic signs (keep right except to pass). [BANG] see the clerk.

[ctbandit]

The real problem is that here in the U.S., passing on the right is not taboo. It's more or less accepted and not a big deal. It will take years to fix this, but it can be done. Try teaching new drivers to pass only on the left. That's a good start. And require state DOTs to launch awareness campaigns.

I was amazed when I drove in Europe and got into the left lane on the French autoroute (freeway), only to find a Citroen three feet off my bumper at 90 mph.   THAT will teach your ass a lesson in road etiquette, real quick. They ain't goin' around your right!

I agree about the right lane passing being commonplace here in the states. I think people feel others will go around them regardless of which lane they're in.

We're not discussing speeding.

If you are doing 20 over and the driver behind you wants to do 25 over, then get the puck over and let him pass. It isn't your place to enforce the traffic laws.

In a friendly exchange of words at a traffic light:
Me: do you know what the left lane is for?
Him: but I was already doing 20 clicks over (12 MPH)!
Me: Oh, so that means someone else can't do 25 clicks over?  

The last conversation really hit home your point. What's to say you should decide what the proper speed is even if you are going over the speed limit.

But, in the defense of the alternative argument, no one SHOULD be going over the speed limit, so then it can be interpreted that so called left lane campers are not in the wrong assuming they are maintaining the speed limit.

Further still, to support this law, many states have a "stay right except to pass" law, so regardless of actual speed you should only be in the left lane in order to complete a pass.

So now lets take CT for example. I95 has three lanes, and for 70% of the day all of these lanes have plenty of traffic moving along. Usually, the left lane is passing, if only at a rate 3 or 4 mph faster than the lane to the right. So while you may be going 90 in the left lane, if the guy in front of you in the left is going 75 and the lane in the center is traveling 70, he is still in the right in the regard of being in the left to pass. And since there are a seemingly endless amount of vehicles in the center lane, the "left lane camper" could argue that he is passing the whole time.

What it boils down to is road manners. I expect people to pull to the right when there is an opportunity if they are traveling slower than me, and I do the same whenever I am traveling slow, which is usually in the car. Enforcing this law will be as arbitrary as LEO's make enforcing speeds. In this state, on major highways you could argue that you are always passing someone, there's just that much traffic.

[TuffguyF4i]

We're not discussing speeding.

If you are doing 20 over and the driver behind you wants to do 25 over, then get the puck over and let him pass. It isn't your place to enforce the traffic laws.

In a friendly exchange of words at a traffic light:
Me: do you know what the left lane is for?
Him: but I was already doing 20 clicks over (12 MPH)!
Me: Oh, so that means someone else can't do 25 clicks over?  

I'm trying to remember the last time i was hung up behind someone in the left lane going under the limit....so speeding is relative.

Check your attitude man.  I'm not saying anything i'm not saying.    I ride too!  Slow people in the left lane drive me nuts!!!!  

I'm simply wondering how you enforce this law.  Its gotta be tough because i've NEVER heard of anyone getting a ticket for it.

[FJR1300]

Where's the R.Markus wisdom on this one?  

It's simple... you don't, you give them a speeding ticket.  Why do some people make simple things so hard?

[FJR1300]

   Oh please.  I've been racing cars in the SCCA since I first got a license, and go carts before that.  The Army had also been kind enough to send me to driving course (run by the DSS).  

Giving a car a 'love tap' with less than a 1 mph speed differential at under 50 mph (after she pulled in front of me and hit her brakes) didn't even trip my danger radar.  I was nowhere even near the edge of control for that vehicle.

Sure, I could have hit my brakes and avoided it, and it wasn't my proudest moment, but you have your wife next to you screaming in pain, with your child being born three weeks too early, and lets just see how sensible you act.

Nope, my proudest moment came less than 20 minutes later.

Wow... they don't have ambulances in your area!  That's really scary!  Oh wait, they do?  I guess the proper thing to do would have been to call an ambulance if you thought your wife was that close to delivering.

[Lord Jim]

Almost 100% of people in the left lane are speeding.  So giving a ticket for holding up traffic really can't be given if you're going the speed limit or a touch over.

Out here in California if you're doing the speed limit and holding up traffic (ie: long line of vehicles behind you) you can and will be given a ticket for impeding traffic. This topic was just confirmed by the CHP when a local inquired about this very scenario in the local newspaper column.