Hurray! New Virginia law to fine left-lane road hogs...

It's about time!
Passed 89 to 8 with 3 abstaining.
The fine has not been finalized yet: Either $250 or $100.

Layman's Overview:

Casey: Left-lane laggards may lose under new Virginia law - Roanoke Times: Dan Casey

Legislative Details:

https://www.richmondsunlight.com/bill/2017/hb2201/

 

I won't be applauding any new traffic laws in Virginia where the speed limits are almost always lower than safety would dictate. Besides, from what I see, the drivers in the left lane jamming things up are usually going the speed limit or slightly higher. Will a cop write a guy a ticked for left lane blocking and speeding at the same time? How about reducing the draconian speeding penalties especially the jail time for 11 miles/hour over the 70 limit.

Dave

 

It's a start...

But, clearing the left lane of the moving chicanes is equivalent to an invitation to pick up the speed. Fine, but unless "the Commonwealth" adjusts their thinking on that subject, people will be in for an expensive, possibly painful surprise.

Anything 20mph over posted (or over 80) is a charge of reckless speeding. Anything over 90mph is jail time.

CW

 

I can just see Trooper Noobudy enforcing that law.

 

Not terribly familiar with road quality in Virginia but many states I am familiar with I refuse to drive in the right lane because truck traffic has destroyed the pavement. You want to pass? There is a lane to the right of me that works fine.

You want to make the roads safer? Crack down on phone use especially texting. They're killing people. For minors 6 months suspension of license. For adults $1000 first offense. Get their minds right. No one, not one single person needs to talk on the phone or text while driving. There is zero defense.

 

It is a start.

But we in Virginia also need:
- to make front license plates optional.
- make radar detectors legal.
- use reckless driving only for being reckless, not speeding.
- raise the speed limits to the 88th percentile of measured traffic speeds.
- get rid of the stickers on the front windshield.

.

 

This sounds awesome, but why specifically 88th percentile?

 

Don't forget, get rid of emissions statewide (though my 328 is in Faquier county, so a non issue for me thankfully)

 

Oops, I should have said "85th percentile".

It is a scientifically proven way to set speed limits to what drivers naturally feel is safe for that stretch of road.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-speed-limits-set-at-the-85th-percentile

.

 

+1000

 

FWIW, Tennessee passed such a "slow poke" law last July.

It was announced with great fanfare and lots of warnings on the radio.

It doesn't seem to have gotten people out of the left lane, though.

When I moved from VA to TN, last year, my only disappointment is that the drivers are not as much better as I'd hoped.
May be subjective, though: my insurance rates are lower, despite higher speed limits.

Although comparing DC metro to rural TN isn't a level comparison.

 

This didn't seem to be much of a problem until about the late 1980s. I think it is a result of the car population increasing at a rate greater than the rate of road building plus people seem to have adopted more of a "me first" attitude.

I believe the intent of the law was to prevent creation of unsafe situations such as the example of a truck passing a truck on a hill and both slowing down while climbing the hill and creating a back-up of traffic behind. This is especially acute on I-81.

In special circumstances, I can see riding in the left lane ahead of time to make a left turn or exit, especially when traffic is heavy and it is difficult to find a gap to move left in a timely manner. On freeways, use of the left lane might be safer when there is heavy traffic trying to merge on to the road.

Road hogs will need to learn to get out of the way and let faster traffic have the right of way. Time will tell how police enforce this.

 

I think part of it is the seek-and-destroy being done on passing zones in general.
You no longer see dashed lines on two-lane blacktop.
People are no longer trusted to know when it's safe to use the oncoming lane to pass on a straight stretch.

And it's gotten people out of the move left / pass / move back habit.

People have lost the concept of sharing the road.

In the DC area, I kept thinking how opposite DC was from where I grew up.
In my day, we took pride in being able to get *out of* other people's way.

In today's court system, I think enforcement will still be primarily focused on speed violations.

"In left lane too long" is a subjective call for a cop to take to traffic court.
By contrast, "the radar said so" is a slam-dunk / guilty with no chance to prove innocence payoff for the revenue stream.

The legal fiction of the infallibility of Doppler shift radar (and its operator, in all conditions) has become a regular revenue stream for many towns.

 

Agree, unless they go to dash cam video as the "evidence."

 

Great that they passed the law, "enforcement" and "driver compliance" is another thing altogether.

I agree - inattentive and distracted driving are my #2 "fix" for road safety (After DUI). I have sort of given up on more robust driver training as a possibility, though in my household everyone gets serious training on car control and situational awareness

As for the right lane, I agree. A lot of the freeways I use are rutted to hell and the left lane is the only option. However, I look far, far ahead AND check my mirror; if a kid in a Subaru wants to haul past me at 90mph, I'll slide over and then back. Do NOT want people weaving and passing on the right, that's fodder for the inevitable YouTube videos. Most drivers know how to go too fast, few know how to slow down or maneuver (or, read the traffic).

 

There are people who even delight in being slow in the left lane. They do this intentionally. Some may do it because they're ignorant and unaware. But, for those "vigilantes" who do it so as to purposefully obstruct traffic, I hope they throw the book at them. It's really gotten bad in the Metro DC area, IMO. As noted, enforcement will be the question, but also there has to be some level of education for non-VA-licensed drivers.

Why is it that in the Metro DC area, the left lane is either full of speeding lunatics or slow pokes. At least 75%, by my unscientific estimation, are MD-plated vehicles. Just curious, but does MD not have a similar slower-traffic-stay-right rule? I always wonder this, because I so frequently see MD-tagged vehicles in the left lane and holding up traffic (or weaving through the right lanes when slower traffic is in the left).

Not MD exclusively, however, and I'm certain VA drivers are just as bad, but even when someone flashes their brights or puts a blinker on, the MD-tagged vehicle refuses to move right. Very strange, but I've heard people specifically say that they intentionally drive in the left lane in order to obstruct. If that's not passive-aggressive, I don't know what is.

Lane discipline is not just taught from a safety standpoint. It's also common courtesy to other drivers on the road.

CW

 

On the DC Beltway, no matter how fast you go, there will always be some fool trying to pass you.

 

Let them pass then.

 

Passive aggressive, but more specifically, conformist intolerance.
Nobody is supposed to drive faster than the cell phone zombie dawdling along in front of the pack.

I've seen it, not just on freeways.

Almost every day, whenever I was on a road with more than one lane going the same direction, most people would be lined up, nose to tail, in the one lane -- leaving nowhere near enough following distance.
But if I tried to pass in the left lane, one or two cars would pull out, just to hold formation on the right lane.

Or you'd see two abreast, and when the right lane slowed, even nearly stopped, the guy in the left lane would slow to match, despite having empty road in front of him.

I could never understand why people insisted on driving in close formation with people who had no lane discipline.
Explains why my insurance was so high, there.

Everyone says the roads in DC are "crowded", but you can see for yourself.
Sit by the side of Route 1, south of Alexandria city, and you'll see a pack of cars go by in a clump, and then nothing for minutes.
The mis-timed lights collect people, then they just sit in the middle of the pack.
Herd instincts.


From my time in Boston and DC, I've tentatively concluded that "courtesy" is an expression of self-esteem.
Those who don't like themselves can't manage consideration for others.


You could get quite the argument by suggesting that not everyone has to drive at the same speed, if people cooperate.

Many moon ago, I was driving a fully tricked out rallye car along the GSP in NJ.
As I was in a hurry, I was traveling at a pace I decline to reveal under the fifth amendment.
Some guy in a rusty Buick went past me like I was standing still.
I don't think the car touched a tire to pavement more than once every ten yards.
I wouldn't have tried that speed in that car, but he *was* keeping it between the lines --
-- which is more than I can say for many drivers in DC.

Besides, if he was going to go spinning off the road, I didn't want it to happen near me.

 

you guys are WAAAAY to lenient.

vehicles driving perpetually in the left hand lane should be immediately arrested!
old men, especially those wearing hats, should be summarily withdrawn and shot!

truck driver's who inhabit said lane should be stopped and their rigs confiscated. drivers
should be led away in orange suits with leg-irons subject to the black hole of calcutta!

it's the little, gum-chewing, cigarette-smoking, *****es with blacked-out windows who are
the worst. they burn holes in your rear bumper, are totally oblivious to any universe other
than their own. their confounded use of the "iniquitous smart phone" while their's or the minions (duh) like them inhabit the roads as if they were
it's only inhabitants. if they are allowed to exist much longer, we will be a society of
mindless, head-banging, pizza-drooling, idiots destined to ruin am radio forever with
radio disney or whatever has replaced it!!

we cannot let this evolve into a society of drivers who don't know the meaning of proper
driving etiquette. anyone suggesting use of a cell phone while driving is not distracted
behavior just as dangerous as impaired driving from drug or alcohol use is not cognizsant
of altered or distracted behavior.

like the "left lane bandits" who only know of that lane as theirs and only theirs, the rest of
the crowd still insist on using the driving world as their own. unless more rational heads
prevail and convince our mindless bureaucrats who regulate our highways that there is
a serious pox afoot... far more deadly than the dreaded "killing" speed limit!

"richts fahr"! or... a serious driving environment.............if you can keep it!!

 

Psst... No 328 has needed emissions in the Commonwealth for years. Anything 25 years/older is no longer subject to VA DEQ Testing. I hope this helps.

 

I doubt it will be vigorously enforced...

 

Left lane slow-poke law went into effect in Virginia on July 1, 2017. Fine is $100 and cops can pull you over if they see you doing it.

New Virginia law establishes fine for slow drivers in the left lane

It's about time!

 

Tax Jersey need that law Bad! They would make a fortune

 

We need this trooper to move to Virginia! Slow poke in left lane driving under the speed limit and refusing to pull over into right lane.

“I stopped this vehicle today for a left lane violation on I-65. The driver had approximately 20 cars slowed behind her because she would not move back to the right lane.” Wheeles wrote. “Again...if there are vehicles behind you, you must move to the right lane to allow them to pass.”​

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/06/18/indiana-state-trooper-lauded-as-hero-for-pulling-over-slowpoke-driver.html

http://fox59.com/2018/06/18/indiana-state-troopers-tweet-about-states-slowpoke-law-goes-viral/