Posted on 04/04/2005 11:07:55 AM PDT by KidGlock
Colo. Cracks Down on Left-Lane Dawdling
Mon Apr 4, 9:15 AM ET AP
DENVER - Colorado is serious about its no-dawdling law in left lanes. Drivers who insist on staying in the passing lane are risking tickets as the State Patrol has begun enforcing a law requiring motorists to use the left lane for passing only.
Since the patrol started enforcing the "Left Lane Law" three months ago, troopers have written about 460 tickets or about an average of five a day to drivers who dawdle in the left lane.
The law applies in zones with speed limits of 65 mph or higher. It took effect July 1, but troopers gave drivers until January to get used to the new law; warnings were issued instead of tickets.
Master Trooper Ron Watkins said that since the ticketing campaign began three months ago about 90 percent of the drivers he has pulled over for dawdling or cruising in the left lane said they didn't know that it was illegal to do so.
Violators of the left lane rule may be fined up to $41 and have three points tacked onto their driver's licenses. The law is not enforced when the highway is too congested to allow drivers to pass.
Its an epidemic in Minnesota. Self-appointed road monitors (most often state employees) ride the left lane slowing down huge lines of motorists who are on their way to more creative activities. Must think they're part of the MN highway patrol, but that's been politicized, too.
I hate people like that. You're right though, it is a control thing. Although my ex-wife used to do it because she was brain dead when she drove.
It's the wagon train mentality left over at the end of the Oregon Trail. Safety in bunches and no passing.
She is an idiot. Some flake might shoot her for that.
I drive in the left lane when the right lane is terrible. I don't know if it is because heavy trucks drive mostly in the right lane, but around here the right lane is in bad shape.
Let me know if the roads in your area are worse than the roads around pittsburgh. The sorst I've seen in dozens fo states. We drive in the left lane to keep from having to constantly deal with vehicle repairs and alignments. Sometimes you don't have a choice. If the state wasn't sorry about road maintentance quality, a lot of us would not be driving in the left lane.
GS
While I sympathize with your intention, I can tell you that there's a friggen epidemic of slow drivers on the freeways in Los Angeles these days. When traffic is moving at 75 plus, it's a real pain to be backed up behind one or two people who are going 55-60. Oblivious to the world around them, 10, 20 or even fifty cars can be backed up behind them, with half a mile of clear freeway ahead.
The 'government' can pull those people over and yank their engine out for all I care.
So, each lane has it's own speed limit (like the autobahn)?
Yeah, and while we still lived there, one of them flipped off my wife when she went around him on her MOPED!
This'll make the average speed on I-25 and 36 150 mph!!
I find it's generally the "big dog SUVs" clogging the fast lane.
But I get really pissed when the hogs block the left and right lanes by riding beside each other at the same speed. Then you can't pass at all.
Good golly! I can't tell you how many times people change lanes and get in front of me and then slow down, even though I am not in the fastest lane.
Trucks in the rain are great at that.
My coworker says he wife will take her foot off the gas if she perceives anybody tailgating her. We live in the DC area and you all know what Beltway traffic is like.
Left lane hogs don't bother me---as long as they are doing the speed limit. If they are going under the speed limit they should avoid the left lane---period.
The only people who annoy me are the morons who weave in and out of traffic, no turn signal, tailgating, quickly pulling in front of other cars, and they usually have a cell phone glued to their ear.
It would be nice if the law would actually punish those law BREAKERS such as those, not people who are merely obeying the law by observing the posted speed limit.
I though CO had a law already on the books for highway mopery and gawkin without a permit ?.........:o)
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