Quote:
Originally Posted by GaryW
I sometimes think the law is crazy, until yesterday,,
Made a right turn onto 466 from Rolling acers,, there were few cars in front of me,, 2 of the cars went right into the left lane. the car in the right lane was doing 30 mph, and the first car in the left lane 30. side by side all the way to Morse. Then from the red lite at Morse and 466, they stayed side by side half way to Buena Vista.
I almost chewed my finger nails off. The car in the right line finally got in front of the car in the left lane. I know there were at least 30 cars behind me.
Now sure I know it cost you 10 min of your life. That is not the point,, stay right unless passing. If you need to get into the left lane to turn 10 miles down the road, you might have a issue or 2. Speed Limit is 45 or what ever. Doing 15 under side by side. The one lady could hardly see over her steering wheel. Made me want to get off the road.
Just Sayin.
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We all (I hope) see your point, but under typical circumstances, the drivers in both lanes are not going (poozeydookin' along) that slowly. The clueless driver on the left should have been stopped for not going at a reasonable speed under the conditions.
As I remember it, the notion of "left lane is passing lane" came to be on
interstate highways where the speed limit was 65 and there are
minimum speed limits to stay above.
I remember a time about 10 years ago, when some states
made the left lane of the interstate highways the designated, required lane that semi-trucks had to use. (I think because entrance ramp cars had such a terrible time merging into the right lane with strings of semi trucks staying in the right lane because "left lane was 'passing' lane" was causing
huge problems for those trying to merge into the right lane.)
I can think of many times where I've had to merge from an interstate or expressway entrance ramp into the right lane traffic going 55 mph or 65 mph, and the entrance lane is quickly ending. That is when we
want the cars/trucks to get over into the left lane so we can merge in. Calling the left lane "passing only" simply is not feasible.
The local county roads like 466 are not interstate or expressway, non-stopping or non-slowing roads. Here, there are all kinds of reasons like high number of cars, frequent left turns to slow down for, frequent store/gas station driveways on the right from which people need to
sometime come out onto the right lane after waiting and waiting for the string of cars to clear.
The "left lane is passing lane
only" is not a good solution for local, county roads like these here.
The left lane has to have other uses besides passing, and sometimes there is no opening on the right to get back into after passing, or there's a stoplight coming up frequently.