Drivers take note--esp. Washington State

Parent Cafe
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<p>Q. Is it OK for me to drive in the left lane on the Beltline if I’m going the speed limit?</p>

<p>A. No, not if other drivers want to pass you.</p>

<p>“On a divided highway, you can drive in either lane except when it affects other traffic,” said Major Daniel Lonsdorf of the Wisconsin State Patrol.</p>

<p>That’s why most freeways, such as the Beltline and the Interstate, have signs that say “slower traffic keep right.”</p>

<p>“You are slower traffic if someone comes up behind you and wants to overtake you,” Lonsdorf said. “Even if you’re driving the speed limit.”</p>

<p>You could be cited for failure to obey an official traffic control sign, if those signs are posted, he said.</p>

<p>Another state law can apply here. It provides that any vehicle traveling “at less than the normal speed of traffic” must drive in the right lane.</p>

<p>That’s true even if the normal speed of traffic is faster than the posted limit, said Lonsdorf, who heads the Bureau of Transportation Safety.</p>

<p>Sometimes drivers think they can drive in the left lane at the speed limit because faster drivers are violating the limit. But, please, Lonsdorf said, leave enforcement up to the police.</p>

<p>“We ask people not to do that,” he said. “It creates animosity, it creates road rage.”</p>

<p>If faster drivers want to waste gasoline, endanger themselves and others and risk a ticket, get out of their way, he said.</p>

<p>“It doesn’t do anybody any good to impede them because all it does is enrage them,” Lonsdorf said.</p>

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<p>I absolutely agree with Lonsdorf.</p>

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<p>This happened to me once, ie, getting pulled over and threatened with a ticket for impeding traffic cause I was going the speed limit. I was being extra careful at the time cause I had gotten two speeding tickets in 6 months (for being like 5 mph over the limit on a residential street) due primarily to, I must confess, the fun of driving my at the time new car, coupled with my hectic schedule. Plus, even at that, most of the other cars on the road usually passed me up, hence were routinely going faster than I was. So after the second ticket, I made darn sure I was always going the speed limit, and what happens? I get pulled over for going too slow!</p>

<p>It was the cop himself who wanted to pass me! Of course, he made all the arguments above, plus added on that sometimes cops are in plain clothes mode and speeding silently to get to a crime scene and if it was me in trouble I’d want them to arrive in time, etc. Another case of da<strong><em>d if you do and da</em></strong>d if you don’t. And where I live people are routinely driving on the interstate 10 to 20 mph over the limit, so it makes you wonder how safe you are overall.</p>

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<p>I doubt anyone sticking to the right lane going the speed limit would be ticketed or even noticed. It’s the ones that camp in the left lane and impede traffic that are the problem. My general rule on SoCal freeways was right lane–speed limit, middle lane 10 over, left lane 20 over. That’s when traffic ia actually moving of course.</p>

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<p>Well, I think I was in the left lane at the time, but I sure didn’t think I was impeding traffic, and I was in that mode of consciously trying to avoid a speeding ticket. Really, I was on one of the two streets where that had happened to me, and the cops literally hide their cars in bushes and behind trees so they can catch you for speeding. It was such irony to have the opposite happen, and so soon. Now I avoid that particular road cause I suspect them of using it to up their ticket count and increase revenues. There are loads of times, almost daily, when I see people going 80 in a 60 and weaving in and out across 3 lanes of traffic to make an exit or whatever and nothing happens to them! No cops to be found!</p>

<p>Well anyway, I guess I have to agree with the state police quoted in your article overall. And unfortunately, road rage is an ever increasing problem, so it’s best to avoid it.</p>

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<p>This is a rule that is obeyed to the 9th degree in Bavaria. Main time we see it not being followed is leaving the airport - and we suspect it’s mainly tourists in rental cars. It works quite well. People use the left lane only to pass, then get back over. Very nice because you can almost always pass when you need to, and there’s not a lot of leap-frogging.</p>

<p>Folks who plant themselves in the left lane are apt to get lots of bright lights and horns focused at them.</p>

<p>One of the rules I’d like to bring home from Germany, though, is the idea of the “zipper feed” merge. When one lane of a highway is being closed, everyone stays in the lane they’re in, and when we reach the end of the lane, traffic merges one car at a time. They don’t “close off” one lane; they merge two lanes. Everybody knows the rule; it’s just part of driving.</p>

<p>In the US, signs say “lane closed ahead, merge right (or left)”. Some folks keep driving to the end, others merge immediately. So the lane being merged into starts backing up, as more and more people “cut”, and other folks start passing in the closed lane to cut in further ahead, so that the merged-into lane backs up even more.</p>

<p>Just keep going to the end! Really! It’s much smoother.</p>

<p>On a recent road trip, we were in the left lane in a situation where the left lane was being closed ahead. We hadn’t even reached the signs announcing it. A semi-truck parked itself in the left lane, inching forward with the truck in the right lane, to prevent folks in the left lane from going forward to the end.</p>

<p>I feel for the truck - tired of sitting in the merged-into lane for longer than necessary due to all the cuts. But all he did was make the traffic back up more, because folks then treated that like the lane end, and started cutting sooner. Since he was doing it prior to the signs, those of us without CBs had no idea why he was blocking traffic. And he was being a self-appointed traffic cop (or perhaps a truck-posse-appointed one).</p>

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<p>Someone needs to explain this rule to New Yorkers. It seems like every time we are on the interstate and the traffic clogs up because someone is going relatively “slow” in the LEFT lane, the offending car has a NY plate. It’s so common that it’s a running joke in our family.</p>

<p>Right = slow
Center = travel
Left = passing</p>

<p>Really, people, its NOT that hard!!!</p>

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<p>It depends which lane I drive in.
I’ve gotten pulled over for speeding when in left lane- when I was trying to speed up enough to get around the 18 wheelers who were in the two right lanes- unfortunately, they were also blocking my vision of the speed limit change sign. ( got a ticket that time)</p>

<p>I also recently was pulled over in same area for speeding, when I was only going about 8 miles over- ( it was also 7:00 am on a sat- & no traffic) however- I mentioned to the officer I was trying to make a ferry ( true) & she let me off.</p>

<p>It depends on how many big trucks are on the road, what lane I drive in- hate big trucks.</p>

<p>( In neither case- was I going faster than surrounding traffic)</p>

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<p>I agree with Lonsdorf too. I can’t stand it when I get behind someone in the left lane, and they won’t move over. I don’t like zig-zagging and I don’t want to pass on the right (but I will).</p>

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<p>the truck drivers are professional drivers. Almost all the time they are better drivers than you.</p>

<p>And binx, the truck holding the traffic like that actually makes the merge much smoother. Instead of people decelerating and merging in with slower moving traffic, it helps to maintain a constant flow rate and allows people to get to the end of the merge like they’re supposed to.</p>

<p>Coming south on I-95 out of the mixing-bowl (DC), they now have changeable message signs at the merge caused by the end of the 395 HOV lanes telling people how to merge (“Use whole lane, take turns” then “Merge here”)</p>

<p>636</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Nope. Didn’t happen. As I posted:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>He made sure nobody got in front of him and his friends. But otherwise, I don’t believe he helped.</p>

<p>I respect your opinion about truck drivers. I know there are many good ones. I know there are many drivers of all ilk who think they are better drivers than they are.</p>

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<p>Every time (more than a few) I’ve been around a truck doing that, it helped.</p>

<p>636</p>

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<p>It’s hard for me to understand how it helps. How is it different to have to merge at an obstinant truck rather than at the actual point of merger another mile down the road? Traffic was barely moving - using the word “flow” would be a euphemism. From bird’s eye view, all they did was stretch the single lane out an extra mile or so. I believe a zipper feed would have been more effective.</p>

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<p>We were on the Interstate just a few weeks ago, when a truck parked itself in the right hand land, when there was a left lane merge due to construction. A couple cars had already passed the row of cars that were respectfully proceeding in the single line. After that, a semi-truck driver wedged his truck over, and a few cars were stopped from passing the whole crowd, and I’m sure others were deterred. After the construction, and both lanes opened, we whisked by the trucker, and gave him a friendly wave, as did the people in front of us. As long as the single line is the norm, it’s really rude to pass unless it’s an emergency situation. I know the truck was taking the law into his own hands, but in this instance, it made sense. </p>

<p>I do agree with the points in the article though.</p>

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<p>I agree that it’s frustrating to be in a single lane, and having folks whiz by in another lane to “cut.” I’m saying, though, there shouldn’t be a single lane at that point. The only reason there is a single lane there is because people in the other lane begin merging long before the merge point. If everyone would keep to their original lane until the merge point, and zipper feed, we wouldn’t have a confusion of rules and boiling tempers.</p>

<p>Prior to living in Germany, I always thought that it was appropriate to merge as soon as I saw the sign. Perhaps that still is appropriate in the US; I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an actual rule or law about it one way or another.</p>

<p>After I saw how smoothly it works to have only one point of merger, I question why we don’t also have traffic laws to that effect. As it is now, whoever has the biggest or fastest vehicle (or most testosterone) wins.</p>

<p>Edit: I Googled traffic merges, and it seems that, if anything, US laws go against a zipper feed, asking folks to merge as soon as possible - as I had originally believed. In some states, it’s even illegal to merge too close to the end. I live here; I’ll obey. But I think it is counter to logic.</p>

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<p>Well, that’s a good question, binx, and my husband and I were talking about it, when we were in the construction traffic line. The line would be cut in half if you used both lanes and merged at the front of the line. However, it seems like that would slow down traffic in the front, and that merging in the back is really more efficient. We never did decide which we thought was better, but, by gosh, we didn’t want back of the line drivers passing us by, since the cars had merged to a single lane.</p>

<p>I’m sure someone has a study to answer this question, and I bet someone from cc will post it.</p>

<p>Edit: Just saw your edit. I didn’t know there was a prevailing “law” one way or the other either. Maybe it’s to cut down on potential wrecks right at the merge point, and to get the cars over earlier.</p>

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<p>Found a study, done by Texas A&M, looking at various merge options. Didn’t see a date on the study. It’s a pdf, so I can’t copy and paste - here are a few excerpts:</p>

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</p>

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<p>I agree with you binx, a good zipper feed is much tidier and safer as well. </p>

<p>Another thing I miss from Germany is the concept of all roads being either the main road or the secondary road. No four way stop signs!</p>

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<p>“… a good zipper feed is much tidier and safer as well.”</p>

<p>Yep I believe this is true … but it’s also rare when there are trucks involved because EVERYONE knows that when traffic starts to move an auto-sized hole will appear in front of each truck. And as they say, Plymouth abhors a vacuum.</p>

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<p>Traffic merges are a huge pet peeve of mine because they’re so inefficient.</p>

<p>I’m happy to report that my state has finally gotten wise to the situation. Whenever there’s a traffic merge, DOT posts flashing signs that read “Merge at Merge Point.” </p>

<p>Still waiting on the other states…</p>