YES! FINALLY!!!

the left lane is those exceeding the speed limit? how does that work?

The left lane is for passing. But starting in the 1970s the joan claybrooks of the world decided that limited access highway speed limits should be set absurdly low. This then incouraged all the self-rightous slow is safe types out there to sit in whatever lane they chose. The absurdly low speed limits still exist in many states, others have raised speed limits back to what they were in the 1960s, but automotive technology has had 40 years of advancement since then.

And those were 40 *good* years of innovation. Keep in mind that the typical used car in 1974 had four wheel drum brakes, 6.something-15 bias ply tires, and a live rear axle. Granted, it is still possible to safely drive such a vehicle on today's roads, but it does take a little more care and attention than the average driver is willing to take. "Innovations" that were only found on high end sports cars back then are now standard equipment on the most plebian econobox.

The *best* thing we could do to improve traffic flow and lane courtesy would be to raise speed limits to their proper 85th percentile levels and free up the cops to enforce other traffic laws, with a special emphasis on lane courtesy.

nate

Most people here in Texas seem to be brain dead about this, Don. Very inconsiderate to hog the passing lane, and dangerous too. Police (snort..laugh) do it themselves here, as well as pass you on the right using the shoulder.

Hope this catches on.

the left lane is those exceed ..The left lane is for passing. But starting in the 1970s the joan claybrooks of the world decided that limited access highway speed limits should be set absurdly low. This then incouraged all the self-rightous slow-is-safe types out there to sit in whatever lane they chose. The absurdly low speed limits still exist in many states, others have raised speed limits back to what they were in the 1960s, but automotive technology has had 40 years of advancement since then. ____________________________________________

Driving above the posted speed limit is not necessarily speeding, because speed limits are not absolute. Driving faster than the posted limit is "prima facie" evidence of a violation, but a person so cited has the right to the court defense of claiming that the cited speed was legal because it satisfied the "basic speed law" of being safe and reasonable.

Those who block traffic lanes at any speed for moralistic reasons rob all other drivers of the right to judge safety or reasonableness, rob any driver of the necessary passage in an emergency, and rob the safety of all drivers by inviting road-rage incidents. Traffic lane blockers themselves are breaking the basic speed law, and are a serious threat to everyone's safety.

Rodan.

• HLS wrote in rec.autos.makers.mazda.miata:

On sections of I30 they are starting to keep trucks out of the left lane, on the higgways in Jersey there is signage that desgnates left lanes are for passing and I have seen cops ticket drivers for this. In Texas, there are no signs which might help curb the problem if theyd put some up.

Whenever I've been in WA on business (Seattle/Tacoma/Bremerton area) I've always been amazed that people up there drive so a) slowly, and b) basically politely. There are a few local customs that they seem to get pissy about (example- they seem to expect drivers in the rightmost lane to defer to traffic coming up entrance ramps- very odd, but it works if you're used to it). But for the most part, even the left lane stays about the speed limit. Of course that makes for the occasional rolling chicane when cars in all 3 (or more) lanes are doing about the same speed and the leftmost car takes FOREVER to get past the others.

I always feel like a barracuda in a koi pond my first few hours up there because when I get in the left lane to pass I feel like I *need* to get to the limit plus 10 at a minimum, and no one else is doing that.

You're a few years off there, Nate. By 74 front drum brakes were EXTREMELY rare (I don't know if they were even available on Chrysler products anymore at that time). And radials were coming into the mainstream too.

I do it all the time ;-)

It amazes me that freeway speed limits aren't up close to triple digits. If you think about the progress of technology in the first half of the last century, it was amazing. It was 30 years before "average" cars could do what a 30s Duesenberg could do, and traffic laws moved right along with the technology. But then sometime in the mid 70s the technological progress slowed dramatically, and traffic law went into reverse :-(

This is true of I-35 from north of Austin all the way to south of San Antonio now. Of course it hardly matters because since NAFTA and all the population growth (I'd like to blame it all on Californians moving here, but that's only about 50%) that stretch of 35 is just an 80-mile long parking lot anyway :-p

That sort of idiotcy doesn't scale. In any sort of significant traffic the braking waves will quickly tip into congestion.

For the '74 _model_ year there were only a few models left with standard front drums. These weren't 'low' production vehicles either. "EXTREMELY rare" doesn't fit what was probably a couple hundred thousand vehicles total. But that's not what Nate was refering to. The average car in 1974 is of the vehicle fleet. The vehicle fleet had many 4 wheel drum brake cars.

My father once got a ticket in Pennsylvania for cruising in the left lane on the interstate I don't believe he was hindering anyone; in fact he was probably speeding most of the time. He just never bothered to move back to the right and I guess that in itself was a violation.

Keep in mind that not everyone drives a new model car though. My dad kept his '67 Cutlass into the early 80s, and nobody thought that was particularly odd. He'd Also manufacturers kept making a big deal about "radial tuned" suspensions etc. so people with older cars sometimes were convinced to buy bias ply tires for replacements even after radials were commonly available, mostly because there was a lot of misinformation out there. (that is, an older car with radial tires will still handle better than an older car with bias plys, even though it may not ride or handle quite as well as a car designed around radial tires - but back then, some people didn't agree with that statement. Remember, we didn't have the intarwebs back then, so sometimes you had to rely on the advice of the corner mechanic or the guy at the tire store not to buy the wrong thing. How did we ever get by?)

yeah, I'm saddened that the offerings at my local Chevy dealer still can't do what an early 70's Ferrari Daytona or Lamborghini Miura could do (nor do any new cars meet the styling benchmarks set by those venerable icons...)

Hell, I'd settle for some black perforated leather seats. Would a little class for my a$$ be too much to ask for?

nate

How could a cop be a LLB? I have yet to see a cop on the highway that wasn't either a) parked in the median or b) doing at least 20 over. usually more.

nate

yes, in PA it is. They made a big deal about it when they enacted a stronger law a couple years back. I remember my grandmother knew I was coming home to visit for Christmas that year and made sure I knew about it. I simply thanked her for the warning rather than pointing out that I actually did know how to drive, and therefore wasn't particularly worried about violating this law...

nate

Making "camping out in the left lane" illegal was one of the three components of the "road rage" law passed in Texas a few years ago (along with stopping past the line in the left turn lane so that the people trying to make a legal right turn on red can't see to do it & I forget what the third thing was...). Now if we could just get them to enforce it.

Since the law was passed, I've only seen one car pulled over & he was doing

I remember the passing on the shoulder when I lived in Houston, as well as making ad hoc exit ramps and driving on the sidewalk. Fortunately, most of that doesn't extend throughout the whole state.

California seems to be different. I was ticketed there (years ago) for changing lanes too often, i.e. returning to the right lane after overtaking, in very sparse traffic.

That's not true. The Interstates have signs in Texas. They used to say "slower traffic keep right". When they passed the "road rage" law, they changed them to "left lane for passing only". Look harder, they're out there. The only thing that will solve the problem will be enforcement though.

That, I think, is going a bit too far in the other direction... If you're cruising the freeway and all you've got is "a county and a half" worth of empty asphalt behind you, with everybody else hugging the right shoulder as you breeze by them, I can see no reason to quibble over what lane you're in. It *DEFINITELY* changes when you get into a traffic situation, of course, but when you're effectively the only population on the road, or at least, the only population on the road that's indicating even the slightest interest in using the left lane, what purpose (aside from revenue generation) is served by ticketing a LL cruiser?

(Although I do grant that when I'm doing a long run in the left lane for whatever reason - perhaps an extended pack of right-laners to pass, or even "just finished passing the pack of right-laners and I'm pulling away from them with nobody in the lane behind me, and I can see nothing but open road ahead", I get a subtle twinge of "not-quite-comfy" for no particular reason, and typically tend to slide back over to the right fairly soon, even though there's no real point in bothering to do so)