YES! FINALLY!!!

The violation is impeding the flow of traffic. You can be in violation of this offence even if you are going above the speed limit.

in CA (southern CA, anway) there aren't many admonitions about staying to the right - and any that do exist are pretty much ignored.

but given that the vast majority of speeding tickets issued by the CHP are given to motorists driving in the far left lane (and anything over

100 is now ticketed as reckless driving - which can'be contested in court they way speeding tickets can be if you know the loopholes in CA code), i personally make it a point to move to the right as much as possible. i've done 80+ in the middle lane (of five) and gotten a verbal warning (via bullhorn) to slow down whereas if i'd been the far left lane, i'd have gotten a ticket.

say what you will about the french, but they are civilized when it comes to road and freeway traffic. i drove from paris to avignon and everyone stayed to the right and moved left only to pass. too bad they also put americans to shame with their use of roundabouts/traffic circles.

-------- "any words spelled incorrectly are probably typing errors"

Not only that, but it evens out wear on the traffic lanes. Down in the desert southwest, the right lane in rural areas can get really pounded in the summer months when the asphalt is soft, especially if everyone camps out over there. I will move to the left lane to get out of the washboard under those conditions, but I don't go to sleep over there. If a speck appears 5 miles back in my rear-view and is closing, I'll move back over.

Or not. Frequently in such a low-traffic scenario, the approaching car will move over WAY back and politely pass on the right. It doesn't scale to high-traffic scenarios (to quote Brent) but in such low traffic areas two drivers can work out whatever they want by clearly showing intent. Happens all the time.

Its pretty rampant in the urban areas, unfortunately. It seems like the highway department is always having to put up reflectors to block the latest "exit of opportunity" across the grass. People get into a traffic jam and then think its their god-given right to bail out any time they want, rather than wait for an exit to the access road.

Texas has a few very nice rural driving traditions that I hope don't get lost as the urbanites swarm all over the place. One that I particularly like is used on 2-lane roads with paved shoulders (most state and US highways are built this way in the boonies, the so-called "Farm to Market" (FM) and "Ranch Road" (RR) state roads are 2-lane without shoulders). On the roads with shoulders, it used to be de-rigeur for a driver ahead of a faster driver to pull onto the shoulder to allow the faster driver to pass without crossing into the oncoming lane. Of course this was always timed so that no blind corners were ahead, lest someone be stopped in the shoulder. So you might think its useless. Well it isn't- it allows faster cars to safely pass in the presence of oncoming traffic. It prevents long stack-ups and keeps things moving. The protocol always included a wave or a few blinks of the hazard flashers as a token of thanks as the faster car moved ahead, too. I've noticed over the last couple of years that the practice is getting rarer and rarer within 100 miles of any of the large urban blights, but still common further out.

God, ya'll are so sweet and innocent, it's kinda like when I go to the mall at Christmas time and some little kid looks up at me

with his or her big shining eyes and says, "Are you Santa Claus?"

Now here's what's really going on. You've heard of "DWB," right? Big, big, bad offense: Driving While Black.

And where I live, by keeping your eyes open you can see it now and again even if you're so extremely Caucasian you get mistaken for Santa Claus. A whole line of traffic is just honking along on the Interstate, where everybody who's not both antisocial and suicidal is going 15 or 20 over the ridiculously low speed limit, as everybody does 24 hours a day on that stretch of road.

Whoa, suddenly out of nowhere you see a cop car change lanes and come zipping up behind one of the cars in the stream. He's following real real close behind this one particular car and driving with one hand while he keys the tag number into the Panasonic Toughbook mounted on the passenger seat. And then that cop dogs him, just hounds the dude, follows him at a car length gap for three, five, eight miles, until finally he gets bored, lane-swerves, and roars off in a big dust cloud of Police Interceptor horsepower.

And then you come on past the target, and glance over, and nine times out of ten it's a brother.

All the young black guys learn real quick that when you see those gumballs in your rear-view, you bring it right on down to the speed limit and not an iota above, and you steer like you've got your Granny in the passenger seat with a basket of eggs on her lap. You don't give them any excuse to pull you over and while away an hour or two of their paid time and your unpaid time while they inspect and interrogate you like they saw your name on the FBI top ten most wanted list. You slow down and drive straight.

All this is about is that the Washington cops have decided to take that dodge out of play too. Speeding? We'll pull you over, boy, and slap your black ass with a ticket. That'll teach you! Not speeding? Same God damn thing.

yrs jp

Unfortunately, the semi's have torn up the right lane on the interstates to the point that it's often unusable for a car like a Miata! For instance--During a summer thunderstorm, the left lane ruts collect water like you would not believe. In north Florida, when this kind of weather is going on, you can expect to see several smaller and older foreign cars hydroplaning into the shoulders or median. There should be warning signs posted for these areas!

Not to menti>>

Just caught a blurb It's just another excuse to harass motorists for DWB (Driving While Black). When a line of traffic is moving along nicely, a cop will thread through the traffic to zoom up behind one car, tailgate it at one carlength for 3 to 5 miles, than pull out and zoom away if they can't scare the driver into making a mistake. Nine times out of ten, the victim is a brother.

Besides ticketing you for speeding they can now ticket you for not speeding. Same God damn thing. _________________________________________________________

It's called profiling. One group is singled out for scrutiny for possible law-breaking while others are ignored. Those who endorse profiling claim that it is the most efficient use of security resources. They use statistics to support their position. For example, they claim that Blacks, who are 13 per cent of the population, commit 50 per cent of the felonies, while Whites, who are 50 per cent of the population only commit 30 per cent of the felonies. Then they compare felonies per population density for both groups: 50/13 = 3.85 felonies per population unit versus 30/50 = 0.6 felonies per population unit. They conclude that any Black is 3.85/0.6 = 6.4 times as likely to commit a crime as a White. So millions of innocent Blacks suffer being profiled.

Religious profiling also exists. Islamics, who are 33 per cent of the world's population, commit 99.8 per cent of suicide bombings, while Christians, who are 33 per cent of the world's population commit only 0.004 per cent of suicide bombings. Comparing suicide bombings per population unit yields Islamics 99.8/33 = 3.02 suicide bombings per population unit, and Christians 0.004/33 = 0.00012 suicide bombings per population unit. The conclusion is that any Islamic is 3.02/0.00012 = 25,167 times as likely to be carrying a suicide bomb as a Christian. Here again, millions of innocent Islamics suffer being profiled.

Rodan.

Well, Maybe if Islamics stopped the suicide bombings, stopped burning Christian churches in the middle east, stopped detroying Buhdist temples in S. E. Asia and generally joined the ranks of the modern world, the profiling would stop. I don't expect Islam to adjust to the world of 2008 but maybe if they could move their thinking forward a few years (maybe the early 1800s????) we could all get along. I, for one, am tired of Islamic fundamentalists coming to America and then demanding that we adjust our way of life to fit their warped "religion". Religion of peace, my ass. Squat

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Uhm... why wouldn't you already be driving legally in the first place?

• E Meyer wrote in rec.autos.makers.mazda.miata:

Been here almost 10 years and never seen one.

I'll grant you they don't pepper the side of the road with them, but keep looking, they are there. The stretch of interstate I drive most frequently, I-45 from Dallas south to Navarro county has them every time the speed limit changes and generally at each county line.

"you bring it right on down to the speed limit----"

Around here, that's a good way to get pulled over, with the cops thinking you might be running drugs or illegals. Never run exactly the speed limit. After all, in this state, except in construction and a few other zones, only a state cop can write a ticket for less than ten over. And they will not, unless you are doing something else to gain attention. Other cops can be obnoxious, and stop you, hoping to find something to complain about. Usually they will not, since it's not worth the time and effort to chase you down for a minor infraction.

We have two local small towns that overlap the local interstate in a rural area. They make tons of money by sitting just inside the town limits on the interstate shoulders, and catching the unwary. It's really dumb, because the city cops use the older radar systems that are always set to highway (high power) mode, and don't have the instant on features that the state uses. Just watch the trucks. If they slow down to 65-70, you can bet that there is a radar trap just ahead.