I want to begin with an expression of gratitude to RoR site owner Joe Rowlands for offering this new blog feature. It creates a great way for personal venting on issues too brief for formal articles but too long for discussion forums. With that said, let my venting begin!
Back in the spring of 1988, while I found myself embroiled for a few months with a cult called "the Baptists," I also found myself struggling for clarity on values and their content. I will never forget arguing with my roommate in my apartment in Cape Canaveral about values, their roles in parenting and government, and so forth. Out of the blue, he began to criticize my driving and my habit of staying in the left lane at the speed limit to make my departure from work easier. "The law says, Slower Traffic Keep Right!" he harumphed. "It does not matter if you drive the speed limit! Slower Traffic Keep Right! Period!"
Anyone who dislikes my driving while carpooling with me can just get out of my goddamned car and walk as far as I am concerned. In any case, I largely forgot the incident until recently. Engineers and scientists with whom I work, normally a sane lot, still show signs of compartmentalizing, internal contradictions, misintegration, and disintegration. Plenty of them believe in God and attend church regularly, but in some ways I find these views less offensive than their more worldly views.
Over the last few months, in casual conversations, I have encountered such professionals of the mind who regularly brag about their speeding and thus their flagrant disregard of the law. Whom do they see as their worst enemies? The police? No! They see those who actually follow the posted speed limits as their sworn nemeses. Repeatedly, I hear them spout the Slower Traffic Keep Right mantra as their defense when driving on American highways with two or more lanes in one direction.
Choosing not to argue unarmed, I opted to research this exact phrase on Google tonight to see what kinds of hits I would generate. I found many links! Unfortunately, what I saw most often amounted to venting by regular speeders railing against the wicked so-and-so people who "force" their "morality" onto others by driving the posted speed limit in the left lane. At no point have I found an explicit, clear, undeniable legal statement saying that such drivers would actually get tickets from law enforcement for their behavior. They might get vicious looks from speeders, but nowhere did I see any statement from a credible legal authority stating that a traffic enforcement officer would ticket someone driving the posted speed limit in the left hand lane.
A sad but regular state of affairs in our modern society centers on the demand for contradictions to exist. People demand to drive in the left lane well above the posted speed limits in violation of "the law" while also demanding that those drivers in the left lane who actually drive at the posted speed limits move to the right lane because they supposedly ought to obey "the law." Evidently, speeders have a divine privilege to violate human laws whereas non-speeders have a divine obligation to yield to such violators. In all these cases, the demanders evade the most fundamental of natural laws, the law of non-contradiction.
I normally yield to faster traffic and I normally stay in the right hand lane. But if I find myself in the left hand lane, I normally drive the speed limit in that lane as the totality of the human law demands. There do arise occasions, however, when I need to stay in the left hand lane for some considerable distance so as to achieve a safe left turn further down the crowded highway. The 1988 "discussion" with my roommate arose because of an awkward merging system between the exit ramp of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Highway A1A into town. That condition thankfully got rectified in later years. I really did not give a damn about his "opinion" on the matter since he rode in my car and I rather than he would pay the price should a ticket arise. It never did. The same goes for readers here. You can say I am "supposed" to do this or do that but in the end that judgment falls to me and not to you. I have had far too many experiences with left lane hogs -- those who would not let me over in a timely fashion to make my left turn -- not to give myself at least a mile of leeway in preparation for such turns.
I support the basic concept of driver courtesy and agree that more thoughtful drivers would result in fewer incidents of "road rage." This applies to drivers who move slowly for no good cause as well as those who move quickly for no good cause. However, I oppose the ongoing demands for the enforcement of contradictory and unjust laws so a gang of scofflaws can streak at unholy speeds down the left lane. If they want to repeal speed limits, they should just say so openly and honestly instead of engaging in an endless stream of senseless, contradictory bitching. If they consider a given stretch of highway as having too low a speed limit, they need to take it up with their local traffic authority, not me.
Those who campaign righteously for stronger "Slower Traffic Keep Right" laws ought at least honestly to admit their true agenda and package into their campaign "No Speed Limit in Left Lane" laws.
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