‘Vox” Politely Reminds Everybody to Stop Driving Slowly in the Left Lane

Recently, a Vox writer was pulled over for camping in the left lane while he was on his way from Chicago to New Orleans. He was sitting in the left lane because he supposedly doesn’t drive often and didn’t even know about the law. So, like any good writer, he did a little research, found out that plenty of people also don’t know about this, and ended up making an entire video PSA to demonstrate why it’s a law in the first place.

As explained in the clip, 29 states say that a slow-moving car (relative to the rest of traffic) should be in the right lane. Even more strict, 11 states have it written that the left lane is only for passing and nothing else. Yet, every single time you drive on a highway, you will see people going slower than the pace of traffic in the left lane or speeding in the left lane eternally. This interrupts the flow of traffic and puts everybody in more danger than they need to be.

You see, research has shown that going slower in traffic is actually more dangerous than speeding (within 5-10 mph, we’re not talking about those dudes trying to beat the land-speed record on the way to dinner). When one single person is driving slowly and chooses to stay left, that forces the rest of people in traffic to try to pass that person by using the middle lanes, which tend to be more populated. And simply put, more lane changes increase the risk of accidents (F YOU BLIND SPOTS!).

Theoretically, if the slower drives stuck to the right lanes, the fast drivers could pass multiple slow drivers in one swoop before getting back into the right lane. It is more complicated than that, because traffic is not an A-and-B type of thing, but following this one simple rule could certainly help to make everything easier and less frustrating.

via [VOX]