Those @%&# Left-Lane Drivers: Move Over, or Get Ticket

The left lane is for passing. Rinse and repeat. The left lane is for passing. It’s not only annoying to other drivers when you tool along the highway — as if the left lane is your personal slow-speed autobahn — it’s against the law in Michigan to spend too much time there.

The concept appears to be lost on the part of some drivers, according to Michigan State Police, which is taking the names and writing tickets of so-called “southpaw drivers” under a special enforcement effort that began in Kent County and is now taking place across the state, according to media reports.

The MSP said motorists who poke along in the left lane may become targets of road rage, and also that frustrated motorists may make risky maneuvers to get around the driver.

“We are seeing a lot of left lane travel. People traveling in the left lane, and not passing it causes a bottleneck in traffic,” MSP Community Outreach Trooper Marco Jones of the Michigan State Patrol said when the initiative was launched in March. “It can create road rage at times. So we encourage people to travel safely in the right lane.”

The crackdown is a response to numerous calls and complaints. Police are targeting motorists who remain in the left lane for more than a mile without passing other people.

The law says motorists can’t drive in the left lane of multilane highways unless they’re passing, or unless they’re planning to make a left turn — in which case can remain there for only a “reasonable” amount of time. In urban areas with multiple lanes of traffic in the same direction, the left lane can be used to alleviate traffic congestion.

Image credit: Rene Schwietzke via Flickr / Creative Commons