The Autobahn and Autostrada in Europe have no speed limits and are safer than our highway. These thoroughfares are similar because there are two lanes on each side of the highway. They also have residents and businesses, parked cars, pedestrians and bicyclists next to the highway where everyone is understandably cautious. They also have slow going scooters in the slow lane.
Similarly, there is a common law that the inside lane is the fast lane and the outside lane is the slow lane. There is a very practical reason for this; the slower vehicles in the slow lane make it a little bit safer for pedestrians next to an inherently treacherous situation. Laws there keep everyone alert and courteous with one another. Also there, if you are rear-ended in the fast lane, it’s your fault. It’s a common law that keeps slow drivers out of the fast lane.
The problem here is that there are those who think that by simply focusing in on speeders, our highway will become safer. Trying to get drivers to behave as though they are on an urban residential street instead of a highway is absurd and lends to the dysfunction of our highway. Solving the problem means making people alert by getting our police officers to warn or cite people who are going slow in the fast lane because they are in another world while on their cell phones, or putting make-up on, or reading a paper, ignoring the car behind or intentionally being discourteous and causing an already unsafe situation to become terrible.
We need a fair balance of law enforcement to get the slower drivers into the slow lane and make it safer for bicyclists and all who are vulnerable. We need to accommodate our speed laws in a way that will make the behavior of drivers more considerate of our highway dynamics, be courteous of both slow drivers as well as faster drivers and thereby making them more alert. This “Everybody Must Go Slow” plan is lulling people into a false sense of security in the wrong place. They’re falling asleep in the fast lane.
Bob Purvey