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funny how you won't move out of the speed lane but will complain about a shopping cart in a parking lot, i wonder which one is more dangerous!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by normie
I'm no legal eagle, but I'd love to hear Bigfoot's input on this, since he actually knows a little bit about local law enforcement. Just taking a wild guess, but maybe the words "unless it is impracticable" are what keeps this from being enforced in Northern Virginia. Perhaps it has something to do with the definition of the word "highway." Or, maybe what you've found has since been amended or is one of those quaint leftovers from another era, like the law that says it's illegal to wash a mule on the sidewalk.
All I know is, if you were to try to make a citizen's arrest citing the above or alert a local cop to arrest someone for driving in the left lane, you'd be laughed out of court.
Getting to what's important.... people who are moving here from out of state and who simply want to know the reality of how things work should know that nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody that I've ever heard of has ever gotten a ticket or even so much as a warning for driving in the left lane. This has been true for at least 20 years (as long as I have lived here). All lanes are used for driving, and that's the way things are whether you like it or not. I drive in whichever lane is moving at the time I enter the road, which means I drive the left lane all the time, probably as often as I drive the right lane. So believe me if it was a ticketable offense I'd have heard about it. I certainly would have received at least a warning by now.
Also, for as long as I've lived here driving in the left lane has been the common practice, so I have to wonder why the state isn't hauling in $$$ from tickets (like they do if you break the speeding law, something that actually IS against the law). They'd make a fortune if this was actually a law that was in effect. If they just stood along Rt. 7 and gave a ticket to every left lane car driving by we'd solve all our budget problems and then some.
In addition, if this is a law that's in effect, you have to wonder why there are no warning signs along the roads. Why isn't this law mentioned in the papers or as part of "traffic law alertness" programs.
BTW, I'm proud of being a person who drives the speed limit in the left lane. I'm happy to keep people from using it as a speeding lane. Speeding has been shown to be an important contributor to traffic deaths here, and one benefit of traffic flowing more slowly in recent years ( in other words, we've slowed down to the speed rate) has been that our death rate from traffic accidents has plummeted.
So chill. Someone driving the speed limit in the left lane just may be saving your life. Besides, so what if someone is driving in the left lane, traffic is still going the speed limit (in fact usually about 5 miles above the speed limit) so you'd be breaking the law passing traffic anyway.
If you're driving on a road that has lots of merging in/out traffic, is it safer to go at speed limit+5 or at speed limit+10 in the left lane (and inconvenience someone wanting to go at speed+20) or to stay in the right lane and go between at speed+5 and at speed-15 constantly?
The law is not made up. In their posts, CAVA and ChristineVA sited it in the Code of Virginia.
Maybe it's too difficult to read facts that don't agree with one's particular spin.
+1. Let's not forget on this sub-forum that some people are "never wrong", and they see to it that anyone who suggests as such gets "what's coming to them" for deviating from the norm. I disagree constantly with several on here. Disagreements are what a DISCUSSION forum is all about. I was being bashed for presenting mistruths as facts when, as we can see, I was NOT in the wrong here (more often than not I have unpopular things to say, but that does NOT automatically make them "wrong").
I, too, am familiar with that law, which is why if I'm driving I typically only use the left-hand lane to pass others in front of me in the right-hand lane. I don't set my cruise control at 50 in a 55 zone in the left-hand lane because "that's fast enough for everyone behind me." That's incredibly inconsiderate and the reason why aggressive driving and frequent accidents are such a horrible reality here. If you're doing 50 in the 55 zone in the left-hand lane of Route 7 between Reston and McLean I will tailgate you in lieu of passing on the right. Instead of bastardizing me for tailgating, as everyone on here always does, why doesn't anyone consider that the one dawdling along in the left-hand lane for miles shouldn't be there in the first place? Insetad of bastardizing me for blaring my horn at someone who stops to turn in front of me without using their turn signal because "I might wake someone up who lives nearby", why not consider that the one in front of me should have put on their blinker? By the way, to anyone here who drives Route 7 between Reston and McLean, if you're turning left onto Lewinsville Road you don't need to get into the left-hand lane all the way back at Baron Cameron Avenue and then crawl. Those clueless Lewinsville Road commuters boil my blood more than anyone else, as they hold up those of us trying to commute into Tysons.
For the personal pot-shots against my native Pennsylvania, by the way, you can say anything you'd like about the Keystone State, but 99 times out of 100 if a motorist in the left-hand lane sees someone closing in on them they'll flip on their blinker and merge into the right-hand lane to let the person behind them by. This keeps traffic moving steadily instead of the massive bottlenecks you see here, even on weekends. Someone on here posted a YouTube video in another thread that shows what happens when a single row of cars on an Atlanta freeway began driving side-by-side at exactly the same speed. There was tumbleweed roling by on the highway and then all of a sudden you saw the headlights approaching as a literal WALL of slow-moving traffic passed.
If you think the drivers here "drive too fast", then get rid of your suburban McMansion, move to the city, and take mass transit. There. Problem solved.
Actually, I think they did many decades ago, but later abandoned it. It just wasn't practical for our area.
That's right. We won't. And to be honest I think it's extremely rude for people to move here and then expect us to change our customs to suit them. I'm happy to welcome people who want to move here... but at the same time, if you don't like the way we do things here, don't move here.
If that's the way you say it is, then it must be true. How rude for new residents to want safer driving behaviors in NoVA.
It seems to be very challenging for a couple of posters here to comprehend, but some newcomers to NoVA have no choice when they move here. Military assignment means you don't choose. My husband's job-part of a large defense group-is moving to another state. We are moving out of NoVA. We won't miss the Stepford mentality.
If you're driving on a road that has lots of merging in/out traffic, is it safer to go at speed limit+5 or at speed limit+10 in the left lane (and inconvenience someone wanting to go at speed+20) or to stay in the right lane and go between at speed+5 and at speed-15 constantly?
Everywhere else I've ever been or lived the left-hand lane has always been the "fast lane." It was either Tone509 or bmwguydc who told me in the past that Route 7 doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of the law CAVA1990 posted because of the nature of the roadway, but even so what is the excuse for the left-lane lolly-gagging on I-66, I-95, I-495, etc., which clearly would HAVE to be governed by that law?
The answer to NoVA's current transportation crisis isn't "widen the roads." L.A. keeps widening and widening their roads and now has the widest freeways in the nation while also having the worst traffic. The answer, whether the suburban NIMBYs here in Fairfax County like it or not, is to emulate Arlington's lead with building more dense transit-oriented developments which will pack more people into living quarters within walking distance of a train station, bus stops, and day-to-day essentials. Arlington has roughly 3.5 times the population of Reston. Its surface streets have a fraction of the traffic ours do, and our surface streets in many cases are six (or more) lanes. The difference? Arlington is well-planned. Reston? Not so much. Yes, Reston's trees are pretty, and the trails are fun, but all in all the gridlock here is mind-numbing at rush-hour.
So, yes, Caladium and others, I WILL keep harping on this subject until I'm blue in the face because on this particular issue I AM right. How can a major suburb literally across the river from a city of 600,000 have less gridlock than a far-flung exurb like Reston with only 65,000 people? My native Scranton, PA had roughly 72,000 people and also had less congestion than Reston with much narrower roads. From where I currently live I can walk nearly an hour to Reston Town Center or to Northpoint Village Center. I've done so to eschew my vehicle and reduce my carbon footprint. Will I do so in December when it's 25 degrees? No. I'll drive.
If I'm going 65 in the left lane in a 55 zone, and passing cars, why should I move over at the convenience of some maniac moving 75?
I'm not talking about a motorist like you. I'm talking about a motorist like Normie, who admittedly would set her cruise control in the left-hand lane at exactly the speed limit because "that's fast enough." She's not the one to say "that's fast enough." If I want to do 65 in a 55 and risk getting a speeding ticket because Fairfax County police officers do nothing but conduct speed traps instead of patroling residential neighborhoods for questionable activities, then I should be able to. I commute on Route 7 between Reston and McLean behind people just like her daily, and then I'm a bull in a china shop at the office. The Silver Line should have been completed between Reston and McLean YEARS ago if it weren't for the zillion NIMBYs living in Reston. As soon as it is completed, and assuming I still even live in Reston by that point, I'm taking the train.
Perhaps we just have different notions of what common sense and courtesy demand, and need to recognize that. This area is so big and diverse no that I have no idea what the "local customs" are.
I have noticed that drivers have gotten worse in NoVa over the past 15 years, which I chalk up to more people who are preoccupied with their cell phones and other electronic devices and more newcomers who don't yet know the roads particularly well. I personally have more sympathy for the latter than the former.
Overall, I still find driving in this area, congested as it is, an easier experience than in, say, the Miami or Phoenix areas where you have a lot of people traveling at 80 MPH sharing the road with very cautious older drivers and folks driving clunkers that can't go above 50 MPH in the best of conditions.
As to driving in the right lane on local roads except to pass, I'd love to see what would happen if local drivers only used left lanes for passing. Actually, I wouldn't; it would be a nightmare. I will gladly pull back into the right lane if the roads aren't congested, I am travelling in the left lane at the speed limit, and I can tell someone if approaching me at a faster speed. Of course, when we end up parallel to each other when traffic backs up shortly thereafter (as is frequently the case), I may not resist the temptation to smirk at the erstwhile speed demon!
If I'm going 65 in the left lane in a 55 zone, and passing cars, why should I move over at the convenience of some maniac moving 75?
Because:
1. You're holding up traffic, causing gridlock for the rest of us.
2. You're not a cop, it's none of your business how fast they're going.
3. You don't get to arbitrarily set the speed limit to 65 and enforce it on to others.
4. Because it's the right thing to do
5. Because it's the law
6. etc.......
If that's the way you say it is, then it must be true. How rude for new residents to want safer driving behaviors in NoVA.
IMO, if you really want to talk about what is safe, what is safer is to follow local customs instead of people from a hundred different places each driving with customs they brought with them.
And, as the article about fatalities has already shown, what is definitely safer is driving within the speed limit, as well as staying in one lane, instead of trying to pass and zoom by other drivers.
Relaxing, and driving with the flow of traffic--now that's what is the safest thing of all.
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I disagree constantly with several on here. Disagreements are what a DISCUSSION forum is all about. I was being bashed for presenting mistruths as facts when, as we can see, I was NOT in the wrong here (more often than not I have unpopular things to say, but that does NOT automatically make them "wrong"). 
