Photo: Doug Kerr on Flickr
The highway code is very much like God. No, it doesn't live on a cloud and teaches harp to fat little angels, but it's a mystical reference we keep hearing about without anybody ever seeing it.
Unlike the deity, however, the rulebook is something you can go face to face with without having to die first. In fact, reading it might even help prevent you from meeting your maker - although you'd still be in the minority, so you'd better keep an eye out for the less informed ones out there on the road.
Some rules may vary from country to country and from state to state, but they all seem to agree on something: the left lane is there for passing slower cars, not for taking an extended closer look at the highway divider or something. Except in Britain and a few other places, that is, where the left lane is actually the right one - if that makes any sense.
However, a lot of people fail to understand this, so they park their vehicles in the left-most lane and cruise along below the speed limit enforced on that particular road segment. Naturally, this is irritating for those who would like to go past them, especially since passing on the right is forbidden.
As you'd expect, nerves lead to road rage, and road rage can lead to the kind of things that usually make it on YouTube. The police doesn't want that, so it has decided to tackle the problem of the slow left-lane drivers. Well, at least the Nevada Highway Patrol has.
In an effort to discourage drivers from clogging up the highway by crawling on the left lane - with all the unwanted effects this has like congestion, right passes or road rage - the police in Nevada started issuing tickets to people who go slower than the limit in the left lane.
"It's law here that if you're gonna be in that lane, you need to be going at least the speed limit," Trooper Jason Buratczuk told KTNV. His particular phrasing makes it sound as if going over the speed limit was OK, but we wouldn't recommend you tried it.
Offenders will get a $50 fine the first time they get caught, with the amount doubling for the second time. A third citation brings a $250 fine, but there's no word on what happens if you still don't get the point the fourth time round. Rumors have it you might get the chair.
Some rules may vary from country to country and from state to state, but they all seem to agree on something: the left lane is there for passing slower cars, not for taking an extended closer look at the highway divider or something. Except in Britain and a few other places, that is, where the left lane is actually the right one - if that makes any sense.
However, a lot of people fail to understand this, so they park their vehicles in the left-most lane and cruise along below the speed limit enforced on that particular road segment. Naturally, this is irritating for those who would like to go past them, especially since passing on the right is forbidden.
As you'd expect, nerves lead to road rage, and road rage can lead to the kind of things that usually make it on YouTube. The police doesn't want that, so it has decided to tackle the problem of the slow left-lane drivers. Well, at least the Nevada Highway Patrol has.
In an effort to discourage drivers from clogging up the highway by crawling on the left lane - with all the unwanted effects this has like congestion, right passes or road rage - the police in Nevada started issuing tickets to people who go slower than the limit in the left lane.
"It's law here that if you're gonna be in that lane, you need to be going at least the speed limit," Trooper Jason Buratczuk told KTNV. His particular phrasing makes it sound as if going over the speed limit was OK, but we wouldn't recommend you tried it.
Offenders will get a $50 fine the first time they get caught, with the amount doubling for the second time. A third citation brings a $250 fine, but there's no word on what happens if you still don't get the point the fourth time round. Rumors have it you might get the chair.
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