My passenger was uneasy, flicking nervous glances at me as I navigated the early-morning traffic on I-465. His wife was my sitter and I had just dropped off my two children at their house. We were coworkers at L. S. Ayres, so he commuted with me, and I hated to be late. “You’re not from here, are you?” he said. “No. Why?” He said, “You have very … ‘Eastern’ driving habits.”
“Wrong side of the country. I spent my formative driving years on the freeways of Los Angeles. I call it ‘combat driving.’ I yield no quarter and take no prisoners.”
My three children would not recognize the driver who terrified his co-worker on those commutes. They say I “drive like a grandpa,” ignoring the fact of my grandchildren. I contend that I drive safely, within the posted speed limits. On occasion, I speed, though “speed” is a relative term; my lead-footed children laugh at what I call speeding. On a highway that allows 70 miles-per-hour, I set my cruise control at 74, which is (obviously) faster than allowed by law. I drive to the right — again, in compliance with the law — and pass on the left. I never pass on the right, nor do I drive outside of my capabilities. I am always aware of my surrounding and in control of my car. I drive, rather than brake out of danger. I believe that I do a safe job of piloting 4,000 pounds of steel, glass and plastic.
On the highways, when I approach a car that is travelling slower, I look to see how many cars are in front of the slower one, and try to estimate the speed of those cars. When I can safely do so, and still travelling at 74 mph, I move into the left-hand lane to pass. On occasion, before I have completed the pass, I will see a speeding car behind me, quickly closing the gap (to continue the football metaphor). I now have two options: return to the right lane — sealed off by the cars I was passing — or move further to the left, either into the median or a concrete barrier. In a Stephen King novel I read, a man finds a riding mower has been mysteriously retrofitted with a gear that allows it to go up into the air. When super-speeders roar up behind my car like blitzing linebackers, I want to startle them with a sudden vault into the air. I do have a third option: I can exceed the speed by an even greater amount, speeding up to oh, say — 90 mph, so that I can allow the impatient person behind me to grind another driver from the passing lane. But I refuse to do that. And on July 1st, I could be ticketed for that refusal.
Indiana State Police troopers, having very little to do, have been given a tool for the generation of revenue. When a trooper sees “20, 40, even 60” cars stacked up behind a slow-moving left lane hog, a ticket can be issued, even if the slug is moving faster than the posted speed. Of course, troopers have “discretion,” and if a speeder was trying to overpower a fast-moving slug, the speeder could be ticketed. I’ve not seen 60 cars stacked up behind a slow mover in the left lane, but I have seen many speeders escape the notice of the gendarmes.
A law designed to punish someone for driving slower than someone else in the left lane is a solution in search of a problem.
I think that I will pass.