Passing on the right on a highway

Icedrous@sh.itjust.works to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 36 points –

Why is it illegal to pass someone on the right on the highway in the US? In Canada if there’s a three lane highway which, in my case, isn’t very prominent, there’s really no law that enforces it, it’s more of a respect thing here on two lane highways both ways if someone is going slow in the left lane to go into the right but I’m just curious as to why it’s actually enforced in the US?

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It’s not enforced in the US at all.

Just like how keeping to the right except to pass isn’t.

These are both state-level laws and vary across the country.

There are but I've never seen it enforced. I've watched cops get stuck behind people in the left lane who aren't passing (presumably because they'd have to exceed the speed limit to do so and there was a cop behind them) even though the law was that you couldn't go more than a certain distance in the left lane without passing someone. This happened dozens of times.

I was living in Colorado a few years back as a new teenage driver and the law, which I was at the time unaware of, was indeed enforced upon me. Granted I didn't get a ticket, but I was pulled over and handed a warning slip from the police officer.

That depends on how the cops feeling. A guy I used to work with got pulled over for doing the speed limit in the left lane for "impeding traffic"

This needs to happen way more often.

If I were a traffic cop, I’d pretty much just enforce this one law. All day. Every day. Left lane squatter? Straight to jail.

It's the passing lane, not the speed limit lane. Glad he got a ticket.

Dude was old and drove like an ass. I used to tell him he was gonna get his driver's license taken away and he was gonna have to drive the forklift home on the shoulder of the highway every day lol

There's a cop in Wells, Nevada that likes to drive ten under the speed limit and then pull people with out of state license plates over for "passing a cop". So, y'know, a lot of traffic rules are arbitrary.

Passing a cop is illegal?

Limit's 55. I'd be doing 55. He was doing 45. He wrote 70 on the ticket. It was cheaper to pay than to travel 800 miles to contest the ticket, which had to be done in person. So yeah, he made it illegal.

And was probably just waiting for you to lose your cool so he could make it much worse for you

Oh definitely. Dad made us do martial arts at the local police captain's dojo so we knew how to handle ourselves around police. Also because he needed to bribe them after taking a wrongful death case against a local cop and they kept pulling him over for "broken" taillights. It was an enlightening experience.

They weren’t broken before you pulled me… cracks here’s my license and registration.

I was just going back through some of my replies.

Jesus criss Angel. Dad trained us in martial arts in the fucking dojo that the police captain owned.

Let's stop right there

You are a liar. I hope you don't do this in person and get it all out online.

Fuck you. Fuck pathological lying and all liars and the lies they say.

Get help or else you fucking shit bag liar.