Monday, July 27, 2009
Highway patrol officers are pulling drivers over for driving in the left lane without the intention of passing another vehicle outside city limits on highways such as I-35 and K-10.
The “left lane law” has been in place for years, but law enforcement had not been actively enforcing it. From July 1, 2009 to July 1, 2010, law enforcement will be pulling drivers over for driving in the left lane, but not passing another vehicle, to educate them about the law. After July 1, 2010, any driver driving in the left lane without proper cause will be issued a citation.
The law states that unless passing another vehicle, driving in the left lane on highways outside city limits is illegal. The only exceptions are if a driver is making a legal left turn or is directed by traffic control signal or law, such as the move-over law that requires vehicles to move away from emergency or maintenance vehicles displaying flashing lights.
The cost for driving in the left lane will be a $60 fine and $82 in court costs.
Michael Stock, Merriam senior, said he used the highway at least two hours every day to get to his internship in Topeka. Stock said he was aware of the left lane law, but thought it was unnecessary.
“I understand the reasoning behind it,” Stock said. “There’s kind of a rule of the road that kind of doesn’t need to be enforced.”
Stock said he thought most people didn’t know about the law.
“I don’t think they’ve done a good enough job advertising it,” Stock said. “I’ve mentioned it to other people and they all just kind of laughed at it and they’ve never heard anything about it.”
Stock said that he would be angry if he was ever pulled over because of the law and that he thought there were more important problems law enforcement should focus on.
Captain Tim Hull of the Missouri Highway trooper said the left lane law had been actively enforced in Missouri since he started in 1983. Hull said the Missouri Highway Patrol made 890 citations for the left lane law in 2007. He said the left lane law not only decongested traffic, it also allowed safer conditions for officers and emergency vehicles.
“If you’ve got people just driving along there in the left lane sometimes it creates a hazard for us trying to over-take another vehicle,” Hull said.
Hull said it was important that the law be publicized in order for people to follow it.
“It would probably take a pretty big public education program or media campaign to get everybody educated on it,” Hull said. “That’s something you have to do.”
Mark Engholm, Kansas Highway Patrol trooper, said the law was important because highways were designed to move large amounts of traffic down the road.
“When we have more than one lane of traffic,” Engholm said, “traffic should be able to pass efficiently and we haven’t really had that happen.”
Engholm said that the purpose of the left lane was to allow faster traffic to pass and that if drivers were moving slowly in that lane, it defeated the purpose of a two-lane highway.
He said that because of these problems with congestion, the state had to enact several laws that he considered common sense laws, including this one.
Another law Engholm gave as an example was the law about moving over for emergency vehicles on the shoulder of the road.
“That would seem kind of a common courtesy and a safety deal,” he said. “But here we are having to write laws.”
Engholm said the Kansas Highway Patrol was already drivers who violated the law to educate them about its purpose.
Engholm said he knew there would be a campaign to advertise the change in enforcement, but wasn’t sure how much would be done because of budget concerns. He said the Kansas Department of Transporation had been discussing putting up signs along the highway.
— — Edited by Adam Schoof
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Comments
kuwxman (anonymous) says...
The state shouldn't need to waste money on 'educating the public' about this law that has been in place forever. It should be common sense. If a driver can't grasp the idea of 'pass left, drive right' then they honestly shouldn't even be driving.
August 5, 2009 at 12:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )