Comment by lo_zamoyski
5 hours ago
You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.
5 hours ago
You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit.
It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed limit is really the prevailing speed of traffic plus X mph, where X adjusted for the state. I.e. in my experience Texas is more strict about the speed limit even on their desolate highways, LA is about 10 mph faster than San Francisco, in Seattle it depends on the weather, you’ll never hit the speed limit in New York anyway, and in Florida you just say the gator ate the officer who pulled you over.
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic.
No they don’t, you’ve misinterpreted what was written. “Not impeding traffic” is not codified as “exceed the speed limit if everyone else is, or get a ticket”.
Or perhaps you have a documented counter-example.
I don’t know what you mean by “documented” but here is Georgia:
> No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation. [1]
Versus California:
> No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation, because of a grade, _or in compliance with law_. [2] (underscore emphasis mine)
It’s part of the Uniform Vehicle Code but each state has its quirks in how they adopt it since theres no federal mandate.
My apologies though, this seems way less common than I thought. As far as I can tell Georgia and Oregon are the only two states left that don’t have that compliance exception.
On the other hand “in compliance with law” is it’s own barrel of monkeys because it doesn’t specify priority.
[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-6/arti...
[2] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
6 replies →
The rule in Indiana is that on a multilane highway you must move to the right to allow overtaking traffic to pass. You are not there to enforce the speed limit; the fact that another car that is passing you might be speeding does not give you the right or duty to block them.
"a person who knows, or should reasonably know, that another vehicle is overtaking from the rear the vehicle that the person is operating may not continue to operate the vehicle in the left most lane"
With of course some reasonable exceptions.
https://law.justia.com/codes/indiana/title-9/article-21/chap...
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> It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic
As others have mentioned, this is dead wrong.
But the actual complication is enforcement usually requires a margin of error, and in some states (e.g. Wyoming) you can go 10 mph over when passing.
> It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed limit is really the prevailing speed of traffic plus X mph, where X adjusted for the state.
A lot of laws aren't enforced consistently in practice, sure. The implicit point is that while that may be so, it is nonetheless enforceable and nonetheless the law. So while individual people may be comfortable about being flexible in following traffic laws, having that behavior encoded or permitted by software is basically a declaration of broad intent to violate the law made by a company.