Thread: Lawmaker proposes crackdown on slow drivers

Lawmaker proposes crackdown on slow drivers

Feb. 16, 2010 10:26 AM
WXIA-TV, Atlanta .

ATLANTA - If drivers who go faster than the speed limit are called speeders, what do you call drivers who go slower than the speed limit in the left lane of a multilane highway?

Georgia State Rep. Mark Butler, R-Carrollton, wants to call such slow drivers "guilty," of a misdemeanor, and he wants them to pay up.

Butler introduced a bill that sets a minimum fine for driving too slow in the passing lane on Georgia interstates and highways to cut down on traffic congestion and driver frustration.

The measure raced through a House Subcommittee Tuesday morning.

Members of the House Interstate Highway and Beautification Subcommittee voted unanimously to send the bill to the full House Transportation Committee for a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

It is already a misdemeanor, under Georgia law, to impede traffic by driving slower than the speed limit in the left-hand lane. Butler's proposal would add the specific penalty of the $75 fine for each offense.

"They're causing a lot of frustration for the drivers behind them," Butler said Monday, singling out, as an example, drivers who travel in the left lane at, say, 50 mph in a 65 mph stretch of interstate. "They're also causing people to weave in and out of traffic in order to get around the slower drivers, which also causes a much larger hazard. The left-hand lane on these multilane roads is supposed to be used for passing only."

Just as officers don't normally pull over drivers going a few miles an hour over the speed limit, Butler said, he wouldn't expect law officers to pull over drivers in the left lane going a few miles an hour under the speed limit, unless they are clearly impeding traffic and causing a hazard.

Butler insists there is one message he's not trying to send with this proposal; he's not saying that the left-hand lane is for people to drive as fast as they want.

"People who are going 80 miles an hour are already breaking the law," he said. "We're not trying to get people to go faster" in the left-hand lane, "we're just trying to get people to quit clogging up the lane that's supposed to be used for passing."

Butler said he thought of proposing the penalty while the legislature was debating the new, tougher "super speeder" penalties that went into effect last month.

"Here we are doing something about the people who go really fast," he said. "Why don't we do something about the people who are actually being just as much of a problem on the roads going too slow in the left-hand lanes?"

If both the House and Senate pass Butler's bill and the Governor signs it into law, it would take effect in July.

Not soon enough for Kelvin McClain.

"Oh yeah, I have noticed it," McClain said Monday. "As a matter of fact, just a few minutes ago I noticed it. It's ridiculous.

"I mean, sure enough, if I were a trooper I would give a ticket to 'em" right now."

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articl ... kdown.html

How about more crackdown on undocumented drivers.

Originally Posted by Rebelrouser

:x How about more crackdown on undocumented drivers.

RELATED

CA. DUI checkpoints generate millions for police

"impound vehicles — mostly from minority drivers and often from illegal aliens."

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-188453.html