Readers respond to columns about left-lane hangers on local highways

Date published: 2/12/2006

JOAN PECK of Locust Grove said "Amen!" to my recent column lamenting the number of folks who camp out in the left lane of local highways.

"I live off Route 3 west in Orange County and encounter these infuriating folks nearly every trip coming home from the Fredericksburg area," Peck wrote in an e-mail.

"I agree wholeheartedly that these rolling roadblocks are a hazard that zooms the blood pressure of those of us stuck behind them. They never seem to look in their rearview mirrors, or just don't plain care. Come on, folks--Move over!"

Sara Toye of Spotsylvania County has a different perspective on traffic along State Route 3 in her area, between Five-Mile Fork and Andora Drive.

"My frustration is not with the people driving at or even slightly below the speed limit in the left lane, but with the people who fly down that road well over the speed limit, in both lanes and in both directions," Toye wrote.

Toye noted that although the speed limit on some stretches of Route 3 is 45 mph, her experience has been that few people honor it.

"So please do not expect me to sympathize with your frustration" over left-lane hoggers, she wrote. "Perhaps you would feel a little less frustrated if you, too, adhered a little more closely to the posted speed limit as you ply that stretch of highway."

Those are just a few of the many responses I got to recent columns on left-lane hangers.

In my last column, I shared input from a state police spokesman who said that state law requires vehicles traveling abreast with another vehicle on a divided highway to move to the right when been overtaken by a following vehicle.

Specifically, if that vehicle signals an intent to pass with a horn or flashed lights, the car or tuck blocking the left lane must move to the right as soon as it is safe to do so.

Critics of left-lane hoggers outnumbered defenders by a ratio of roughly 10 to 1.

Terri Elliot of Spotsylvania said in an e-mail that she's amazed by the number of people who get into the left lane and simply stay there.

Date published: 2/12/2006