So I was driving to work today and I ran into a truck. No, I didn't hit the truck, I just ran smack dab into a enormous wall of rusty steel filled with something that was tossing small bits of crap onto my windshield.
It's times like those that I'm happy I'm an aggressive driver. If I hadn't been, I would have spend an extra FIVE MINUTES waiting behind this big hulking load of slow.
And it made me wonder...wait, wonder isn't the right word...it made me scream and curse about how it's illegal for a truck to bumble along in the left lane. I didn't actually know whether that was true or not, but that wasn't going to stop me from asserting it as ultimate moral truth with liberal use of the f-word, the a-word and the b-word.
So. How about those left lanes? What's their deal? Are they just for passing or are they for people like me who like to roar down the road without regard to my own or others' safety.
Let's find out.
Where do we start when dealing with a simple, straightforward question like this? I know! Let's go a hundred years back in history and figure out the origins of automobiles!
In 1885, a giant named Karl Benz grabbed a sheet of steel and, with his bare hands, twisted it into the Otto gasoline engine, obviously named after this guy. The beast that was Karl Benz wasn't satisfied. He went on a wild bender in which half of Germany was reduced to ruins (which wouldn't be the last time that would happen, ha ha ha ha) and when he awoke amidst the chaos and very satisfied women, in his mighty mind arose the design of a machine. Not just any machine. A machine that would eventually result in the deaths of many thousands a year.
He called it "The Killzerstein".
It was later renamed the car.
Such a wild beast needed to be tamed. Ergo, the birth of TRAFFIC LAWS!
In 1860, before motor vehicles, Broadway was a killing block. Horse-drawn carts would dash this way and that and drivers were instructed that if they did not kill at least a brace of pedestrians each trip, they would be fired. Broadway's police put a stop to that with their elite troop of extremely tall officers. Each one was over six feet tall, so they could be seen over the piles of dead pedestrians.
In 1922, Texas, always at the forefront of innovation, developed a system of electronically connected traffic signals to replace clunky and unreliable steam-powered ones.
And so on and so forth. Take a look at that link, the description of the Los Angeles electronic traffic surveillance and its less important feedback:
8:05AM—1144 CAT IN THE ROAD
8:05AM—KIDS ARE IN THE ROAD TO LOOK AT THE CAT
I know that shouldn't be funny.
Anyway, what was the question? Oh yehhh. The left lane.
The first keep-right law was actually enacted in Pennsylvania, also the forefront of innovation, in 1792, but that was more of a "We're not England" thing.
From what I understand, by which I mean what Wikipedia tells me,the leftmost lane on a highway IS the passing lane, but no one really cares. However, it is illegal in New Jersey to travel in the left lane or make yourself an "obstruction".
You can and WILL be ticketed for it...if the officer is an asshole. And it IS New Jersey. I had this happen to me once, I didn't move over so the cop could blaze past me in a firey ball of entirely unsafe speeds (cause, what, is he gonna get pulled over?)
So be careful, Jersey drivers. Not everyone appreciates our lead feet, our aggressive speeds and our majestic middle fingers.
Sources:
Wikipedia
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_021b.html
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/17/blocking.php
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment