MN is passing a law to fine left lane drivers

jplante4 wrote:
I got pulled over for scaring a statie. He had someone pull over at the end of the off ramp and I came off a little hot, looking up the road for traffic.

I took off my seat belt to reach the glove compartment where my registration is and he wrote me a ticket for seat belt violation.

Yeah, that was clear cut.

So he pulled you over for speeding (a violation that would like be pretty expensive and put points on your license) and wrote you for seatbelt (a violation that would likely be much cheaper and not put points on your license) and you complain about it? Sounds like he was doing you a favor.

By the way, the way most seatbelt statutes are written, you cannot be in the roadway with the vehicle on and not wearing your seatbelt. Taking it off to reach the glovebox would be a violation.

Sounds pretty clear cut to me...

CavemanCharlie wrote:

azrving wrote:

NCC-1701 wrote:
Left lane driving is extremely common and somewhat annoying. But, I'd rather they put about a $1000 fine on the huge percentage of the population that doesn't seem to know that when they come down an entrance ramp they are supposed to actually look and time themselves in instead of blindly coming down the ramp and assuming everyone can or should get out of their way. A number of times I've had drivers somehow not see my 40' motorhome and almost pull off the ramp right into me and I couldn't get over because of traffic on the other side of me. :M

X2
Those morons dont remember the part of the driving test that said merge smoothly. They believe you are supposed to get out of their way. They ride along side my 63 feet of rig until they are on the shoulder then drop back and accelerate the way they could have and go flying around me on the left. Unbelievable number of idiots out there.

You know you could take the cruse control off and slow done 2 MPH and let the guy merge in front of you. Courtesy goes both ways.

That doesn’t always work!
About the time you slow so do they and same with speeding up. Too many drivers don’t understand mergiging putt down an on ramp at 35 to 40 then try to get to 70 in the last
50 feet, this includes those that find themselves at the rear tires of a semi, and instead of slowing just a bit, they try to race to pass that semi.

RandACampin wrote:
Center lane drivers are worst than any.

Unfortunately that is becoming a HUGE issue up here, especially with truckers.

The days of ‘professional drivers’ are gone, all we have now are ‘steering wheel holders’ who won’t use brakes or throttle, turn signals or mirrors, just sleep in the middle lane with cars and other trucks streaming past them on the right.

It’s too much trouble to have to deal with vehicles entering or leaving the highway, it’s soooo much easier to just sleep in the middle lane.

I got pulled over for scaring a statie. He had someone pull over at the end of the off ramp and I came off a little hot, looking up the road for traffic.

I took off my seat belt to reach the glove compartment where my registration is and he wrote me a ticket for seat belt violation.

Yeah, that was clear cut.

Center lane drivers are worst than any.

CavemanCharlie wrote:


It's different around here (or at least is used to be) The cops will write you out the ticket and let the court system decide if it is warranted or not. Most people don't want the hassle to talking to an attorney or going to court so they just pay the fine.

Not buying it. It's human nature that they don't want to be proven wrong, so they tend not to issue tickets for things that aren't clear cut.

Now if you do something to annoy an officer (such as getting mouthy when pulled over), that's a different story. Then they have a lot of latitude with the grey area and even if it's just forcing you to take the day off to defend yourself, they've punished you. Not that it's right but it's human nature.

valhalla360 wrote:

spoon059 wrote:

jplante4 wrote:
After being on the books for a year, a local news station did a story about it and found that not a single citation had been written anywhere in the state.

Yea, not too many cops wanna make traffic stops in the rain to write a citation for it... I don't blame them.

Cops don't like writing tickets that aren't clear cut.

If they pull you over for not having the wipers on...it's easy to say they were on "intermittent" mode and you just missed it.

Likewise, lights on during rain...how heavy do the sprinkles have to be before the lights must come on? If it was 2-3 drops, you could claim you thought it was a couple bugs splattered.

Driving in the left lane suffers a similar problem as it's not a clear easily definable thing the officer can measure like speeds.

It's different around here (or at least is used to be) The cops will write you out the ticket and let the court system decide if it is warranted or not. Most people don't want the hassle to talking to an attorney or going to court so they just pay the fine.

colliehauler wrote:

zcookiemonstar wrote:

JaxDad wrote:


If they would just spend a little time and effort on education there would be a LOT less ‘road rage’ and congestion on our roads.

I agree. Drivers education is a joke. With so many people being injured or killed in "accidents" you would think the insurance companies alone would push for a better system.

Around here most schools don't even have drivers education any more, private firms handle it now. The company I use to work for required you to take the Smith driver training every year, upside I received a discount on my insurance.

The first part that you said is the same here. The schools no longer teach drivers ed. It is all done privately . Those schools make more money the more students they get through the door so they rush them through as fast at they can.

zcookiemonstar wrote:

JaxDad wrote:


If they would just spend a little time and effort on education there would be a LOT less ‘road rage’ and congestion on our roads.

I agree. Drivers education is a joke. With so many people being injured or killed in "accidents" you would think the insurance companies alone would push for a better system.

Around here most schools don't even have drivers education any more, private firms handle it now. The company I use to work for required you to take the Smith driver training every year, upside I received a discount on my insurance.

JaxDad wrote:


If they would just spend a little time and effort on education there would be a LOT less ‘road rage’ and congestion on our roads.

I agree. Drivers education is a joke. With so many people being injured or killed in "accidents" you would think the insurance companies alone would push for a better system.