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.
If you're driving 45 in a 40, that may sound like 12% faster, but once you add traffic, lights, stop signs, turns, etc - you'll find that the 12% all but evaporates. Even if you're really pushing it and going 15 over, at most speeds and for most typical commutes, it saves very little.
Most of the time speeding ends up saving on the order of seconds on ~30 minutes or shorter trips.
Just about the only time it can be noticeable is if you're really pushing it (going to get pulled over speeds) on a nearly empty highway for a commute of 1.5+ hours.
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.
> 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...
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.
Georgia isn't going to punish you for going the speed limit in the right lane, they passed that law recently and called it the 'slow poke law'.
> On the other hand “in compliance with law” is it’s own barrel of monkeys because it doesn’t specify priority.
It really isn't.
This overconfidence causes humans to take unnecessary risks that not only endanger themselves, but everyone else on the road.
After taking several dozen Waymo rides and watching them negotiate complex and ambiguous driving scenarios, including many situations where overconfident drivers are driving dangerously, I realize that Waymo is a far better driver than I am.
Waymos don't just prevent a large percentage of accidents by making fewer mistakes than a human driver, but Waymos also avoid a lot of accidents caused by other distracted and careless human drivers.
Now when I have to drive a car myself, my goal is to try to drive as much like a Waymo as I can.
Speeding feels like "I'm more important than everyone else and the safety of others and rules don't apply to me" personally. It's one thing to match the speed of traffic and avoid being a nuisance (that I'm fine with) - a lot of people just think they're the main character and everyone else is just in their way.
It's a problem that goes way beyond driving, sadly.
So you’re saying they had to pass a law clarifying a contradiction in previous laws? Those contradictions were my original point. And it still only applies to the slow poke lane.
> It really isn't.
Oh you sweet summer child.
You’re literally viewing the law as a precise programming language, whereas I’m arguing that the reality is that laws are written in natural language that contains not only semantic ambiguity, but temporal ambiguity where one law is not coherent with another because they were created by different people at different times with different incentives.
You also didn’t bother responding to the meat of my argument, but hey you do you. Personally I’ve found that anyone who refers to other human beings as “NPCs” is void of any substance.
You have the group that's really bad and does things like drive drunk, weave in and out of traffic, do their makeup and so on.
The other group generally pays attention and tries to drive safely. This is larger than the first group and realistically there's not all that much difference within the group.
If you're in group two you will think you're above average because the comparison is to the crap drivers in group one.
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.
"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...
That's a rule just about everywhere, but that's not what's being discussed. I'm in the right lane doing the speed limit, and OP claims that's "technically" illegal due to contradictory laws. (Where there is no real contradiction, because the Chesterton's Fence is that we don't want Farmer Jones driving his tractor to his fields down I-75 through Atlanta.)
But now that Waymo is gonna use freeways, that major speed difference is gonna evaporate.