Q: I’ve always wondered about the five-car rule when you are driving the speed limit. I pull over as I don’t like being in front of aggressive drivers, but is that illegal too, when you aren’t technically a slow-moving vehicle?
A: Sometimes a question, instead of prompting an answer, generates more questions. It’s like asking, “What is the meaning of life? Are we alone in the universe? Is bowling a game or a sport?”
Before we get to more questions or answers, let’s do a quick review of the “five-car rule.” The law says that on a two-lane highway where passing is unsafe, a slow-moving vehicle shall turn off the roadway at a safe location if there are five or more vehicle in a line behind them. The law then defines a slow-moving vehicle as one traveling at a speed slower than “the normal flow of traffic at the particular time and place.”
In your question you mentioned that if you’re going the speed limit “you aren’t technically a slow-moving vehicle,” but I’m not sure that’s true. This particular law doesn’t mention anything about speed limits, so one interpretation could be that if you’re driving 50 mph on a 50-mph highway, and there are five cars behind you anxious to drive 60 mph at their first opportunity, you’re a slow-moving vehicle. I don’t like that interpretation because it seems to implicitly endorse speeding, but how much I like a law is irrelevant to its existence. I will note that the law doesn’t require you to move over for the fastest drivers, but for those traveling at the normal flow of traffic.
What, then, is normal? Is it based on the posted speed limit or is it what most drivers are doing at the moment? The law includes the phrase, “at the particular time and place,” which would suggest that it’s based more on driver behavior than the speed limit. Does that include speeding drivers? If it does, let’s push this idea to its limits. Recall our 50-mph highway. A driver who is traveling at 60 mph but delaying five vehicles that would rather drive 65 mph could theoretically be issued traffic infractions for both speeding and being a slow-moving vehicle. I can’t imagine an officer ever writing those two tickets together, but if it did happen, I’d want to be in the courtroom when the driver contests at least one of those tickets.
Even though it wasn’t part of your question, I’d also like to ask, “What is a safe turn-out?” No matter how you interpret “slow-moving vehicle” and “normal” in the context of this law, it doesn’t feel good to have a stack of vehicles putting pressure on you. You’re making a good decision when you pull over, but I’d also caution drivers to not let that pressure push them to get off the road under poor circumstances. A safe pull-out needs to be long enough for you to get fully off the highway without braking so hard that you create a chain reaction in the vehicles behind you. It also needs enough room to let you get back up to speed without creating a hazard, and in a location that provides drivers on the road enough visibility to see you pulling back onto the road.
As to the other three questions, the meaning of life is to be kind (especially while driving), we are not alone (but during rush hour you might wish you were), and bowling might be a sport for some people, but my two-digit final score suggests that when I play, it’s a game.
I think that this is an anachronism and needs to be overhauled during the move to Vision Zero. The speed limit should be the limit when set appropriately and there should be no provision in traffic law to facilitate drivers to exceed it.
One of our traffic court justices went so far as to tell me that if I ever brought a slower vehicle charge into her court room where the slower driver was travelling at the speed limit she would not convict.
I’m with you on this. I’ve never actually heard of an officer writing a ticket for this violation to a driver going the speed limit, but it appears the law could be interpreted that way. It’s good to hear the perspective from a traffic court justice. I suspect that would generally be the case if one ever saw a ticket like that in their courtroom.
As usual, people are being dishonest.
Perhaps the speed is not the problem. Perhaps traffic flow & those who impede it have not been condemned as much as speeders. Very few are discussing why do so many speed? Why does it increase?
Maybe we’ll get someone who can think outside the box ( well lanes) and come with viable solutions.
Anyone with some actual new talking points?
Here in Florida we get lots of tourists from everywhere. So it’s understanding many are unfamiliar with our traffic laws and we get many sightseers who slow down to take it the sights. Down here we have a law that simply states “Slower traffic must keep right.” Fundamentally, is to prevent slowdowns in the flow of traffic and to alleviate faster drivers constant lane changes to get around slower drivers. Iet has no mention of speed.
Yes, down here you can, and people do get pulled over for impeding the flow of traffic, even if they are doing the speed limit. The law isn’t saying it’s ok to speed, but it is saying it’s not ok to block the flow of traffic regardless of the speed.
If other drivers want to speed get out of the way and let them. If they get a ticket, too bad.
If you are preventing them from going faster, even if you are at or above the speed limit, you can and should get a ticket.
Although the police don’t want people to speed, the main priority is the safe flow of traffic. Drivers constantly jumping lanes or unsafely passing slower vehicles is the primary cause of collisions on roadways, not speeding.
So if are traveling slower than the flow of traffic, regardless of speed, the right thing to do is get out of the way. It could prevent a frustrated driver making a bad decision that could cost a life. Maybe even yours…..
I do recall the WSP claiming they would write a ticket for impeding the left lane on a freeway (non-HOV), even if going the speed limit, but I don’t know of any actual tickets or contesting of such tickets.
I can understand that – there’s an RCW that requires that “all vehicles shall be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic” with a few exceptions. The law also states, “It is a traffic infraction to drive continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway when it impedes the flow of other traffic.”
Denver that vehicle speed o meters carry at plus or minus two mph. So one driver may think he’s going precisely the speed limit, while actually going two over, and another vehicle may in the same thought two under . I pull over sometimes if there’s just one vehicle behind. I believe that “ If someone catches up to me , I’m probably holding them up.
first let’s start with anybody breaking the speed limit is a lawless driver, not a law abiding driver. I will not be coerced into lawlessness because everyone else is jumping off of a bridge. I have ethics, I don’t know why people get behind the wheel and all of a sudden are ethically challenged.
there are many reasons a person would be doing slower than the speed limit; reduced traction or control,ice snow high winds. low visibility: fog and snow smoke and dust. construction zones with lower speed limits. debris all over the highway, it’s amazing how many of these ethically challenged people also can’t notice that they’ve just driven into a place they can’t see ahead the amount of distance they need to stop safely. not only are they ethically challenged they’re all so mentally challenged.
I teach professional to think a lot like a lifeguard. as a professional driver you are a highly trained individual much like a lifeguard is a highly trained aquatics person. almost everybody in the pool is acting like an idiot or a parent. as a lifeguard we don’t lose our temper because somebody is untrained and acting erratically. we blow a whistle to wake up people around us that what they’re doing is dangerous. same with a car horn or a truck air horn. you should never use it in anger, but you should be quick to use it when someone’s encroaching across the dashed line and not seen they’re about to impact you.
I really don’t get angry at the bad behavior of car drivers because they’re not highly trained. I do get riled up a little bit by people who claim to be professional drivers and are making money driving and they have incredibly poor driver handling skills and attention spans and drive distracted. training across the board needs to be a whole lot better.
if you’re a professional writer and you can diagram all the different problems that I have inside my writing, then I tip my hat to you. if you get behind the wheel of a car or a truck and you can’t diagram the nine important things to look for in a turn and the four parts of a turn::: then you really have no business behind the wheel of a car or a truck. your belief based feeling is not real knowledge, which is where most people throw away their huge investment in a vehicle, anytime they move their steering wheel to change lanes to go into a turn, OR, moving the wheel back and forth to go in a straight line??? WHERE THE HECK DID THEY LEARN THAT SKILL? SHORT SCHOOL BUS DRIVING ACADEMY? RAY CHARLES’ SEEING EYE DOG DRIVING SCHOOL?
any person on the roadway from a bicyclist to a heavy hauler truck driver really needs a lot better training than what’s offered out there. as a professional educator I am horrified by the training even worldwide driving corporations with six sigma processes to improve education, still are incredibly lacking when it comes to how to control a vehicle.