Let’s deal with left-lane bandits
Few know that lane is for passing only
The difference between narcissism and self-righteousness can often be confusing. After all, those afflicted with either like to dominate conversations and send their food back at restaurants (narcissists because their steak isn’t uniformly rare, the self-righteous because they are saving others from undercooked meat). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders might see an immense gulf between the self-centred and the self-important, but when you’re sitting next to one in a theatre, the effect is the same; the latter may be pontificating that Mr. Willis should not be allowed to carry live ordinance on a commercial aircraft while the former claims he could do a better job of one-arming a Heckler & Koch MP5A5 while jumping a snowmobile over open water, but either way, you’re still missing the movie.
Our highways provide much clearer differentiation. The narcissist is, of course, easy to spot. He’s — and it’s always a he, fuelled by post-pubescent testosterone and the invincibility of youth — the one treating the entire road as if it were his alone and other motorists mere cones in the autocross of life, weaving in and out of traffic.
The self-righteous — those leftlane bandits purposely occupying the passing lane to save the world from speeding — are much more difficult to spot. When, as in a recent Washington state study, 43 per cent of licensed drivers don’t know that the left lane is supposed to be reserved for passing, it’s easy to mistake the moralistic for the ignorant.
Nonetheless, the righteously indignant are indeed out there ran- domly policing our highways as if they are the final arbiters of what constitutes a safe speed limit. While study after study highlights that leftlane banditry is the No. 1 complaint of motorists in North America and a primary cause of road rage, an almost equal amount of data reveals that while most people feel safe at the speed they choose to drive, they fear that the rest of the motoring world is not nearly as competent.
This hypocritical moralism seems most common in my home province of Ontario. Countless times some Torontonian has explained that they were already doing 120 kilometres an hour in the passing lane, invariably ending their discourse with an indignant, “And I don’t understand why anybody should be driving any faster than that.”
Of course, we Ontarians are hardly the only ones with poor driving habits. Quebecers, for instance, are often (justifiably) denigrated for their aggressive driving habits. But, spend some time on the highways and you’ll find that express-lane banditry is extremely rare.
Of course, there are laws against this. In Ontario, the traffic code admonishes that all those “travelling upon a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic at that time and place shall, where practicable, be driven in the right-hand lane.” The fine for contravening section 147 is piffling compared to the incredible cost of getting caught speeding.
Besides, our constabulary prefers the simplicity of proving someone exceeded a speed limit by a specific amount rather than the vagueness of determining how much time in the passing lane is too much (which explains why B.C., a province plagued with left-lane bandits, can issue between 200,000 and 400,000 tickets per year, of which only about five are for impeding traffic).
Since both our lawmakers and enforcers prefer numerically based offences, why not make it an offence to occupy the passing lane if more than three cars have passed you on the right. Simply enforced, easily quantifiable and, thanks to the GoPros in cop cars these days, eminently provable.