Left-Lane Drivers Say They Have a Right

I heard from lots of drivers after my column last week on the flashing of headlights and the etiquette of overtaking. The drivers I was sure I wouldn't hear from were the ones defending their presence in the left lane, even when not passing another car.

But I was wrong.

I'm spreading reader comments over two days, starting with the "flashees": those who can't abide the flashers.

David Humphreys lives in Annapolis now but moved here from Ohio, where, he said, drivers know to stay right except when passing. Still, wrote David, "if you flash your lights at me out in the heartland, I'm sure to slow down, match the speed of the vehicles in the other lanes, set the cruise and make you stew. You can just cool your sorry East Coast behind, your 'desires' be damned. As long as I'm making progress in the passing lane, and I'm going at least the speed limit, what do I care about your arrogance?"

Strong words indeed, and echoed by a reader who went simply by the name Concerned: "If I am driving in the left lane at a speed equal to the speed limit, then what right does someone have to pass me? If the person would need to exceed the posted speed limit, they are breaking the law, not to mention [that] flashing headlights may also be breaking the law. However, I am not the type of driver to hang in the left lane. If someone was to ride my bumper and flash their headlights, I would pull over in hopes that a speed trap would catch them. This has happened to me several times and gives me great satisfaction."

Well, we take our entertainment where we can get it. Cheaper than Netflix, I suppose.

Ken Wilson said he's not a left-lane vigilante. He usually avoids the left lane except when passing. "But on three- or four-lane highways, I tend to drive in the far left lane in order to avoid the weavers. If someone comes up behind me at a reasonable rate of speed -- i.e., politely -- I'll move over to let them pass when I can. But If I'm driving the speed limit, or even 5 miles above it, and someone comes flying up behind me, I feel no moral obligation to let them pass."

Charlie Warren wrote that he's one of those "crazy drivers who believes that a 'Speed Limit' sign doesn't really read 'Speed Suggestion.' I believe that the 80 to 90 percent of us who drive over the limit, whether in the fast lane or right lane, are breaking the law and should be arrested for reckless endangerment. Here in the Washington area, and elsewhere, we Americans have turned into a nation of lemmings, following the speeder just because 'I can't stand being left to the back of the pack.' . . . All the time we're forgetting that all of those fellow lemmings in the left lane with a car length between them are committing a crime."

Silver Spring's Ian Hill doubts that drivers who speed down the left lane, flashing their lights as they go, really think of it as an overtaking lane. "Rather, they think it's their personal right to thunder along . . . presuming everyone should get out of their way . . . and becoming really agitated when folks stay put. To them I say the following: 1) Show me the law on any state books that says the left lane is reserved for law-breaking speeders! And 2) If you're in such a hurry, the onus should be on you to find a way around me, not me to get out of your way!"

Tomorrow we'll hear from the other side -- and look at the law.

Wave to Go

On a happier note, readers said "the friendly wave" is not extinct, as I had feared in that same column. Karen Thornton grew up in Texas. "When I go back home to visit family, I still see people giving the 'friendly wave,' regardless of the region of the state I am in. Even though I now live in Virginia, I still wave to thank other drivers, though I seldom, if ever, get a wave in reply."

Anne Thomas said her Mount Rainier neighborhood has extremely narrow streets, necessitating a careful pas de deux when two vehicles try to pass. "The driver of the vehicle with right of way almost always gives a 'thank you' wave, and the driver of the other vehicle almost always gives a 'you're welcome' wave. Actually, I don't recall any driver not giving the appropriate wave. So we still understand friendly waves here on our slow streets!"

Bethesda's Roxanne Russell assures me that the wave is alive and well on Beach Drive, too, where every morning at every merge point, the long line of cars patiently opens up to allow one car in. "The response is always a friendly wave. Without this courtesy, the commute would be gridlock. A friendly wave, an opening for a car, and the traffic rolls on by."

There's more fat-chewing over on my blog: voices.washingtonpost.com/commons. My e-mail: kellyj@washpost.com.