Colorado State Trooper Teaches Highway Driving 101 on Facebook, Tells Left-Lane Squatters to Beat It
It doesn’t get simpler than this, folks.
It's Monday morning and you're late for work. Commuting in slow-moving traffic is adding unnecessary stress to a new week and attempting to overtake the person in front of you, who you suspect is texting while driving, is futile. Of course, the driver in the left-most lane is slowly putting along to match your speed and a backlog of cars begins to form which makes merging impossible, separating you from that sweet stretch of unoccupied left-lane highway.
We all know this pain, and so do the police. This particular officer of the Colorado State Patrol has a simple, yet effective message for left-lane squatters that they need to hear: get out of the passing lane.
The officer uses a visual aid to get the point across for those who need it—a piece of paper with a stretch of two-lane highway printed on it. He outlines the purpose of both the right and left lanes with his pen, smiling while politely explaining to drivers that the left lane is to be used for passing and not commuting.
Colorado isn't the only state where police want to get the message across. A number of states have passed laws which give police the ability to ticket left-lane squatters in the name of safety, stating that lane hoggers create unsafe conditions by creating congested conditions that would otherwise be a non-issue.
"If vehicles are moving slower, it can cause accidents and crashes. Guys will make traffic stops on it," said Lieutenant Shawn Staley of the Idaho State Police. He later continues, "It is a pet peeve for most motorists. We as officers are just like most people. If we see a problem that can be dangerous, we will issue citations."
At the time of writing, the Colorado State Patrol's 48-hour-old video has been viewed over 2 million times and shared by nearly 44,000 people—clearly showing a shared frustration among drivers. Hopefully, this simple explanation helps to ingrain the through process into uninformed drivers and helps to clear up the passing lane.
