Sunday, May 12, 2013

Editorial: Florida to Introduce New "Road Rage" Law

In March, my brother posted an article about a woman who was ticketed for driving two miles per hour under the speed limit in the far left lane (read that post here). The problem was not the fact that the woman was driving two under, but that she was holding up traffic in the passing lane. Many accidents and bouts of road rage are caused by drivers who lack any sort of lane discipline. In an effort to hopefully curb road rage and decrease the number of accidents cause by slow drivers hogging the left lane, Florida state House and Senate have passed a bill that would fine drivers $60 for driving 10 miles per hour under the speed limit in the left lane on a highway with two or more lanes.

The question here is whether or not something like this would work, and encourage drivers to exercise proper lane discipline. Taking in to account how long it took people to start taking the cell phone fine serious across the nation, I do not see drivers taking this fine seriously for quite some time. Odds are, most drivers will not learn about the law until they get pulled over by the police. Even then, a large number of drivers will attempt to contest the fine in court. After some time though, I would imagine the law would start to take effect as more drivers learn about it. It is a small fine compared to the cell phone law, but hopefully this law will encourage drivers to learn about proper lane discipline, and will help alleviate any potential road rage incidents that occur from faster drivers being caught behind slow drivers.

While I do sincerely hope this law passes and works, and I do hope it will become adopted into California's traffic laws some day, traffic laws such as this "road rage" bill would not need to exist if drivers learned about proper lane discipline while learning to drive. I know that my brother and I tend to stress lane discipline quite often in our blog, but it is a really disturbing trend when no one seems to care anymore. It almost seems as if driver's education courses no longer teach lane discipline anymore. When I took driver's education 10 years ago, the instructor stressed lane discipline as a way to prevent accidents, and I believe it still holds true today.

So readers, what do you think about this law? Do you think it will work? Do you think it is even necessary? Share your thoughts and any lane discipline stories in the comments below!

Read the original article here.

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