Dark Bilious Vapors

...some action on those Left-Lane Hogs and bad drivers who *refuse* to let passing traffic through.

Police slow to ticket left-lane lollygaggers:

" A law intended to relieve highway log-jams caused by slow drivers appears to be enforced in rural areas more often than on the state’s most congested urban roads, according to state records and the state police.

Since the so-called left-lane lollygagger law took effect in 2004, state police have written 84 tickets in Chicago and the suburban tollways, compared to 82 tickets for entire rest of the state, according to state police records.

The near-equal figures are surprising because two-thirds of Illinoisans live in the Chicago area and because that’s where lollygaggers were believed to be causing the most problems when the law was enacted, a state police spokesman said.

The law carries a $79 ticket if you’re caught slowing up traffic in the left lane, even if you’re doing the speed limit.

The grand total of 164 citations over nearly two years is a pittance compared to the total number of tickets issued in a year. In 2004, for example, state troopers issued roughly 485,804 traffic citations of all types, including 9,830 citations for driving while impaired.

Still, police are pulling a lot more people over for lollygagging. Since the law took effect, 2,535 warnings have been issued. And suburban motorists might want to consider that though the end of October, some 58 tickets have been written this along tollways, roughly six times more than were written last year.

Karen on 11.26.05 @ 08:44 AM CST