Corvette Forum Debate: Is Keeping Right a Moral Obligation or the Law?
If you’re in the left lane on a multi-lane highway, traveling just over the speed limit, and a vehicle comes up behind you, are you obligated to move over and let him or her pass? What if the person behind you is being a jerk?
That’s the subject of a heated debate brewing over in the forums in a thread titled, “Moral Dilemma.. Move over or not?”
Nobody likes jerks, especially when they’re behind the wheel of a two-ton lethal weapon. If you’re going over the speed limit, why should you have to make way for someone going even faster over the speed limit than you are, especially if they’re tailgating you?
First, there’s a safety issue. Road rage is not something that you should encourage, even if you feel you are in the right. Just look at this recent incident with a Camaro driver and a pickup truck in the video below. Even though the Camaro driver was drunk and unlicensed, the pickup truck driver was just as much at fault for the fracas that followed.
READ: Drunken Camaro Driver Meets Idiot Pickup Truck Driver
Secondly, it’s the law to get over. Slower traffic is always supposed to keep right to faster traffic, and the left lane is meant for overtaking. If someone passes you to the right on the highway, then YOU are doing something wrong and should be in a different lane.
Several commenters on the thread mentioned that letting the faster people pass makes them the canary in the coal mine for law enforcement. Wouldn’t you rather the jerk behind you get busted for speeding than you?
It’s not a moral question about whether you have the right to try to teach someone else a lesson on the highway. Driving is not a match to see who has the biggest morals, or biggest anything for that matter. Unless you’re on an empty back road having fun, driving is a means of transportation from one point to another, and the ultimate goal should be to do that safely.
What’s worse is you don’t know what’s going on in the other car. Sure, it could be an emergency and that’s why they’re speeding, or it could be that the person is just legitimately a nut job. They could also have a gun. Is that something you really want to risk to prove that you’re right?
But most importantly, you are not law enforcement. Over half of the drivers on the road think that they’re above-average drivers. What you think you know about driving laws might be different than what the laws are, and nobody declared you the enforcer of those laws.
Even if what you’re doing is legal, you still should yield to the faster, more irritated driver. It’s always better to have the unstable situation ahead of you than behind you, since you’ll see what’s happening and have more time to react.
That’s my two cents on the matter. But what about yours?
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
