{"id":2191565,"date":"2026-10-12T03:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2191565"},"modified":"2026-10-12T03:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:25:00","slug":"what-truly-counts-as-camping-in-the-left-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2191565","title":{"rendered":"What Truly Counts As Camping In The Left Lane?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"columns-holder\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-widget\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-heading\">Add Jalopnik on Google:<\/div>\n<div class=\"add-on-google-buttons-row\">\n                    <button type=\"button\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"preferred-source\">Preferred Source<\/button><br \/>\n                    <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMXBneTRxX2Zw\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"google-discover\">Google Discover<\/a>\n                <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>If you&#8217;re reading this and you live in the United States, you may notice the subjectivity of that first word, &#8220;united.&#8221; The states aren&#8217;t very united when it comes to left-lane camping, i.e., the practice of (some would say) obstinately cruising slower than prevailing traffic and forcing faster drivers to pass on the right. This isn&#8217;t merely annoying to other road users; It&#8217;s unlawful in many states. In 2025,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2133042\/left-lane-camping-illegal-colorado\/\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado issued 2,540 tickets to drivers for camping out in the left lane<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Well, unlawful, sort of, depending on the state. We&#8217;re not especially unified or precise on what constitutes camping, either. Even within a single state, the laws are confusing. For instance, in Colorado, where it&#8217;s technically illegal to remain in the leftmost lane if you&#8217;re not passing on roads posted with a 65 mph speed limit or higher, there&#8217;s an important exception. If that left lane is for high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) use,\u00a0legally\u00a0you&#8217;re not a camper if you&#8217;re over there. So camping in Colorado, not in a tent, is a qualified condition.<\/p>\n<p>Cross from Colorado into Arizona, and, according to that state&#8217;s law a camper is someone driving &#8220;at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.&#8221; Note that this doesn&#8217;t mention the speed limit; the law is designed to keep everyone moving. In fact, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.northeast.aaa.com\/daily\/life\/cars-trucks\/is-it-illegal-to-drive-in-the-left-lane\/\" target=\"_blank\">AAA<\/a>, most states have limits for cruising in the left lane save for passing, merging, or exiting; otherwise, you&#8217;re a left-lane camper. Maybe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>In Washington State, Montana and Pennsylvania\u00a0it&#8217;s legal to move into the left lane to allow a car to merge onto the highway. Which makes perfect sense, but isn&#8217;t necessarily codified everywhere, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mit.edu\/~jfc\/right.html\" target=\"_blank\">MIT<\/a>&#8216;s compiled survey of state laws. By the way, Colorado isn&#8217;t alone in designating the HOV lane as not technically the left lane, preserved for passing. Washington&#8217;s\u00a0law also makes that distinction.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s odd is that Alaska, Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio all somewhat permit left-lane camping. In Alaska the law says you have to be going the speed limit or to move over. In Maryland, if you&#8217;re chugging along at 10 mph or more below the speed limit you&#8217;d better scooch right. North Carolina sides with Alaskan diktat and says you&#8217;ve got to slide right if you&#8217;re not pegged at the maximum speed limit. And Ohio \u2014 is odd.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ohio law permits left-hand camping as long as you&#8217;re going the prevailing speed limit. If not, you have to give way when being overtaken once the passing vehicle gives an &#8220;audible signal,&#8221; presumably with its driver tapping on their horn before passing. Actually, North Carolina also mentions an audible signal, which has us wondering why both legislatures haven&#8217;t heard of this fancy new device called a horn.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>FYI, there&#8217;s a way to get revenge on left-lane campers, who of course are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2070823\/bad-driver-habits\/\" target=\"_blank\">engaged in one of the five bad habits guaranteed to annoy everyone else on the road<\/a>.\u00a0But you can only legally engage in the following payback in a handful of states.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>In Maryland,\u00a0Minnesota, New York,\u00a0New Hampshire, Utah, Wyoming, and Tennessee it&#8217;s legal to pass on the right under certain circumstances. Those include when there&#8217;s a left turning lane, but also when there are two or more lanes traveling in the same direction. These laws would seem to defy everything you learned in driver&#8217;s ed about passing on the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For instance, nothing in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nysenate.gov\/legislation\/laws\/VAT\/1123\" target=\"_blank\">New York State<\/a>\u00a0language seems to suggest you cannot blow by a left-lane vagrant on the right while driving on the interstate. These are the conditions the law spells out when right-lane passing is permitted:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Upon a street or highway with unobstructed pavement not occupied by parked vehicles of sufficient width for two or more lines of moving vehicles in each direction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And the <a href=\"https:\/\/dmv.ny.gov\/new-york-state-drivers-manual-and-practice-tests\/chapter-6-passing\" target=\"_blank\">New\u00a0York State DMV<\/a> section on passing says\u00a0very plainly that indeed you may pass on the right, naturally while abiding by the aforementioned statute.\u00a0So do you want to make this part of your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/these-are-our-readers-go-to-plans-for-avoiding-traffic-1851430400\/\" target=\"_blank\">go-to plans for avoiding traffic tickets<\/a> where right-lane passing is technically legal? Uh, sure. Let us know how that works out.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover If you&#8217;re reading this and you live in the United States, you may notice the subjectivity of that first word, &#8220;united.&#8221; The states aren&#8217;t very united when it comes to left-lane camping, i.e., the practice of (some would say) obstinately cruising slower than prevailing traffic and forcing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,247],"class_list":["post-2191565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-jalopnik-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2191565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2191565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2191565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2191565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}