A new bill recently filed in the Florida Senate by Representative Jenna Persons-Mulicka will seek to make it a ticketable offense to drive in the left lane of some highways without the intention of passing another vehicle.
House Bill 421 seeks to prohibit a “driver from continuously operating a motor vehicle in [the] furthermost left-hand lane of certain roads.” An enforcement tool to be used against slow, inconsiderate drivers, the law may be a boon to faster vehicles.
Indeed, speaking to Action News Jax, several motorists said they approved of the bill, which they believed would make driving on the highway smoother. Others, though, were less certain about the proposed rule. Police in the state can already ticket drivers who don’t move out of the way of faster vehicles, and one driver who spoke to the outlet disapproved of the proposed bill on that basis. “We have too many laws on the books,” she said.
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Careful consideration is required before passing any bill, especially in the case of traffic laws, which have given police officers pretext to discriminate against people of color. A 2014 study, for instance, found that Black motorists were stopped and cited for seat belt offenses three times more often than white motorist by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, despite comparable rates of seatbelt use between those populations, per the ACLU.
That’s an especially concerning statistic because, in 2020, a Harvard study found that Black Americans are over three times more likely to be killed than white Americans during a police encounter.
Although this new bill provides some guidance for how it should be enforced, its application would likely still be up to the discretion of officers. The bill does specify that this new rule only counts on multilane roads with a speed limit greater than 65 mph (105 km/h), and lists exemptions for emergency vehicles and trucks engaged in maintenance of the road.
As with other traffic laws, drivers found to be in contravention of this rule will be given a noncriminal traffic infraction and a fine that could vary depending on the specifics of the offense and the agency issuing the ticket.
If the bill passes into law, it will take effect on January 1, 2024.
