‘It’s annoying!:’ Left lane bill hits a speed bump in the Florida Senate

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Florida bill aimed at getting drivers out of the fast lane seems to have hit a speed bump.

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The bill was racing through the Florida Legislature and was slated to cross the finish line in the Senate Friday afternoon, but was temporarily postponed on the Senate floor.

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Life may be a highway, but when you’re stuck behind a slow driver in the left lane, it may feel more like a highway to hell.

“Too slow for me,” Sanford resident Steve Carter said.

“Of course, it’s annoying!” Jim Nieland, who stopped at a rest stop near Jacksonville on his way home to New Jersey said.

“I don’t care if they cruise in the left lane, just as long as I don’t have to be behind them,” Karen Bond, another New Jersey resident passing through the Bold City said.

But it’s not just an annoyance.

State Senator Keith Perry (R-Gainesville) argues it’s actually dangerous.

“In the last five years we’ve had 17,404 accidents that were a direct result from passing on the right,” Perry said during a committee hearing earlier in the week.

He’s sponsoring the bill that seeks to end left lane cruising.

Related Story: ‘Hell no:’ Florida bill banning left-lane cruising sparks mixed reactions

Current law allows you to drive in the left lane, so long as you move over for vehicles traveling at a higher rate of speed.

Under Perry’s bill, the left lane would only be allowed as a passing lane on roads with posted speeds of 65 miles-per-hour or faster.

Orlando truck driver Horace Williams said he doubts people would comply.

“I think they’d stay in the left lane,” Williams said.

Others said they would welcome the change.

“It sounds safer,” Bond said.

“It’s nice to see people getting out of the way,” Orlando resident Joe Doubleday said. “When’s that take effect?”

Unfortunately for Doubleday, the answer to that question may be: Not anytime soon.

The bill never made it out of its last House committee and with the Senate delaying a vote on the bill, it’s currently in legislative purgatory.

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