Left Lane Travel- The Court Makes a Ruling

Posted Wednesday, May 2, 2018 by Andrew Charles Huff

We’ve all experienced this situation while cruising down the freeway in the left lane. There’s no one in front of us when all of a sudden we come upon a vehicle taking up the left lane and slowing everything down. But is this left-lane driver committing a traffic violation by doing so?

This was the question before the Court of Appeals recently when the issue before the Justices was whether a driver may travel continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway without thereby committing a traffic infraction.

The petitioner Steven Thibert was observed by police traveling in the left lane even though no other vehicles were traveling in the unobstructed right lane. The police officer conducted a traffic stop for violating RCW 46.61.100(2), captioned “Keep right except when passing, etc.”

However, Mr. Thibert argued to the Court that traveling continuously in the left lane is a traffic infraction only when it impedes the flow of traffic, which in his case he was not.

But the Court looked at the statute and held that plainly read, RCW 46.61.100 does in fact make it a traffic infraction to travel in the left lane in the four circumstances identified by RCW 46.61.100(2). The word “shall” in subsection (2) (“all vehicles shall be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic, except …”) “is presumptively imperative and operates to create a duty.”

Therefore, drivers should delegate the left-hand lane for passing other traffic and not drive continuously in this lane even if no traffic is impeded.

State v. ThibertWA State Court of Appeals, Division III