KELO-TV notes that Minnesota is trying to confuse us South Dakota visitors with a couple of new driving laws coming into effect today.
First is the left-lane slowpoke law, which says you can get a $125 ticket if you hold up traffic in the left lane:
A measure aimed at drivers who linger in the left lane was signed into law last month, according to Sen. John Jasinski, R-Faribault, who sponsored the bill at the Capitol.
Those violating the new law could face a fine of $50, plus a $75 surcharge.
“It’s something everyone can relate to,” Jasinski said. “Everyone’s been in that position, being behind someone in the left lane. It’s frustrating.”
…The law doesn’t quantify how slow a vehicle must be traveling in the left lane in order to be cited. It just states, “a person must move out of the left-most lane to allow another vehicle to pass” when practical [Janet Moore, “New Minnesota Law to Fine Slower Drivers in the Left Lane,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2019.06.04].
This law probably won’t affect any of us South Dakota visitors, since South Dakota drivers shouldn’t be risking the left lane in the Twin Cities in the first place.
But if you do risk that left lane, I learn from the anti-slowpoke legislation that Minnesota formally raises the speed limit in the passing lane by ten miles per hour on two-lane highways and now five miles per hour on highways with multiple lanes in each direction. South Dakota has a similar statute for two-laners but no boost on the Interstates (see SDCL 32-25-28*, nicely tracked down by Grudz—see below!).
Minnesota now also bans having your cellphone in your hand while driving. Twelve states that have passed similar hands-free laws and collected data have seen traffic fatalities decline by 15%; however, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration insists that hands-free devices still distract drivers and put us all at risk. And in 2017, distracted driving (phones, Whoppers, whatever) killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden did on 9/11. Drive now, call later.
*Correction 21:24 CDT: I originally said I didn’t know of any such passing-speeding law in South Dakota, but I just hadn’t read far enough in statute. Grudznick below found the statute and gleefully pointed it out. My apologies for not finding and printing that information from the start!
32-25-28, Mr. H. Your blue link goes to it.
Thank God. Minnesota drivers in the left lane are something else. Massive traffic jams end up happening by a simple tap of the brakes that end up slowing traffic for miles. And in my experience it has always been MN plates and not other states.
Ah! There it is, Grudz, down at the bottom, only recently enacted via 2015 HB 1124. Thanks for helping us all find that grace zone for speeding.
Notice that 10-mph boost applies only on two-laners, not on the Interstates!
Wow: a South Dakota driver criticizes Minnesota drivers? Hilarious!
I have a question. The speed limit on I-90 from the Ellsworth exit to the Deadwood Ave. exit is 65 MPH and the speed limit on I-90 from Deadwood Ave. thru Sturgis is 65 MPH for the Rally. Does this mean I can drive 75 MPH thru these zones and 85 MPH from Deadwood Ave. to the Wyoming line when the speed limit returns to 75 MPH after the rally ends?
From my limited experience on I-380 from Waterloo to I-80 just west of iowa city, driving the posted 65 mph will likely get you rear ended by everyone and the Sunday School teacher.
I’m not from SD originally. Spent much of my life driving in a large city.
The main problem with this law is that if it uses language such as “when practical” as stated in the article (the quotation marks from the actual statute stopped before the phrase “when practical”) it likely is unconstitutional because it fails to provide any objective criteria for the motorist to know when action is required. It is similar to Mointana’s former law that substituted the duty to drive at a “reasonable and proper” speed for an actual numerical speed limit. The Montana Supreme Court found that language to be unconstitutionally vague as it gave too much discretion to law enforcement to decide what was a reasonable speed.
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/25/us/montana-s-speed-limit-of-mph-is-overturned-as-too-vague.html
Can you imagine what a heyday SD’s drug interdiction cops would have with the discretion to decide whether someone was driving a reasonable speed or moving to the right lane quickly enough?
Both laws are popular here in Minn, the left lane law especially. On 2 lane highways people generally drive fairly close to the speed limit, but on the freeways it’s fast and faster, which I don’t mind.
The biggest issue was people trying to be cops and driving 55 in the left, the metro freeway speed limit, to force everyone else to slow down. It could get pretty ugly and dangerous. The phantom slow downs that Steve mentioned were the least of the problem.
WR, nope! Here are the conditions SDCL 32-25-28 sets for breaking the speed limit to pass:
You can only gun it to get around someone on a two-lane highway, not when you have multiple lanes going int he same direction. Plus, you can only do it when the person in front of you is going under the speed limit. So technically, on, say, the lonely stretches of Highway 34, you will rarely have the opportunity to legally punch it all the way to 75. If you’re behind someone whose cruising at exactly 65, you’re stuck. If you’re behind someone who’s doing 60, you can only do 70, max, to pass. But to enforce that, the HP would have to radar gun you, then quick-like-a-bunny get a reading on the car you passed, then subtract. (Hey, can radar guns reset and read new targets that fast?)
Ah, so Steve is one of those out-of-state infiltrators whose rights the SDGOP has been trying to curtail but I’ve been defending at great personal and political peril in court. You’re welcome.
Steve’s probably also a Scyller Borglum.
Cory, I’ve lived here for over twenty years now. I also go to the Twin Cities quite a bit and what happens in the left lane is true from Debbo and from what I stated. There will literally be slow downs to very slow speeds simply because of these left lane morons.
We have idiots like that here but thank goodness not the population traffic to coincide but make no mistake. People spend more time looking in their rear view mirror getting butt hurt on what they perceived as someone on their ass.