PennDOT's Facebook page posted a graphic about proper use of the left lane on the highway. oneBURGH shared it and the comments that followed about traffic law were often incorrect and fiery.
Of course, I now have to set the record straight.
After 20 years of representing people horribly injured in vehicle crashes, as well as hundreds of motorists, truck drivers and motorcyclists accused of breaking the law, this multi-part series will explore what gets the blood, and tempers, flowing red on the highway.
Part I of the Series: Proper Techniques for Snowbird Wing Shots BAD HOMBRES! ILLEGALS! MIGRANTS! MS-13, MS-DOS!
You’ve heard about them in political campaign advertisements and the evening news, but mostly political campaign advertisements, and they are scary enough to cause some people to buy a second AR-15 for every room of their house!
You know what the leading killer is in this country? Heart disease. Because we eat garbage, smoke, vape and snort more blow that any nation on earth, and probably any society in the galaxy.
Aliens learned the hard way. That’s why they just have nose holes and not actual noses. They did so much blow it altered their genetics. I heard they cut back to only on Saturn-days.
(Cue the laughing dads and groaning millennials at that one)
Guess what kills you while piloting a plane?
Flight instructors call it “being fat, dumb and happy". As in blissfully unaware of the visual, aural, and sometimes social cues around you to indicate that you have a problem. (Funny how me having a pilot’s license isn’t the first thing I told you this time.)
From every Charlton Heston air disaster film I’ve seen, it would appear heart disease is a leading factor in flight attendants having to pilot 747s until Heston gets onboard, saves the day, and makes sweet love to them until their husbands pry their lady from his cold dead hands.
However, let me tell you about 20 plus years of what I’ve seen that has resulted in death, dismemberment, and permanent injuries. Spoiler alert: you don’t get frequent flyer miles when you take UPMC Stat Medivac or AHN Life Flight from the highway to the hospital.
It disjointedly goes a little something like this, hit it:
Imagine, ya knob, being Canadian, and floating along, at 50 mph in the left lane of I-79, listening to "O Canada" being sung in Quebecian by Gilbert Gottfried, completely unaware that you, and a few other people in cars around you, are about to die, and you will be posthumously nominated for the Darwin Awards.
Nobody in your homeland speeds, because of the big brother photoradar everywhere, and speeding in your culture is considered rude.
Blissfully unaware, a fat dumb and happy pilot with high cholesterol if you will.
Lert’s add some heat: While I riffed on AR-15s, what’s really gone unchecked is the prevalence of cheap new and used “muscle” cars in the United States. Look no further than the burnout takeover of the Ft. Pitt bridge to know it is a problem.
I’m not going to name names, Dodge, for stressing cheap horsepower over refined handling, but here we are with yet another incredibly lethal weapon cheaply in the hands of people lacking the judgment or qualifications to possess the same, and it shows.
They’re all ripping toward the Canuck at high, well high for those cars, speed.
I drive I-79 a lot, and what I drive or how I drive is irrelevant, other than nearly every time I pass a Challenger or Charger they think it is some kind of race, which I’d be happy to show them the way to the loser’s bin, except I’m not interested in gambling my life, career, and the aforementioned pilot’s license, with fat, dumb and happy Canadians on the highway driving 50 mph in the hammer lane. (That’s the left lane to all you people that never saw Smokey and the Bandit.)
Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear, Grand Tour, and punching producers fame once said, “Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that’s what gets you.”
I’m not down for my 550 supercharged European horses in a V-8 formation meeting the back end of a left lane lumbering Canuckmobile at about a 120 mph overtake differential. Lives, futures, fancy cars and my ex-wife’s belief that I’d never make her laugh again would all be instantly shattered when the fast car slams into the car going well below the limit, thus becoming effectively stationary.
Well, more than stationary, fragmented, and they’re going to need lots of those red flags they use at plane crash sites.
Think about it this way, 60mph is a mile in 60 seconds, 120mph is a mile in 30 seconds.
Then think about it in the context of you driving at these insane speeds, flipping into the left lane, and boom there is a Canuck doing 50mph six seconds ahead of you or less.
Got brakes?
That still might not avoid catastrophe.
I-79 RULE OF SURVIVAL #1: PASS LEFT - KEEP RIGHT DOESN’T MEAN SH*T
No amount of high-beam flicking, horn blowing, or AR-15 firing is going to, generally, remove a Canuck, Ohioan, Yinzer, West Virginian, Z-trip cab, speed limit enforcer, or other twilight zone passport holder out of the left lane.
- Canucks, despite ignoring our laws, are gentle creatures and will startle, causing them to bury the brake pedal out of fear and not spite.
- Z-trip, those dudes drive in the left lane and never move from it between downtown and the airport, no matter what, including people giving them the finger, blowing the horn, etc. They just don’t care. Oh and Z-trip, if you don’t like the truth, I’ll show you my photo collection of your “drivers”.
- Speed limit enforcers, usually sporting “Jesus Loves You” bumper stickers will cast the second stone and brake check you.
- Those in the Twilight Zone, such as Canucks, Z-Trip, Ohio, and West Virginians, imagine if you will, don’t know what’s happening, and are generally clueless AF about the left lane. While I certainly feel that, in some instances, vigilante style justice has its place, it is only acceptable to get nuts when Michael Keaton portrays Bruce Wayne with a fireplace poker, so just ignore them and play it cool.
- The Canuckers and Yinzers are car cows and this is their plop field. You aren’t going to move them, so just put on some slow jams and wait for the next guy in a Dodge Charger to ride up their ass honking and high beaming. Hopefully it will be a State Police Dodge Charger or Durango, for once.
Unless the highway is empty, just casually pass people, no matter how much their lack of attention or adherence to the law infuriates you.
Like Han told Chewbacca, “fly casually”. Drive smart and defensively, yet casually, and know that since we ran Matt Canada out of town, there is hope the other Canadians go too.
I always enjoy having cases with the State Police as they are generally the most even tempered and common-sense thinkers that I deal with in law enforcement, but for the love, could they write a little less 3362(a) and a lot more 3313(d), which is speeding and misuse of the left lane, respectively. Oh, and way more 3313(d) on commercial vehicles, which leads me to rule number two, or duex in French Canuckian. I learned that from the movie Hot Shots! starring famous actor, and luxury car wrecking enthusiast, Charlie Sheen.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II, DEUX: LEFT LANE NO TRUCKS (OR CANUCKS)
DISCLAIMER: This article is general educational and mid at best entertainment, and does not constitute an attorney-client relationship. Every situation is different, and you should consult legal counsel of your choosing to discuss your situation. Don’t speed, break traffic laws, brandish AR-15s, or engage in vigilante style justice, ever. Like ever as in Taylor Swift’s “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. This is soooooo exhausting.
DISCLAMER OF SHADE: The entirety of Canada, Ohio, West Virgnia, Maryland, and especially Ohio are the worst at camping in the left lane, and West Virginia will say I’m wrong because “states rights”. The lawyer that some person you dated in high school that knows somebody that went to WVU will also say I’m wrong, but his 1989 Hyundai Excel denotes he has zero experience driving above 55, let alone 155.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Attorney Biedrzycki (baa-jet-skee) is a graduate of Villanova University and the Duquesne University School of Law, and a proud graduate of kindergarten at Sheraden Elementary. He has handled personal injury, criminal defense, consumer protection, business/real estate matters in Pittsburgh and beyond for over 20 years, with a little bit of humor and a whole lot of style, and wants to be an adult someday. In addition to lawyering, he loves to travel, enjoys bougie cars, French wines, plays in the dirt better than anyone, and is otherwise described by the haters as ruthless, maniacal and brutally handsome. His office is in Upper St. Clair, has free parking, lots of choochkies, and a bar. For more info, check out @steelcitylawyer on Twitter for links to all the socials.
