Eric Thompson: Pull over fool, I'm coming past

Driving is stressful enough without slow vehicles in the passing lane. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The road code, as written on the New Zealand Transport Agency website, states that "motorways are designed so that traffic can flow with as little disruption as possible and do not have intersections, turning vehicles, parked vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists" or dorks (my addition).

It also goes on to say that drivers "keep left, unless you are passing" on motorways. So why the bloody hell do most Kiwi drivers feel they have a God-given right to sit on their fat butts in the outside lane doing whatever dawdling speed they see fit?

Listen up all you numpties who ponce along at 60km/h in the outside lane - you don't own the road so move over. It's called the fast lane for a reason you fools, and just in case you can't work out what fast lane means, it's also called a passing lane.

What do you people not understand about the word passing? Here's the Oxford Dictionary definition just in case you've forgotten - "Passing, adjective eg going past: passing cars."

Do you get it now? Or is there some sort of dislocate in your collective heads? The act of passing means going past another car, NOT sitting alongside it matching its speed kilometre after kilometre.

Could those that get a perverse pleasure from disrupting the flow of traffic for no good reason please email me and explain why you think you have this right to ignore the road code.

Also, please enlighten me how bad your life must be to want to ruin everyone else's day by such inconsiderate behaviour.

I'd like to hazard a guess it's an ego thing, in that drivers who won't pull over into the inside lane - even when there's no one there - don't like the idea of being passed.

I'm used to truck drivers hogging the entire motorway, racing each other side-by-side, as I know they get pleasure from stuffing everyone else up. Before any truck people get on the phone and complain, explain to me why, when all trucks are supposed to stay at 90km/h, you feel the need to pass another truck also travelling at 90km/h?

I've come to the conclusion it's just being sheer bloody-minded to see how many other drivers lane-hogs can piss off. I'll bet there are even some sad dorks out there who keep count of how many other road users they manage to hold up each day.

The Government should introduce a law along the lines of the German Government. On their autobahns, you get a ticket if you sit in the fast lane and hold traffic up.

It's no wonder New Zealand drivers are ranked among the worst in the world - there's no respect for each other on the road. It's not up to one driver to dictate how fast another can go. That's the job of the police.

So PULL OVER fool and let the rest of the world get on with its life. We're not all duffers who've got all day to idle along. Some of us have a life.