You have seen “handicapped driver” license plates. It usually means the driver is physically impaired in some way, such as having difficulty walking. It sometimes means having difficulty driving.
This doesn’t mean they’re driving slowly. That isn’t a defining characteristic of a handicapped driver. All of us have driven slowly at one time or another – as for example when we’re trying to gimp a car with a problem – such as overheating – as far as we can go before it conks out altogether. Or because we’re driving a truck with a heavy load in the bed. Or an RV.
Or even because we just want to drive slowly. Maybe because we’re sight-seeing. Maybe because we’re timid/cautious drivers – and that, as such, isn’t a handicap, either.
But it becomes one when it handicaps others.
As for instance the handicapped driver depicted in the video embedded with this article. He was driving really slowly – 15-20 MPH below the speed limit. Who knows why. There may have been good reason. But there is never a good reason to handicap other drivers by making no effort to get out of their way. Which should always be done as a matter of common courtesy whenever one decides to or needs to drive significantly more slowly than whatever the speed limit is. In part because we all know – well, most of us do – that the speed limit is itself slow, evidenced by the fact that most of the time, most drivers are driving at least that fast and usually 5-10 MPH faster. Many would go faster than that were it not for the tacit understanding that, as a rule, you can drive 5-10 MPH faster than whatever the speed limit is without running too much risk of being ticketed for “speeding.” 
The point being, whatever the speed limit is, most of us understand that’s at least as fast as you ought to be driving and if you’re not then you ought to yield to faster-moving traffic. As by moving over to the right lane rather than squatting obliviously – or obnoxiously – in the left lane. As by moving off onto the shoulder if driving slowly on a single-lane road, so that the cars drivers who want to be able to drive the speed limit can at least do that.
If most slow drivers were to do that, few of the rest of us would complain about slow drivers – because there’d be nothing legitimate for us to complain about!
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Ugh, left lane hogs are the worst in these parts. Most self righteously proclaim that if they are going the speed limit they have every right to camp out in the left lane even if they are not passing anyone. Sometimes it takes a line of cars passing them on the right before they get out of the way. In the winter you have the ones who drive really slow, get the line of cars behind them on the two lane roads and refuse to pull over. I do not mind if you want to drive slow during the winter. It is just the complete and utter lack of situational awareness is frustrating to say the least.
“As by moving off onto the shoulder if driving slowly on a single-lane road, so that the cars drivers who want to be able to drive the speed limit can at least do that.”
That’s why passing lanes were invented. The only time I get annoyed with slow drivers is when we are driving on I-80 through the PA mountains and there is a truck going uphill in the fast lane at 55mph trying to pass another truck going a few mph slower. Can’t do much then. Just take a chill pill and relax.
People who want to drive faster are EXPECTED to be PATIENT when coming across a slow driver, and not to be rude. Why isn’t it considered rude by the slow driver when they have people stacked up (or even one) and they don’t yield?
We could take a page from Amish country and have more places to pull off to the side to allow people to pass.
IMHO people causing rolling roadblocks are FAR more dangerous than a “speeeeeder”!
When I see them (i.e. get stuck behind them) around my area, they all seem to be old people. Old people usually drive slow anyway. So not sure if holding up traffic is due to them being old or disabled.
My sister in law broke her back in a car wreck and has the placard and plates. She’s disabled when it’s convenient. She gets government money, doesn’t have to work, has access to good painkillers and the wheelchair placard for her car, but she also recently took a trip to Utah to ride dirt bikes in the dessert. She does, however, drive like a normal person.
We recently went to the NHRA drags in Indy and the Army was there in the booths and marketing area. If you could complete various physical and mental feats, you got a T-shirt. The guys did their 10 pulls ups and I did the 20 pushups and we got our shirts. My SIL, however, got in pushup position, tried one, then kept screeching “I’m disabled!” It was kind of embarrassing.
They gave her a shirt anyway, just to get rid of her.
Oops. I meant “desert.” I am a copy editor and rarely make such a dumb mistake.
I’ve ridden dirt bikes in gumbo, but never pudding… good catch
Don’t sweat it, Amy!
Happens to me, too!
I believe at least until the 1960s most double stripe no passing roads were actually dotted and you could pass. Being able to pass wherever you deem safe would eliminate a lot of problems
My charming wife has these plates on her ES because she had to have a knee replacement that didn’t go quite as was expected. She can walk well, but has difficulty with stairs. Other than that she has a lead foot (just got busted for 40 in a 25), AND, to top it off, is a Bondurant grad. So, you won’t see her holding up traffic.
I have disabled plates(MS sufferer) on my truck, but I am the one yelling at the slow-assed drivers to get the hell out of my way. I do give them the one finger salute as I pass by with a toot of my horn. I have a push bar on the front and it is intimidating to look at.
I followed one of these today. going 57-65 in the fast lane speed limit is 55.
Everyone in the fast lane travels 65 or higher. Slow lane is about 60.
The guy in this KIA hatch seemed to have been distracted, constantly changing speed and wandering into the right lane.
After several miles, he must have noticed he was all over the place and situated himself in the slow lane.
I’m going to speak some personally observed truth now. A vast majority of the ones I see driving a vehicle with a HC tag are overweight brown women. They go to their doctor, tell the doctor I need a HC tag because I’m fat, and they get all the good spaces right up front.
Tell me again why our society is not a trust/honor based society any longer? Only a society that’s based on commonly held beliefs and values can survive, and the controllers know this. Hence, multiculturalism, and the destruction of civilized society.
Yes, it’s only a HC tag. But it’s an indicator. One of many.
No brainer. F² is too lazy and disgusting to walk from car to store. I have NEVER seen a wheelchair van using the nice blue spots by the door. Total grifting scam.
Here in WA it’s truck fascination on the freeway. Truck right lane, car left lane. Looks fine, the car is rolling along at a pace to easily pass the truck. Nope, got to slow down something psychological about going fast, past that big truck. Car slows to barely faster than truck speed meanwhile the LH lane folks stack up behind the moron.
Unfortunately, Washington, besides too many east coast types, is cursed with Oregon drivers, most of whom are inbred, on drugs, twerking & jerking, drunk, or, all of the previous. There is one other thing about Oregon “drivers”: they’re terrified of the police and being stopped for speeding and then dragged into the bushes….. just sayin’…
Maybe left-lane slowpoke clovers are physically hobbled by having too many spike proteins in their bloodstream. Thanks to the covid so-called “vaccines”, more people than ever are doing idiotic actions as excess spike proteins float around their arteries and veins, and congregate around vital organs including the brain.
Maybe, but left lane bandits predates the discovery of spike proteins during “covid” by about 50 years.
The video caused me to think of driving in Southeast Texas decades ago. The shoulders on some of the highways had shoulders as wide as a regular car lane and when I came across a slow moving pickup the driver would proactively move over onto the shoulder and keep going a steady speed. I was amazed at that. They happily waved, and I gladly waved back.
Some slower moving drivers would even drive the whole way on the shoulder as if it were the slow lane.
Wish we had wide shoulders like that up here in The Northland. If anyone were to try driving on the shoulder in the wet times or in Winter they would certainly wind up stuck in a ditch.
Just imagine if all the highways and roads had wide shoulders like in Southeast Texas. Surely that would cost 40 Billion Dollars to build. And, as everyone knows, 40 Billion Dollars isn’t available to do that.
…Oh, wait, how many news articles have this in the title? “USAID Costs $40 Billion A Year.”
Then, there’s this bit: “In fiscal year 2023 alone, GAO determined the federal government improperly dispensed $269 Billion.”…
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/02/no_author/from-oversight-to-overlooked-the-governments-failure-to-control-trillions-in-misspent-funds/
Indeed, out here in the hinterlands it is common if you’re turning left and have traffic behind you and no oncoming to pull into the oncoming lane to make life easier for the guy behind you.
And I expect Ukraine and Israel both have really really good roads with wide usable shoulders.
“ pull into the oncoming lane to make life easier for the guy behind you “
Yes, and also lessens the odds of getting rear ended. Especially important on a motorcycle – I loathe LH turns with no turn lane. I’ll use the oncoming lane but if traffic coming, straddle the centerline to avoid getting rear ended. I cringe seeing a motorcycle with a LH signal on, stopped in the traffic lane as a sitting duck.
The Left Coast is too full of tards from the east coast that don’t know how to drive bc they are all urbos. They have NO concept of Hwy 1 other than as a retarded sightseeing tour.
Common courtesy is no longer common.
My personal pet peeve is the driver that gets in the left lane of the freeway, sets the cruise on whatever, usually a bit over 70 (the speed limit dontchaknow) and won’t move over so you end up passing on the right when you get a chance. Move over let others that want to driver faster pass you safely.
As it feeds off your angst. Best to back off and starve the foul demonic wretch.
I get that, they tap their brakes on you and if you manage to get around them somehow, they’ll flip you off and suddenly find the speed to chase you to the ends of the earth to vent their frustrations out on you when you just wish they’d fucking move over a second ago.
Slipknot was right, People=Shit