There’s a longstanding bone of contention among US drivers about road rules and road etiquette on multi-lane highways. Since I rarely drive and have been told that my driving abilities clearly reflect that fact, I have shied away from this debate while silently harboring a strong opinion about it.

Sure, I mouth off to my close friends about my unpopular opinion, but outside of that, namely in online forums, I keep quiet. But no more. I was prompted by a random post in my social media feed (as one is) to articulate my thoughts and, once they coalesced, I realize that I have a stronger case than I gave myself credit for.

Here’s the reality: the speed-obsessed alpha drivers control this debate with an iron grip, as one would expect alphas to do: loudly and without a lot of thoughtfulness. The party line among “real drivers” is that slow drivers need to stay the hell out of the way and away from the left side of the highway. The subtext is that the Mr. Magoo-leaning motorists (like myself) really shouldn’t be on adult roadways at all, but they should at the very least make themselves as invisible as possible in the far right lane.

This is wrong. Or at least wildly hypocritical and incomplete. And I will tell you why.

Each talking point of “real drivers” begs its own question. Those talking points include: 1) drivers shouldn’t police the speed of other drivers: 2) the left lane is for passing; 3) police agree and will pull over slow drivers; and 4) drivers are obligated to go with the flow of traffic. (If I missed any, let me know.)

Drivers shouldn’t be policing the speed of other drivers

This is the most self-owning argument, so I probably should have saved it for last, but here goes. If your policy is truly that drivers should not police each other, why are you concerned with what lane the slow drivers are driving in? You are attempting to change their behavior as much as they are trying to change yours. This kicks the argument into another sphere entirely, which I will address below, but taken at face value, it’s pure hypocrisy.

The left lane is for passing

This one’s easy. Says who? At this point, the alpha drivers are quick to pull out the driver handbook and state laws. Unfortunately for them, these same documents provide SPEED LIMIT GUIDANCE that they are quick to assume has no application to them. Laws for me but not for thee? Got it.

Police agree with us and will pull over slow drivers

Being on the side of the police officer is a strictly contextual argument. The second that a cop pulls you over for speeding, you won’t be happy with the side they picked. Whatever.

Drivers are obligated to go with the flow of traffic

This is.a groupthink explanation. It has no inherent application to the argument. If the alpha drivers wandered into the Twilight Zone where everyone was going 30 miles per hour on open, unimpeded highways, do you think for one moment they would comply with the “when in Rome” policy? As tired as it is, I have to go with the parent’s perpetual query to their kids: if everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?

While I sit here satisfied that all the alpha driver arguments are sufficiently defanged, I realize that I have yet to make a case for going 65 in the left lane while everyone else is going 80 and zooming around me. I don’t actually advocate doing that. What it really boils down to is an apparent stalemate. The two groups of drivers each point out something potentially dangerous, rude, or illegal that the other is doing, and they’re both kinda right in their own ways. Kinda.

On some level, the alpha drivers with any self-reflection know this. But since the majority of drivers place a priority on speed over safety, it becomes accepted practice that we should all disregard one set of rules and treat the other set of rules as sacred, which “proves” that one side is correct. Far from it.

You may think that your going 80 or 90 miles per hour three lanes to the left of me is none of my business, and that it’s somehow the reciprocal of my going 65 miles per hour three lanes to the right of you, but guess what? Number one, only one of us is breaking the law, and number two, as soon as you have a speed-related accident and careen into my lane, it definitely becomes my business.

The inverse of this, from our primary axis of dispute, is that I am going 65 miles per hour in the left lane (the illegal thing you don’t like) and you are… doing what exactly? This is where I maintain that the alphas are fully incorrect on this argument. The only way you could be minding your own business AND complying with the law is if you were also going the speed limit, in which case I wouldn’t be impeding your progress and you wouldn’t have any grounds for being pissed at me in the first place. Even more confounding, if you were obeying the law, and all your fellow alphas were obeying the law, we would all be going the same speed.

So, to repeat the point I made above, the only way that you get to make this a legitimate argument is by demanding that I comply with the law while you break it. That hardly seems fair.

The “flow of traffic” is a BS argument that perpetuates dangerous driving by claiming that everyone driving above the speed limit established by law is safer because we’re all going dangerously fast together. What if everyone just drove the speed limit? And if you don’t think driving at the speed limit is important, why should I think your precious left lane that you like to barrel through like a maniac is important? It’s a real question.

My final point is this. Outside of the theoretical nature of this argument, I understand that in practice alpha drivers, by and large, aren’t interested in slower drivers being safe. They are singly focused on getting where they are going by any means necessary. Anecdotally, I know this to be true due to a circumstance that I frequently find myself in. Owing to various factors, I often find myself in the left lane for non-antagonistic reasons: an unconventional on-ramp that enters from the left, lane shifts, a legitimate passing lane pass of a driver who is even slower than I am, or something else. Then I am often stranded in the left lane while a series of alpha drivers zoom past me to the right, each madder than the last. The deal is, I would get over to the right lane if I had the speed and momentum, but nobody is courteous enough to allow me to get to the lane that matches my speed. It’s a stressful situation, and the isolating lack of compassion on the road is no fun at all.

Logically, experientially, and legally–in all these ways, the alpha drivers are incorrect. I am still forced to drive in their world, but they have to do all the rest of their existing in mine. If that doesn’t make sense to you, maybe you should slow down.