Speed limits
Traffic is light and the weather is clear, but you are driving well under the speed limit and cars are stacking up behind you. What does the handbook say about that?
- You can be cited for it, and you should move to the right. Correct answer
- You cannot be cited for driving under the limit; only speeding is a violation.
- You cannot be cited, but you must put on your emergency flashers to warn the traffic behind.
Why
Speed limits cut both ways in California. The handbook says that you may be cited if you drive faster or slower than the speed limit, and that you should not hold up the normal, reasonable flow of traffic by crawling. Its remedy is positional rather than numerical: when a driver behind you is close and wants to go faster, move to the right, and if you choose to drive slower than other traffic, stay in the right lane. Emergency flashers belong to a different job, warning drivers behind you about a hazard ahead or about your own vehicle trouble; the handbook does not list going slowly among the reasons to use them. On a two-lane road there is a harder version of this rule: with five or more vehicles behind you where passing is unsafe, you must use a turnout.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition. The correct answer is You can be cited for it, and you should move to the right.
The rule behind this one
California speed limits and the basic speed law goes through the whole topic, with the page of the California Driver's Handbook behind every rule.
In real life
More on speed limits
- You are on a California highway and there are no speed limit signs in sight. What is the maximum speed limit?
- Can a school zone have a speed limit lower than 25 mph?
- Near a railroad crossing where you cannot see far down the tracks, the limit is normally 15 mph. When may you drive faster than 15 mph there?
- Which of these does the handbook define as an alley?