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Ark. Code Ann. § 27-51-301

Vehicles to be driven on right side of roadway — Exceptions

Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case Laime v. State (2001)

Most recently applied in Benjamin Ward Ledwell v. State of Arkansas (November 2019)

Acts 1937, No. 300, § 56; Pope's Dig., § 6714; A.S.A. 1947, § 75-607; Acts 1997, No. 854, § 1; 2013, No. 965, § 1; 2017, No. 707, § 350.

How often courts cite this section

199120002010201930
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Except as otherwise provided in this section, upon all roadways of sufficient width, a vehicle shall not be driven upon the left half of the roadway, except as follows: When overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction under the rules governing that movement;

(2) When the right half of a roadway is closed to traffic while under construction or repair;

(3) Upon a roadway divided into three (3) marked lanes for traffic under the rules applicable thereon;

(4) Upon a roadway designated and signposted for one-way traffic;

(5) When the right half of the roadway is in disrepair or is in an otherwise undrivable or unsafe condition; or

(6) When a vehicle is preparing to exit the roadway on the left.

(7) Motor vehicles shall not be operated continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway whenever it impedes the flow of other traffic.

(8) The Arkansas Department of Transportation may designate certain multilane highways or portions of multilane highways as prohibiting continuous driving in the left lane except in those instances described in subsection (a) of this section.

(9) For those multilane highways or portions of multilane highways described in subdivision (c)(1) of this section and designated by the department, the department shall erect periodic signs along the multilane highway or portion of the multilane highway that notify the public of the prohibition.

Current official text: Arkansas General Assembly. Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Arkansas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.