Here’s a frustrating moment many Maryland drivers have experienced: It’s a busy day on the Baltimore Beltway or Interstate 95. Perhaps you are headed to work and the volume of traffic is high. Yet what’s really slowing things down? It’s that slowpoke in the left lane who won’t move right, won’t speed up with the flow of traffic and, as a result, is holding up a long line of cars.

That can be frustrating, it can be annoying and it can even represent something of a rolling safety hazard if it causes other commuters to act more aggressively and zigzag around the errant driver. But aside from raising blood pressure and motivating others to behave badly, how much of a danger does the slower motorist occupying the left lane really pose?

That’s an important question to ask now that the General Assembly appears to be moving forward with legislation to make it an offense to use the left lane for anything but passing other vehicles. In other words, the legislation would give police the authority to ticket drivers for holding up traffic by going too slow in the left lane — but only on highways with at least three lanes in one direction and not in HOV lanes, left exit lanes or when traffic is so heavy that passing isn’t feasible anyway. The price? A citation would carry a $75 fine on the first offense, $150 on the second and $250 after that.

Last month, the bill passed the House of Delegates on a 73-66 vote, and it may yet find support in the Senate before the legislature’s own clock runs out one week from today. Why? Because in these increasingly congested times, driver patience is wearing thin. Left-lane courtesy laws have been gaining favor in a lot of state capitals in recent years, some with fines even stiffer than the one House Bill 1451 proposes. Technically, Maryland already has a law on the books that governs passing and requires “overtaking” vehicles to pass on the left, but citations are uncommon and most often given by police to vehicles who fail to “overtake at safe distances.”

But the measure presents a number of problems. First, the “slow” vehicle might simply be going the speed limit. Should police be ticketing motorists for failing to exceed 55 miles per hour or even 65 mph? Second, enforcement will be challenging. Police would have to judge the context of the traffic situation; they can’t just set up roadside enforcement like it was speeding or red-light running. Even in states that have passed laws to crack down on this behavior, police have opted to issue far more warnings than actual citations.

Finally, and most important, is this really what lawmakers should be focused on? Nationwide (and in Maryland), traffic fatalities are on the upswing with an estimated 40,000 deaths on the road last year, a 6 percent rise from 2015. The culprit? It isn’t slow cars in left lanes. Part of the problem has been attributed to an increase in traffic volumes, but safety advocates also point to unsafe behaviors like speeding, drunk or impaired driving and distracted drivers using cellphones. It was an even worse year for pedestrians with nearly 6,000 killed in traffic, 11 percent more than the year before, which is the biggest one-year jump ever, according to a report released last week by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Lower gasoline prices, a stronger economy and distracted drivers as well as pedestrians were blamed for pedestrian deaths. But slowpokes in the left lane? Not so much.

That doesn’t make HB1451 a bad bill, it’s just not an especially consequential one. Two weeks ago, the House failed to approve traffic legislation that might actually have saved lives — making failure to wear a seat belt in the back seat a primary offense — apparently because some lawmakers were concerned police might use it to enforce immigration laws. Under the circumstances, it would be rather pitiful to go after left-lane discourtesies while ignoring the 166 unrestrained motorists who are killed each year in vehicle collisions on average in Maryland.

Want to get the slower traffic to move right? Perhaps it would be cheaper and easier to simply post more signs along the major highways offering drivers that simple instruction. It certainly can’t hurt, and in the meantime, legislators can put their energies into making Maryland roads safer instead of passing feel-good bills with minimal effect.