  The traversal times for an electromagnetic pulse traversing a slab of
dispersive and dissipative material with negative dielectric permittivity
($\epsilon$) and magnetic permeability ($\mu$) have been calculated by using
the average flow of electromagnetic energy in the medium. The effects of
bandwidth of the pulse and dissipation in the medium have been investigated.
While both large bandwidth and large dissipation have similar effects in
smoothening out the resonant features that appear due to Fabry-P\'{e}rot
resonances, large dissipation can result in very small or even negative
traversal times near the resonant frequencies. We have also investigated the
traversal times and Wigner delay times for obliquely incident pulses and
evanescent pulses. The coupling to slab plasmon polariton modes in frequency
ranges with negative $\epsilon$ or $\mu$ is shown to result in large traversal
times at the resonant conditions. We also find that the group velocity mainly
contributes to the delay times for pulse propagating across a slab with n=-1.
We have checked that the traversal times are positive and subluminal for pulses
with sufficiently large bandwidths.
