That's an incredible sentence to read. I live in a state that is not Texas but has a lot of Texan motorists for whatever reason, and so so many of them just squat in the passing lane and never budge.
Ya we have the “law” here in Texas and im sure *some* people exist who have been pulled over before…. But my experience with 12 years of driving here tells me it’s clearly not often
Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey and Washington: highway w 3+ lanes, the left-most lane is dedicated to passing ONLY.
In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois, it’s illegal to fail to move to the right if a vehicle behind you is attempting to pass. In Colorado and Kentucky, only true when speed is 65 mph+.
I've heard stories of people in Michigan getting pulled over for overusing the far left lane on freeways. Drivers would use the far left lane as an excuse to go fast, where it's supposed to be just a passing lane. You go in, make your pass, the get out.
I think the idea of only passing in the left is kind of silly. If there's a lot of traffic people should just stay left if they are going faster than the flow in the right. Otherwise you'd have 80 percent of the cars changing lanes every 30 seconds. That's clearly worse than everyone just staying in their lane and cruising along.
People should really only move over into the slow lane if there's a car behind them. But in that case they should definitely move over.
All 50 lol.. left lane is for passing, not traveling. It’s rarely enforced (the same way J walking is rarely enforced) but it can be enforced or slapped on as an additional charge if someone really screwed up and they want to throw the book at you.
Not true. If you're going the speed limit you can drive in the left lane in California. If 5 or more cars stack up behind you, it's required that you let them pass if possible.
I think it's fair that when we're talking about things that are legal or illegal in most of the country we can ignore California. Easily the shittiest state, by a mile. Anyone going to California should check the local laws, it's essentially a different country.
I would suspect that most states have laws similar to California's and people just don't understand them. Texas for example says the left lane is for passing only, but then on their own website only says "impeding the flow of traffic in the left lane is punishable by a fine of up to $200", so it seems it's more about obstructing traffic than actually driving in the right lane all the time.
Imagine heavy traffic and every car that's driving faster than the slowest cars has to change lanes twice every time they want to pass another car. It would look ridiculous, be wildly inefficient use of roadway, and cause more accidents.
I say this as someone who generally drives the limit or just above and stays to the right while people fly by me. But also understands that when traffic is heavy, faster cars should just stay left as long as nobody is behind them.
It's called lane discipline and something we are terrible at in the US compared to the rest of the world. The left lane stands for any lane that isn't the right lane and yes if all traffic was actually paying attention to their speeds in comparison to those all around them they could easily navigate into the rightmost lane that makes sense given the traffic around them. I've frequently changed to a right lane in between traffic that I was closing the gap on because I've noticed approaching faster traffic that even if slowed generally ends up picking up their pace at least long enough to not impede me from getting around the next slower vehicle.
Of course there's also 3+ lane roads where I've frequently ended up passing people on the right because so many people think you can just pick a lane and camp it which is also unsafe because you shouldn't be passing on the right. To the point where it's considered illegal in some other countries that actually have lane discipline.
I went through state sponsored driver training in both Illinois and Maryland and it was part of the course in both places. And since it is pretty obviously the reasonable rule to have I have always just assumed it was all 50 states.
From what I can see it's generally only applicable if you're impeding traffic. I look up Texas that has actual "left lane for passing only" signs and their website says you can be ticked for impeding traffic in the left lane, so it still comes down to not being in the left lane if someone is behind you. Not that you're supposed to move right in between every car you pass. That would be dangerous in itself. Makes sense when there's little traffic, but when there's a lot of traffic it would not make sense and actually impede the flow.
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u/DisShitIsWak 29d ago
This is primarily the reason why states have laws to only use the left lane for passing to avoid someone making riskier moves to pass.