I just don’t understand it. If it’s 8pm and it’s not busy and there’s no traffic, why are you driving at 65mph in the 3rd lane on a 4 lane motorway? Or even just the second lane? If there’s no traffic for you to overtake why are you not in that lane?

48 comments

  1. Because they don’t know how to drive correctly or choose not to because they’re cunts.

  2. Because they’re fucking braindead cunts that need some refresher lessons. I’m left wondering this every single time I use a motorway.

  4. Because we don’t teach people how to drive on the motorways, they’re just expected to know how they work when they pass their test

  5. Two theories:

    1. They are worried that the left hand lanes are going to be used for junctions/lorries and they don’t want to get trapped
    2. Too many people drive on autopilot without actually thinking what they are doing. Brain says go one lane in from the “fast” lane so over they go.

    Add in poor observation skills, low confidence, a self centred attitude and no idea how a car actually operates in the physical world and you get a huge pile of shit drivers

  7. Too simplistic just to say ‘because they’re dickheads’ etc. I think for many drivers there’s a strong psychological link to the right lane being the ‘fast lane’. As a result by default they go into the right lane, even though a little awareness of the highway code or an assessment of the road conditions should inform them not to. Quite often lanes 1 and 2 flow much better because hardly anybody actually uses them.

  8. Little man syndrome.

    Also should have their license removed until they learn to use the roads properly.

  9. There’s also the reciprocal of that, ‘the lane enforcers’, or Theodore Million’s Sadistic Enforcer subtype.

    “Hostility sublimated in the “public interest,” cops, “bossy” supervisors, deans, judges; possesses the “right” to be pitiless, merciless, coarse, and barbarous; task is to control and punish, to search out rule breakers.”

    These are the idiots who tailgate you whilst you overtake at 60mph in the centre lane, instead of overtaking into an empty right lane.

  10. If it’s a smart motorway I no longer like driving in the left hand lane. Got too close for my liking to a broken down car one time in the slow lane, where the hard shoulder had been replaced with a smart lane. But I won’t dawdle in the second lane.

    Also on some sections of my commute, if I stayed in the left lane, it would actually spit me out at the next junction. You have to be in one of the 3 right hand lanes to actually stay on the motorway.

  11. Look at the age of people that do it, tends to be older people.

    I passed my test in 2012 and was never taken on a motorway, I’m not a complete idiot so I understood how motorways work but so many people (like most of my family) have no clue how roads work because their tests were drive around the block and wait for a man to jump out from behind a car telling you to emergency stop. My dad admitted to sitting tests for other people and someone he knows had 3 licences registered to different addresses.

    The amount of older people that don’t have a clue how to drive is worrying. But they’ll tell you how they’ve been driving for 40 years!

    I rarely have issue with the way younger people drive it’s always some middle aged man in one of those stupid fucking crossovers.

  13. You be surprised by the number of people that don’t even know middle lane hogging is illegal in the first place. They assume because they’re doing 10% beneath the speed limit that somehow makes them safer than anyone doing 70+. I’ve recently found a growing trend of people refusing to move out of the overtaking lane on dual carriageways when no one is on the inside as well. Then I have to make a conscious decision of staying behind them frustrated asf, or illegally undertaking them.

  14. In my opinion this crime should be punishable by instant execution, without trial. On the hard shoulder.

  15. I get the feeling people just assume at some point there is bound to be a lorry or caravan to overtake, or a junction coming up, so can’t be bothered going in and out of lane 1 risking getting stuck. I know it absolutely infuriates some people but the times I do see it, I just go round.

  17. I was thinking this when driving home last night. Many people in 3rd lane (4 lane sections of M6) doing 65mph. This is at 10pm when minimal people were on the road so definitely not overtaking.

    I then thought ‘lets ask Reddit’ but thought better of it cause everyone will claim it’s not them and people are selfish idiots. Yet, I saw no one actually moving over to the left other than myself so clearly 90% of people here are either oblivious to the fact it’s them or they’re lying. Then saw some idiot driving without lights on and no one was even flashing them to let them know. Just plodding along in their little bubbles like everything was fine.

    Standard of driving these days is on a dramatic decline.

  19. My reply to this is the same every time.

    I agree with the principle, but experience is that the left hand lane is ALWAYS congested with vehicles travelling less than 70mph.

    I will move over whenever I can spend more than, say, 20 seconds in the left-hand lane. But that is not very often on my journeys.

    There’s also 0% logic in weaving in and out of the left hand lane if there is no one behind you in the middle lane. Can someone explain to me what it achieves without using the phrase “Because that’s the highway code”?

  20. Same reason they don’t indicate same reason they go drive throughs same reason no one walks anywhere …….most(not all ) people are lazy entitled cunts

  21. While I agree with such comments as “braindead cunts”, I’ll just say that people simply don’t think. They get behind the wheel and enter autopilot mode in their heads. They don’t observe people and other cars around them, check mirrors, indicate, show politeness, or indeed consider their lane-age on a motorway. Until something bad happens, there’s nothing to trigger a commonsense pop-up in their heads that says “uhhmm, pay attention”.

  22. What BS! I near London close to M25 and M1, and I’m on them all the time, so I’m driving on busy motorways enough.

    What has changed is that almost all cars are at the same speed. And all lorries are at the same speed. Whether that’s speed limiters, or adaptive cruise control (or plain normal cruise control), the implication is that if you move into lane 1, then you can be waiting for miles until you can actually pull into lane 2, because a train of cars crawls past you blocking the lane.

    Much as I approve of moving into lane 1, it’s a f*’ing trap. So I don’t.

    A couple of decades ago, people all went at different speeds. If you had someone on your right, they would have moved on soon enough. That is not what it is now.

    If they actually wanted people to go into lane 1 by default, then they need to ban speed camera, speed limiters (esp. on lorries), so that lane 1 isn’t basically a way to get stuck.

  23. I use the left lane every time I don’t need to drive on any other lane.

    The main problem is that most people don’t seem to know the rules or just think they are alone on the road. They don’t care.

    Note that it’s the same phenomenon in France. I’ve recently crossed the country from Calais to Toulouse and it was just awful. People don’t know how to drive.

  24. I think it comes down to pure laziness.

    They fear being stuck behind an HGV, so they stick in the middle lane regardless of whether there’s a lorry in lane 1.

    It’s so rife though that I think if you’d never been told you must drive on the left unless overtaking, you’d just assume that it’s the correct way to drive.

  25. Because scary monsters jump out of the bushes if you drive too close to them at night

  26. My mum says “because I just like to stay in that lane and not have to change”. FFS

  27. Basic lack of consideration, followed by attempting to distort reality rather than admit they were wrong. Sadly it explains most shitty behaviour.

    My aunt says she can sit in the inside lane as “she is doing the speed limit” as if it is the job of motorists to enforce how others drive…

  28. Most drivers aren’t as good at driving as they think they are. Most adults aren’t as good at anything as they think they are, actually.

  30. It really annoys me, I’m driving in the left lane and I have to cross 3 lanes to overtake them or just ignore them and overtake them on the left

  31. Okay playing devils advocate here

    1. Its probably not as important to keep lanes open when there’s hardly any traffic on the road.

    2. If you’re driving on autopilot then staying in the lane farthest from the centre or side of the road maximises your allowed reaction time if you become distracted and veer off course

    3. Less chance of accidentally ending on a slip lane if not paying attention

  33. It’s getting worse.
    Folk are like ‘ I am in this lane and I am not moving’
    I was travelling down the M1 the other day and SO many middle lane hogs, damn dangerous. Selfish rude idiots.

  34. I often wonder what they are doing. But the same could be said for roundabouts. Unless the roundabout is marked different, the right lane is for anything past 12 o’clock, anything before that is usually left/middle lane and yet I often have to watch for someone on my left who has gone round with me and almost crashed as we both take the 3rd exit together.

  36. When I learned to drive many years ago, it was “discouraged” to drive in the left lane because a) Heavy lorries could create “tram-lines” which you car could/would follow so you would “weave about” a lot more b) The left lane was likelier to have random debris (small bits falling off lorries, larger bits sometimes falling off trailers etc) …..

  38. They feel like “the Lord of the Road”

    At some point the speed camera was invented. Later on the average speed cameras. Now we just need a “middle lane hoggers camera”. Sorted.

  39. It’s a big mix of things.

    I think there are a lot of people who love lane 2 because they don’t have to change lanes to overtake as much. We’ve all seen them merge onto the motorway and launch into lane 2 for literally no reason. I think they’re in the minority but it doesn’t help anyone because:

    Then you have the folks who are scared of lane 3 in case someone comes up their arse at 100mph, so even though they want to go faster, they sit behind the person in lane 2 and wait for them to get over.

    Then you have the people in fear of not being let out into lane 2 when they actually catch someone up and need to overtake, so it’s a “can’t beat them, join them” situation and they move over far too early.

    Then you have the folks who queue behind the person in lane 2 because they want to go faster but can’t yet get into lane 3. Instead of realising that their target speed is unachievable and they aren’t overtaking anyone they sit in lane 2 screaming at the guy in front to get over who is, in turn, screaming at the guy in front to get over who is, in turn, screaming at the guy in front to get over, etc.

    All added together and it means lane 1 is nearly empty for a significant portion of time, but we’ll never learn – queuing is too intrinsic.

  41. If there is no traffic then you drive in the left lane, but most of the time the left lane has people who think the speed limit is 50. Or you have people who join at 30 because they don’t understand. I prefer to drive at 70 as often as I can on dual carriageways and motorways, because I actually have places to go.

    My wife drives at 50mph on motorways and claimed she was having a heart attack when I drive at 70, its too fast for her narcissist brain apparently!

  42. For most cases it’s idleness, being in their own world, being a bit daft or being a poor judge of their relative speed to vehicles on the left lane.

    But a fair chunk of people genuinely believe the lanes are “slow”, “normal” and “fast” – so if they don’t identify as especially slow or fast, they think they’re actually meant to sit in the middle.

    Too many people drive like they got their licence out of a box of cereal.

  43. Super slow lane – lorries only
    Slow lane – not me! I’m doing 60!
    Normal lane – I’ll just sit here, I’m safe
    Fast lane – Look at all those boy racers glaring at me!

    What’s worse is when people do it on a dual carriage way. Sit in the right hand lane crawling past those in the left and never pulling in to let the queue behind them go

  44. Because they’re selfish cnuts and the prospect of having to move slightly to the right at some point is far too much like hard work.

  46. Because nobody wants to get stuck behind a lorry doing 15-20mph under the speed limit of cars. Many people thus choose to not use the left lane because they’re bound to get stuck behind one, and when trying to move lanes to overtake they can’t because there is no gap, and nobody will let them in because they’re going faster than them (even over the speed limit).

    In my opinion, the speed limits of lorries are outdated and need to be increased. They hold up a significant amount of traffic and cause congestion when they’re allowed to use 2 or 3 of the 3 or 4 lanes on a motorway, slowly passing eachother at 1mph difference and not pulling in again. This hinders the flow of traffic making our motorways congested, not to mention people needing to brake causes a wave effect of heavy braking behind them.

    The solution is to either ban lorries from using more than one lane or allow them to travel at the same speed as cars, then this issue would go away.

  47. This actually infuriates me. I’ll be chilling in the left lane, don’t want to undertake the idiot doing 65mph in the middle lane so I then have to go across two lanes to get past them.

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