I get very confused when seeing people talk about road etiquette on reddit. In many European countries, the left lanes are strictly for overtaking. If the lane on your right is free for a while then you need to move.
What I read on reddit is kind of the opposite: you ride on the most left lane, and if someone wants to overtake then you should make space.
Do you guys have a rule that says you should drive on the most right lane when not overtaking? If not, and if the road is not crowded, are the right lanes the first empty lanes?
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Depends on how many ramps there are and how blind they are. The general rule is to be in the right lane, but if there’s a lot of merging and you’re going through then it’s better to not be in that lane. A few rural areas been have left lane as the official rule unless you’re exiting soon
The laws vary by state.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/11nfza4/what_are_your_rules_regarding_driving_in_the_left/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/10vht8j/do_people_use_the_left_lane_to_pass_or_to_cruise/
If they’re going under the speed limit I will pass them
Depends on the state. In my state, California, slower traffic is supposed to use the right lane. Oftentimes traffic is enough that it’s not feasible to only use the right lane and then move left every time you want to pass.
Most freeways near me are three lanes and I tend to cruise in the middle to avoid merging vehicles.
Technically, the rules are the same as yours unless posted otherwise. In reality, everyone does what they want.
The problem is that there are clueless people who just drive in the left lane for no reason. Many states have laws that say the left lane is for passing only, but some people just drive there.
It’s certainly a *recommendation* to keep right everywhere. What the actual law says, varies. (as does enforcement of the law).
We have 50 sets of driving laws, not one.
> What I read on reddit is kind of the opposite: you ride on the most left lane, and if someone wants to overtake then you should make space.
This is generally not how most people drive. There are an annoying number who do in at least some areas, but it’s still not the norm/majority.
With that said, you will see a decent number of people ride the middle lane on a 3-lane highway. And in areas with lots of exits in a short distance the right lane may be a de-facto merge zone rather than a thru lane for anyone.
Also, shitty paving throws all the rules out the window. No one’s sitting in the lane full of potholes if the other lane’s in much better shape and traffic is light.
It may be a posted rule in some places, but everywhere else, it’s an unwritten rule that the left lane is the passing lane. I never heard of someone getting in trouble for cruising in the left lane though, other than a bunch of Hawaiian one-finger salutes.
Of course the laws vary by state but my general practice as someone that drives hundreds of miles on the interstate every month, I would say it’s good practice to stay in the right lane except to pass. If there are 3 lanes, then stay in the middle, the right lane would then be for preparing to get on or off the highway.
Remember that the United States is a union of fifty States.
Each State writes its own laws. There are two overarching themes:
* Slower traffic keep right
* Keep right except to pass
These *should* result in the same outcome, although structured differently.
In STKR States, the impetus is on the driver to recognize their speed relative to the traffic around them and to watch their rearview mirrors and move right to allow faster traffic to proceed unimpeded.
In KRX2P States, the impetus is on the driver to stay to the right until they approach slower traffic, at which point they move left to pass the slower traffic.
Regardless, the point is to keep traffic flowing. Whether the left lane is the “fast” lane or it’s the “passing” lane shouldn’t *really* matter. The result should be the same.
The problem is that these laws simply are not enforced. And so, faster traffic under whichever scheme are forced to pass to the right, which is less than ideal.
The frustrating rule that I see in CA is that if there is someone in front of you in the right lane going 55, and you are going 56, you should get in the left lane and take ten minutes to overtake the car in the right. It’s important to never speed up even if you see a long line of cars behind you pissed off because the speed limit is 70. Those people proudly brag about how speeding drivers are obnoxious and foolish.
It’s the same here. The left lane is for passing. Although, sometimes it’s for carpools (the HOV lane). Sometimes it’s for expressway toll users. Whether or not the left lane convention is written into law and how much it is enforced varies by state.
But also too, our highways are much larger than yours because we have far more people. The greater Los Angeles area alone has 18 million people, which is more people than most countries in Europe. The entire population of the Netherlands only has 17 million people. So, Los Angeles has 6-lane highways and traffic on a 6-lane highway isn’t just about the far left lane.
Do you guys even have 6-lane highways? (Go to China and the highways have even more lanes)
The lanes are on a spectrum from fast (to the left) to slow (to the right). So logically, if you wanna go fast, you’d stay somewhere around the left & yield if there’s some maniac trying to go even faster. And then some states have 1 strictly overtaking lane, some don’t