I think of this as I drive 30ish miles each way to work. 5 miles of surface roads, 19 miles of interstate (2 lanes each way), and 6 miles of surface (2 lanes each way). One cause for increased construction is the need for more capacity. My frequent lament is poor driving habits. We have regular instances of sub-optimal speeds in both lanes. A 65 mph limit and vehicles driving 55mph in both lanes, frequently with 1/4 of open lane ahead. Vehicles behind begin to crowd and we experience the slinky effect. After 3 years we add another lane. And the cycle continues. Driver education used to emphasize keeping right except to pass. I think this isn't taught anymore.
I recently drove around Spain for 2 weeks. My first significant international driving experience. I was shocked at how seriously they took the rule of only passing on the left. Every single car in the right line was driving slower than every single car in the left.
It made driving so much better. The behavior of every car was basically predictable. I've never seen anyone pay much attention to their lane here.
In the UK it's actually not illegal: it's just advised against, and considered bad form in most situations by most drivers. And, of course, if you cause an accident by undertaking the police will (rightly) throw the book at you.
Examples where it's considered acceptable to undertake:
- In heavier or queuing traffic inside lanes might move faster than outside lanes: this is OK, and it's considered better and safer to stay in lane than keep changing lanes to overtake.
- Motorcycles filtering through traffic, which generally occurs between the middle and outside lane on motorways. Where gaps are bigger motorcyclists will often move from the outside to middle lanes to get around slow moving vehicles in the outside lane. Again, this tends to apply when traffic is heavier.
If you do it on a reasonably clear road to get around someone hogging an overtaking lane, and the police see you, they're going to pull you over and give you a fixed penalty notice for careless driving though. I know this from experience.
Interesting. On the A1M heading to and from Peterborough I've also seen them flash and pull people over for lane hogging so at least they're enforcing it both ways.
Super annoying when you're cruising along in the inside lane and then have to cross the entire width of the carriageway to overtake some clown hogging the middle lane: always feels a bit risky, especially if there are vehicles coming up from behind in the outside lane.
Same when you get someone who's pulled out to overtake a lorry but can't be bothered to pull in again even though the next vehicle they'd overtake is hundreds of metres ahead of them.
there is a certain cynicism regarding traffic laws in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection or to give the police an excuse to pull you over, absent any real safety concern. in my state, for example, it is against the law to have anything dangling from the rearview mirror. if I so much as forget to take down my parking permit in the morning, I can be pulled over at any time.
fwiw, I take traffic flow very seriously. I will always move over if I notice someone driving close behind me.
> in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection
That's not a US only phenomenon. For example, in the UK there is a - somewhat justified - suspicion that some speed[1] cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with revenue raising.
[1] Ahem, sorry, I mean "safety" not "speed", obviously.
just wanted to add some context for the EU readers who I (perhaps mistakenly) assume have a bit more respect for government and for traffic laws in particular.
the US has a somewhat fraught history with traffic laws. by default, police are not really allowed to stop you for no reason and possibly search your vehicle/person. of course, this is very inconvenient for police, so over the years many traffic offenses have been created to remedy this. if a cop wants to (legally) pull over the most upstanding citizen in the country, all they have to do is follow them on the road for a mile and they'll have a reason.
Like many other things in the Highway Code there may be no specific offence for failing to follow it but the police have enough freedom with fixed penalty notices making disregarding the rules an ill advised activity.
The problem with undertaking for me is that it reduces options when you need them the most.
If I'm in the middle lane doing 70mph and thinking "I can't pull into the inside because that car is only 30 foot off my bumper", that driver deciding to keep up with me at 70mph or undertaking reduces my outs in the event of a tyre blowout or other incident (e.g. a broken down car or debris in the middle lane ahead).
Where there is a dynamic hard shoulder or all-lane running, options become fewer still and the chance of a problem even higher.
And then there are the lorries on the inside of a 50mph average speed check contraflow undertaking in narrow lanes at 0.25mph more than the outside lane - that's just an accident waiting to happen.
I've also been on the outside lane overtaking somebody who was doing 65mph in the middle lane with an empty inside lane who as I moved to overtake sped up. Not undertaking: just blocking me from moving past and back into the middle lane.
I then had a boy racer come in behind me at 90mph and have to throw the anchor out whilst flashing his lights at me, and my options are basically "hope for the best". We were on a relatively tight corner for a motorway (it's that horrid section of the M60 that runs through Stockport), so deciding to accelerate to get out of this would have meant potentially losing control of the car, and the guy in the middle lane was likely going to pin me there anyway...
For me then - especially in the narrow lanes of UK motorways - it is not just about using middle and outside lanes for passing only, there is a responsibility of the drivers on the inside to allow that to happen and give those around them enough options if they need them, and not doing so should be considered just as much a case of careless driving as undertaking in most other scenarios.
Perhaps worse in terms of consistency. Private drivers education, public school drivers education, or uncle Bob can just teachya!
The testing is remarkably pathetic. It's impressive this system works as well as it does. Red light runners, meh, just fine them! Pot smokers, fine and imprison them even if they weren't near a vehicle!
My experiences of driving in Italy point to a slight disregard for the law in that case - I've never seen more egregious undertaking than I have on the motorways there... .
I used to hold that position too, but then I realized a couple things that could fill several books. It boils down to the fact that the USA was essentially first to build a road network based on assumptions of low population density, high abundance and first to access requisite resources; and assuming a civilized society with a baseline of standards, culture, and customs that were essentially tacit and implicit to the system without having to be regulated or explicitly managed.
If you are European, although the significantly increased government control of its population will mitigate things somewhat, reality is that as Europe has now imbued itself with third world people and the customs and proclivities they carry, the road behaviors will also change even more than they clearly have, as anyone who has driven in Europe for more than 20 or so years, can attest to.
And before anyone gets triggered on some conditioned and well trained pavlovian assumptions, what I described above was equally observable when East Germans started meshing with West Germany, where after 55 years of having been exposed to relentless psychological engineering to break East Germans of their German-ness and proclivities and identity, they lacked what are commonly understood to be certain German traits and preferences for methodical order, systematic structure, and social courtesy; all of which the East Germans had far less of a connection to. That led to a lot of poor driving on roads and that has really not changed all that much either since as anyone who spends any distinct time on West German Roads and East German roads can attest to, even though the impact is being muddled by things like Polish drivers in East Germany and increasingly foreign drivers from all over the place.
Essentially it also comes down to the fact that now people with drivers licenses from various other European countries with lower driving standards, are also just allowed to drive in Germany without having to meet the far higher German driving class standards. It's yet another way in which democracy itself is being utterly disassembled, as foreign minorities are advantaged over native majorities … a total in version of democracy and even basic morality and ethics.
As for the USA, things have gotten so bad in many states that just ignoring the overcapacity of most of the road system due to unfettered and uncontrolled invasion by foreigners driving on US roads, you now have a whole ethnic driving license racket going on where an ethnic communities pass their own in spite of essentially not passing or being safe drivers.
I know that is not what people here want to hear, but reality simply is that this whole system is failing and it is failing due to deliberate bugs intentionally injected, and instead of fixing those bugs, people are just covering them up and making excuses and using ever mounting number of hacks to obscure and hide the ever more brittle system. It's quite telling that even in this kind of forum no one seems to understand that they are looking at a totally broken system and one that is failing at every increasing speed; all while willfully ignoring the inevitable cascading and total failure.
So many aspects about driving in the US are so terrible.
The road conditions are pretty bad, and what i would like to understand are the gas taxes and other taxes which ostensibly go into road infra.
We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going?
Some countries have high vehicle costs and their roads to me seem pristine and perfect by comparison. Specifically in fresh memory is both Singapore and Hong Kong.
The condition of their roads just seem to be flawless.
In the US we even have potholes jokingly having birthdays thrown for them, gas prices include large per gallon taxes and road conditions never appear to improve - and yearly reports of “crumbling infrastructure” and “deteriorating dangerous bridges” keep coming out.
California comes in second on the list of states with the highest gas tax at 72.76 cents per gallon. Rising fuel prices and increased taxation are the primary reasons for this.
A law that was passed in 2017 allowed the state of California to increase the gas tax by a steep 12 cents, because it seemed like the most viable way to obtain the funds needed to replace several bridges and fund other important road projects.
You can expect the state’s gas tax to increase further by 7.5 cents per gallon in a few months.
We consume 10% of the US’ gas consumption i. California.
We consume more than 40 million gallons per day. There are opaque additonal taxes on each gallon sold at the nearly 9,000 gas stations and billions in taxes are also missing.
That is a very low gas tax. In Germany it's €2.47 per gallon/ €0.65 per liter.
Edit: Your numbers for california amount to about $10.6B per year - and the transportation budget for california for the current fiscal year is $23.5 billion [0]. So the tax pays for less than half of the costs.
Singapore and Hong Kong are both in areas which never experience freezing. The act of freezing and thawing of water in temperate climates is super harsh on roads - as water will seep into cracks and then expand when it freezes. It's the main reason why many roads are bad in many US cities like Chicago.
Another reason might be due to regulations. I faintly recall hearing that European highways are built on an 18" base, whereas the US only a 12" base, but I'm sure it varies...
Given that Singapore and Hong Kong are cities I would imagine that both of them have a much higher population density per road mile. Indeed, a quick search brings up unconfirmed numbers which indicate road per capita for the total US exceeds that of Singapore by an order of magnitude.
I'm not sure what it's like in Spain but, in France, if you hog the outside lane you will get flashed and beeped at. French drivers do not tolerate lane hogs at all and generally manifest excellent lane discipline: I wish the UK were more like that.
It's not simply against social norms: in (some/most?) European countries you can get a ticket for hogging the left (fast) lane. You are supposed to move over, if traffic allows.
I've started driving again after a couple of years off, and it still astounds me that people lane hog the middle lane.
I don't know if it's laziness, ego, or fear of motorways but it should be taught as a rule. I usually make it a point to overtake and then, if possible, go straight back across to the left lane. Highly doubt the hogger is paying any attention, but I feel more content feeling like I've taught something...
Still amazing still motorway driving isn't taught or tested at all (I think? Been quite a while since I got my license).
As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there's a lot less hogging in 2 lane scenarios, which I why I try and find A roads now rather than motorways.
I drive when and where I feel comfortable. Usually at or slightly below the speed limit. I'm mostly optimizing for making the minimum number of lane changes once I get on the motorway. Preferably that means as soon as I get on the motorway switching to whatever lane will take me directly to the exit. A lot of people do what you do. Doesn't bother me a bit. My logic is no one is really actually getting anywhere any faster anyway. They're just increasing risk for barely any benefit. Changing lanes seems to me like the most likely time to have an accident, so the people who insist that driving at the speed limit isn't fast enough and that they must change a lane to go around me and then change back again taking a small risk twice for the privilege are just impatient.
As the old saying goes "everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, everyone who drives faster than you is crazy".
Fun fact: I also take routes that minimize the number of times I have to turn into oncoming traffic and/or judge gaps where the landscape gives poor visibility of the traffic, so long as the detour is no more than a few minutes.
I drive at the speed limit as well - the number of people you see doing 60mph in the middle lane though is worrying. I see that as the dangerous thing (and would argue that it inherently makes changing lanes more dangerous as you have 3 trafficked lanes, rather than 2 with a usually empty middle).
If you stick to the middle when the slow lane is even going faster than you, that's definitely the time to move over.
My aim is to be a good road citizen and obey by rules and convention to ensure everyone's journey is smooth, not only my own.
If you think of the lanes as one driving lane and the others as overtaking lanes like they do in the UK or some other countries then there is no conception of slow or fast lane and there are no people going slower in the overtaking lanes, or someone with a faster car just hogging the outside lane. They have to move over always.
It’s a trade off. You can’t neatly organize ox, a guy pulling a heavily loaded cart, an ox driven cart, a bicycle, a scooter, a motorcycle, a rickshaw, a car, and a heavily loaded truck which is probably overcapacity.
You can certainly neatly organize those. First of all, ox and horsecarts don't even really need tarmac, and so in many countries where these means of transportation persist, they are only allowed to use the earth surface parallel to the road. Scooters should be expected to do the same, as even the cheap Chinese motorbikes found throughout the developing world have tires thick enough for earth or even sand.
If you’ve been to India, you will see that there is no earth surface parallel to the road in many places. It’s a path that is two lanes wide, maybe a little longer, and everything is negotiable. It may be possible to reign it in with China style authoritarian rule, but Indian culture is not like that in my experience. Although perhaps it would result in a safer environment.
I've also noticed (around Costa Blanca) how seriously they take tailgating (I mean it as a positive thing). As soon as there was a slow car in the left lane there was another literally 2 meters behind it... I tend to tailgate left lane hogs but I wouldn't ever go so close for safety reasons. In 0-2 minutes, the slow car is merging right.
I wonder if those two are related.
Where I live (Los Angeles), all the lanes are filled all the time. There is no passing lane, so it doesn’t matter which lane you drive in. The skill that is important for drivers to have is the zipper merge, because those are happening all the time as fully utilized lanes merge and split.
I am actually usually pretty impressed with LA drivers. Most respect the zipper merge.
Most. Maybe 1/10 are that prick that believes you merging in front of them is an affront to their pride, and opts to block you from entering or exiting the freeway. I see this most on the 10, but also on the 110 going from pasadena to downtown when you have to merge over 3 lanes to stay on the freeway then merge back 3 lanes to get on the 10 west.
I wouldn't let it bother you too much.. For every prick like that theres another prick like myself who is willing to smash up their front bumper with the rear of my vehicle to make a point. Interestingly, they always cede your right of way when you don't hesitate.
Ah, I recall as a young man when the guy in the shiny SUV would try to cut you off because they had a bigger vehicle.
I felt like I could tell the moment when they realized that the repairs on their car would be more expensive than my entire car, and slink back into their lane.
Everyone talks tough on the internet but when it comes down to it basically everyone will avoid an accident because regardless of who's fault it would be it's still a massive pain in the ass and the proliferation of dash-cams has much reduced the opportunities to be a dick and make the other guy pay.
if you hit the back of someone's car, you're almost certainly paying regardless. you would have to prove they were intentionally brake checking you or something like that.
In some states you basically have a legal obligation to drive defensively and there's shared fault, even for what could sensibly be considered entirely the fault of one party.
Oh man particularly from the 110 to the 5 south - that one lane change - there is _always_ one person go tries to skip the line and merge at the very end, only to get stuck, and cause a massive hangup. That line of cars is ~30 long, so 1 in 10 is perfectly high enough for it to be broken all the time.
The benefits of zipper merge don't materialize fully unless merging lanes match speed approaching the merge point.
The parent is likely talking about situations like those presented where a relatively less dense (and ending) lane is merging into a fully-loaded thru-lane, and the traffic in the relatively less dense lane, rather than matching speed and finding the tooth-gap correspondence that's implied in the name zipper merge, zooms as quickly as possible to the last merge point, and then either cuts in without having negotiated a corresponding gap (causing the traffic column in the thru-lane to brake dramatically) or ends up having to slow/stop until an opportunity presents itself (causing a build-up in the ending lane). Or maybe even the latter and then the former.
So, yes, there is "no line" in the zipper merge. There are two lines. And yes, you are supposed to merge at the very end.
But if that's where the thinking/behavior stops, then the parent is right to complain. Drivers who are not matching speed before the merge point are not doing a zipper merge.
At the risk of sounding cold hearted: I get that it doesn't seem fair, but logically, it's the right call to drive to the end of the lane.
1) It keeps the rules simple. If we should merge at some arbitrary point before the lane is up, it will always be arbitrary, and different drivers will have different opinions.
2) By getting to the end and slowing down, the driver now has matched the speed of traffic. It's a self correcting problem.
3) Not going to the end of the lane is wasting capacity. If it's 4 lanes reducing to 3, how far back is it fair to expect that ending lane to go unused?
4) For on ramps, it gives more cars the chance to merge at once, which will either help the flow of traffic, or quickly reach equilibrium with the through lane.
5) And finally, if everyone always used the full lane, it wouldn't give "cheaters" the opportunity to pass everyone else and cheat.
>causing the traffic column in the thru-lane to brake dramatically
Theoretically, where the car merges doesn't have any bearing on this occurring or not. It shouldn't be any different at the beginning of the lane or the end. If traffic isn't moving, there's no breaking to be had. If it is, it should only give better opportunity to match speed and merge without disruption. Practically, the problem has as much to do with the aggression of the through lane drivers as it does the merging one.
They certainly have the right of way. I'm just saying that where the merging driver comes over doesn't really change any of that, unless the through traffic is behaving differently in response.
>Theoretically, where the car merges doesn't have any bearing on this occurring or not. It shouldn't be any different at the beginning of the lane or the end.
It’s a scheduling problem where people that join the lane early are starved by the people joining late.
In cases where there is roughly an equal exchange of vehicles between two lanes it doesn’t matter much, and maybe that’s the norm where you are.
Where I am, congestion is more localized to chokepoints where too many people need to use an exit or on ramp. In this case if time matters it’s usually better to be aggressive and merge at the last minute rather than be passive and get in line early.
People may think you are a jerk. For people where it’s important not to be thought of badly, they get in line first. For people who don’t care (or occasionally for other reasons) they skip the line and merge late.
On paper, maybe the zipper is excellent. In practice, with prideful LA drivers, its a shit show. I know the maneuver the previous commenter described, it only leads to pain.
- everyone effectively stopped in the exit lane has to stop for even longer
- everyone in the thru traffic lanes has to deal with this person merging all the way from the left to the right with no blinker, then coming to a stop in the right most thru lane desperately trying to force themselves into the exit lane, usually driving over the gut in the process
- the end result is the entire freeway becomes even more backed up because this one person couldn't think more than 1 exit ahead, or worse, they convinced themselves that risking a brutal death like this is worth the 20 seconds it saved them
In times of congestion, the conditions rarely exists for very long which would allow both lanes to match speed before the merge point. The simplest rule is to use as much road as possible. It’s less than ideal 10% of the time, but 90% of the time it’s the inevitable result of too many cars.
> In times of congestion, the conditions rarely exists for very long which would allow both lanes to match speed before the merge point.
I see these conditions frequently in LA. Either two merging lanes are highly congested in which case they are moving at roughly the same speed anyway, or there's one congested lane and one less dense lane.
The latter case shows up at almost every onramp when traffic gets thick, so it's pretty common. It doesn't take any special skills to negotiate well: accelerate to the speed of thru traffic and proceed to the end of the lane looking for a gap to match with. If you feel like it or just don't want the people behind you who don't understand this to feel impatient, accelerate to maybe an additional 30% above matched speed, then slow down to matched speed and look for a gap as the end of the lane gets close.
Every once in a while you see the reverse situation, where for some reason the merging lane is thick and the thru lane is moving at speed. That is indeed a really difficult situation. Thankfully it's rarer.
> The simplest rule is to use as much road as possible.
Yes, stopping is pretty much inevitable after a certain density of cars has been reached. In an ideal situation, where all cars have the same acceleration and deceleration, drivers are aware and allow zipper merging and don't tailgate, it would happen more smoothly.
But that isn't the world we live in, so at the end of the day, the simplest rule is to use as much lane as possible and take turns merging.
Sorry, to be clear, if you don't know that road, the person is breaking the law and driving over a very very large shoulder. They cross into a slashed white zone. You're absolutely right otherwise, but in this case, it's one very wide lane for some reason, and so people try to shoot around each other, causing chaos. If it was two lanes it would be fine, but it's a weird overpass / junction madness. I didn't mean "that one weird lane change", I meant "that weird one-lane change", heh.
That's actually mandated by law in Germany (Reißverschlussverfahren). Took me a few years of driving in other countries to realize that wasn't universal.
Where was it I read the zipper merge is not recommended in the U.S. because Americans are too adversarial to understand it, and so it usually makes things worse.
I have a similar commute and experience the same thing. People dragging along in left and middle lanes. This winds up aggravating selfish and entitled road rage types who then proceed to tailgate and forcibly cut across to get around these people.
One thing about driving, it's the closest we get to bellum omnium contra omnes. You don't see the other vehicles as an extension of the driver, a person, but rather a singular inhuman being you want to fight. People lose their humanity on the road.
> I think this isn't taught anymore.
Driver instruction is a joke here in the USA. I got my license around 2001 in NYC. The test was 20 brain dead questions such as "what sign is this: [school crossing]" and you look up and on the wall is a huge PSA poster of the school crossing sign with the slogan "Schools open. Drive carefully." So they practically gave the answers away. Driving school is optional and all they do is show you an hour long video that nobody watched which the proctor turned off after 15 min. Then you drive around the neighborhood for a half an hour with two others and an instructor a few days. No rules of the road, no etiquette, no nothing. The tests should be much harder, rules and etiquette drilled. The bar must be raised.
I'll give the CDL (commercial Drivers License) more credit. It's the equivalent to what I think is an HGV license in Europe. Though I never got the license I took the test for class A with as many endorsements as I could(tank, hazmat, and doubles/triples). Quite challenging and you have to know how some of the systems on the truck work such as air brakes. I failed it the first go as I thought I knew better but some old terminology tripped me up.
I was surprised to read this in the California DMV driver handbook:
"If you can choose among
three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving."
When I learned to drive (in the UK), the official guidance was to stay in the left-most lane except when overtaking. And then, after overtaking, to immediately return to the left lane.
I've noticed while driving in the US that American highway exits seem to be designed differently than those in the UK. The rightmost lane of three-lane highways will often become the exit lane, so if you stick to the rightmost lane you'll frequently need to switch lanes to your left to stay on the road. In the UK, in contrast, the exit lane is usually the new lane, and you have to switch lanes to get into it.
So instead of constant lane switching, use the middle lane for going straight ahead, and the leftmost lane for passing.
That depends on the region and age of the road. In more rural areas where the freeways are newer things are much more consistent and usually just as you'd expect. In older areas like New York or California where many of the freeways predate the Federal Interstate system, and where lane expansions, lane extensions, and exits have grown far more organically, there are inconsistent designs (although often consistent within the time period) and even bizarre, one-off stuff.
California didn't even adhere to Federal Interstate guidelines for exit numbering until relatively recently (sometime in the early to mid 2000s, IIRC), decades after most other states. California's scheme predated the Federal Interstate system and they weren't keen on changing it.
Only tangentially related, but New Jersey has a special case of this. It used to be all in on "jug-handles" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jughandle), where you would need to be in the rightmost lane in order to make a "left" turn. But they have also built intersections that have the standard left turn lane, on the left. You only know which one it is as you approach the intersection, then either need to get all the way to the left or right. Always a fun surprise!
>California's scheme predated the Federal Interstate system and they weren't keen on changing it.
Massachusetts is about to embark on a project to renumber all of their exits per federal mandate. The consensus is that the only way they can take "exit 17"[1] from us is by lasering it out of our brains. I know people who are planning a guerilla renumbering campaign for this sign after it is harmonized.
Back when Connecticut re-numbered the highways they struck a deal where they'd re-number the highways as the signs were replaced to save money. Massachusetts being Massachusetts they'll inevitably find a way to replace all the signs three or four times to maximize the number of favors they can do for the well connected people in the relevant industries.
That feels pretty legit to me. I don't remember reading that, but when I drive a car and I've got more than 2 lanes to choose from, I usually end up in the middle. The right lane always has people merging, either to enter or exit, or trucks lumbering along at 45. The left lane always has someone wanting to do 90 in a 55. Middle is the smoothest, from a traffic flow perspective.
On a motorcycle it's all about riding between the left-most and its neighbor. More cars expect you there because most motorcycles ride there, so they make more room. The next lane-line is a death trap, from cars in the second lane moving over for a motorcyclist over there.
"The right lane always has people merging, either to enter or exit, or trucks lumbering along at 45."
Interesting perspective. I feel a little differently:
- cars meeting to enter shouldn't affect you, because it's their responsibility to get to the right speed and time their entry to a gap; an entering car should never cause you to need to change speed or direction
- an exiting car shouldn't affect you, because there's usually no reason for them to slow down before exit
- you can overtake the slow trucks when you encounter them: just change lanes to overtake, and then pull back into the right lane afterwards
Driving in the middle lane is optimal from each driver's own perspective but, globally, it reduces road capacity and increases journey times.
People merging onto the highway are supposed to reach highway speed before attempting to merge, but they very often do not do that.
And they're supposed to to find a gap, but there may not be one or other drivers may deliberately try to deny them one.
The merging lane may be very short.
The merging car may start to change lanes even if it's not safe to do so.
Congestion may require more deliberately courteous behavior.
The right lane often has many trucks clustered together and rote exercise of the keep-right rule will require an excessive amount of lane changing.
And on a limited access highway, lane changing is the most dangerous routine maneuver so one should be thoughtful of balancing lane changing with expediency.
And the idea that a driver has no responsibility to accommodate another merging driver, if applied strictly, also means that one cannot always leave the right lane at will, because driver in the left lane are not permitting. So you change speed a lot, which is rough on fuel efficiency and precludes cruise control if it's adaptive.
Being religious about keep-right is kind of miserable on a congested highway, especially one with a differential of speed speed limits depending on vehicle type. The people most steadfast about traffic laws get punished at the pleasure of people who flout them, which doesn't seem correct.
"The people most steadfast about traffic laws get punished at the pleasure of people who flout them, which doesn't seem correct."
Exactly. Each person acting in their own self-interest causes a reduction in road capacity and longer journey times. Those who try to stay in the right-most lane that's going their speed don't gain anything for themselves, as they only increase road capacity for people behind them.
That's a bit of a cherry pick. I don't disagree with upholding the principle of the social good.
But two things.
Tragedy of the commons. You're arguing that some drivers should elect to have poor travel times to, frankly, accommodate those who are breaking the law. Maybe the law should be changed (different speed limits are bad) and more zealously enforced.
Second, your greatest responsibility on the road is safety and accident avoidance, not expediency. It is not defensible to change lanes or refuse to accommodate another driver when it may cause an accident that could have been avoided. Changing lanes or refusing to accommodate is least safe when there is a lot of congestion.
I don't know the best way to drive. I don't always obey the law and neither do I only do those things that give me individually an immediate. Mostly, I try to be safe and not instigate road rage.
But I don't think it's as simple as you're suggesting, either. You absolutely have to drive in a way that anticipates that others are acting selfishly. It's part of avoiding accidents.
- I'm not saying that minimising your own journey time should be your only or main objective
- I'm not saying that minimising other people's journey time should be your only or main objective
My observation (no judgment) is that we'd each like less traffic in front of us, but it's most convenient for us to drive in a way that slightly increases traffic for those behind us.
Whether this is good or bad, I don't know. On the 280 and 101, it's common to see cars driving 80+, when the posted speed limit is 65. Perhaps better lane discipline would increase those speeds and make the roads less safe...
But they do, because when they don't it's potentially your life on the line.
> an exiting car shouldn't affect you
But they do, because there's always a reason.
> just change lanes to overtake, and then pull back into the right lane afterwards
I look at the act of driving on the freeway as gambling with my life. Every single action I take (or don't) has the potential to kill me. This is anecdotal, so I'm happy to take actual facts and change my opinion, but I see a much higher order of accidents (or near misses) caused by changing lanes than I see from people staying in their lane. My conclusion is that staying in a lane is inherently safer than drifting from lane to lane based on its occupancy level.
> Driving in the middle lane is optimal from each driver's own perspective
I generally stay in the middle lane when the load on the freeway is low to moderate. When the load is high it doesn't matter which lane you're in; they're all sub-optimal. But if there are so many people driving in the middle lane that journey times are increased, then people will start to pass more often and the lanes will even out. If they don't, then you're in high load.
> it reduces road capacity
It doesn't reduce road capacity. It could reduce road capacity utilization, but if you're hitting that point then the utilization has already taken a hit, and driver patterns change to utilize the road more fully (for better or worse).
Ultimately the lane choice of each driver doesn't matter, because drivers won't sit in bumper to bumper traffic with a wide open lane next to them.
In fact, changing lanes reduces road capacity utilization. For the duration of the lane change and for a short period before and after the car is effectively taking up two cars places (their place in the old lane and the new).
You need a gap between cars to stop them colliding due to speed variation. I've heard that all cars on LA roads go at the same 0mph, so I guess you don't need a gap.
Wait a sec, you drive on the opposite side of the road in the UK, so the advice to stay in the left lane except for overtaking is the equivalent of the advice here to stay to the right, or out of the left lane except when passing.
"is the equivalent of the advice here to stay to the right"
Yeah, but the advice in the California DMV handbook is to stay in the middle, not the right.
The difference is that, in the UK, the middle lane is explicitly only for overtaking. If you're going the same speed as the cars in the left lane, you're not overtaking, so you shouldn't be in the middle lane. California's guidance is directly contrary to this.
So wait, in a 3+ lane setup in the UK, both the middle lane and the rightmost are only for passing? That seems weird to me.
Reason for the CA rules is that, in the US, the rightmost lane is where all the entrance and exit ramps are, so you often have people speeding up or slowing down as they enter and exit. Rather than have to do a ton of lane changes to pass people as they merge on, the advice to stay in the middle lane if you just want to stay a constant speed is so you don't have to deal as much with people entering and exiting your lane.
"You should always drive in the left-hand lane when the road ahead is clear. If you are overtaking a number of slower-moving vehicles, you should return to the left-hand lane as soon as you are safely past."
When I learned to drive (many years ago), the guidance was more specific: the middle lane for overtaking a vehicle, and the right-most lane for overtaking multiple vehicles.
UK motorway junctions are all equipped with long sliproads. Generally you're supposed to do all your accelerating or braking on the sliproad when you join or leave the motorway, although traffic conditions can obviously prevent this.
With that said, in free-flowing traffic, it can be incredibly dangerous when people fail to follow this protocol, and I often wish there was more enforcement.
In the US there is no priority with 3+ lanes. You can legally plod along in the left lane without passing anyone. The middle is a safe option to avoid conflicts on either side. For two lanes you are supposed to leave the left/high-speed lane for passing only.
That really depends on the state. In Utah, for example, the law requires left lane drivers to move over if they are being passed on the right. Some other states explicitly designate the left lane for passing only.
I stay in the middle lanes most of the time on the 101 because they are constantly adding/removing lanes or onramps with quickly disappearing lanes. Easier to stay in the middle than constantly deal with California drivers merging into your lane. I have had a lot of close calls where people behaved very irrationally merging onto the highway. Best to avoid it
That is indeed the rule in European countries I've driven in and (modified for which side of the road is being driven on) some US states (like Oregon) have similar rules.
California, on the other hand, allows people to drive in whatever lane they feel like for however long they feel like as long as they maintain sufficient speed. The slower traffic is supposed to stay to the right and the faster traffic is supposed to stay to the left. The police can intervene if they feel that someone is driving too slow in the wrong lane, but I've never seen that happen.
There are no rules in California to prevent overtaking on the right, so you can choose which lane you want to move into to overtake someone.
Oregon has a law that if you have 5 or more vehicles behind you, you must let them pass. It's more for the highways, not the freeway, but I haven't seen it enforced in many, many years
> Vehicles proceeding at a speed less than the flow of traffic and moving on a two-lane highway where passing is unsafe, must turn off the roadway at the nearest place designated as a turnout or wherever sufficient area for a safe turnout exists, if a line of 5 or more vehicles forms behind them.
That's still mostly true in the US for the more rural areas. Interstate highways often have two lanes in each direction.
For denser areas with multilane highways that are entirely in use, the best you can say is that the people in the passing lane probably want to go faster. :-)
It depends on the state. In Ohio you will actually get pulled over all the time for hanging out in the left lane. Not so in California in my experience so far.
In my experience, this really only encourages "king of the road, get out of my way" behavior.
Source: South Floridian driver who does felonious speeds in the left lane (typically in a speeding convoy, with everybody else doing the same speeds, if not higher)
It's never been tested, to my knowledge. To be clear, I'm not suggesting people tailgate and drive aggressively in the left lane. I'm literally suggesting cars
in the left lane have to legally yield to overtaking traffic from behind, just as passing on a two lane highway requires yielding to oncoming traffic.
And I would expect behavior improvement, if nothing else, on the fact that ambiguity is removed and time of conflict is reduced.
>king of the road, get out of my way" behavior.
I get that's not something people might want to "encourage" , but a certain amount of conflict and congestion is resolved by allowing the people who think they're king, be king in the left lane. If you don't want to go faster than the car behind you, you can be king in the right (or any other) lane.
It might not feel right based on principle, but in a practical sense it solves a lot.
When I see someone behind me I will switch to the right but sometimes I am too slow (=they are significantly above the speed limit) and the speeding idiots try to pass me on the right side even if it is illegal. When someone is going 200km/h on a 130km/h road you don't want to block their path by suddenly switching at the last moment.
This type of regressive behavior is disgusting. When someone tries to pass I now have to be extra careful about switching lanes because they may pass me on the right. This leads to even slower switching which fuels even more passing on the right.
Not sure where you are, but in the US, the rule is to stay right in the first place. Not get over once someone is coming. This avoids all the problems you mention.
It's just that people don't do it, and have little incentive to. Part of what I'm suggesting is that you should have to be ultra cautious anytime you're in the passing lane. Which is an incentive to quickly get out of it.
If I'm passing at 5 over the limit, I'm still passing. I waited my turn. Not my fault I don't want to go 20+ over.
I'll move back when the passed car is in my rear view. Oh, you really to ride my rear, and pay me on the right? Will Joe we have a problem because I'm happy merged into the right line and you're on my as, and now you're 3 feet from both me and the car were passing.
That's what I got from this comment... Just forget encourages already aggressive driving.
Of course, some people do not pass, and that is frustrating.
It's not necessarily about who's turn it is, or what's "just". It's about driving rules that are crystal clear, that will end up maximizing traffic flow, clarifying r-o-w order, and minimizing time of conflict.
>Not my fault I don't want to go 20+ over.
No, but I think that people see it this way is part of the problem. It becomes a sort of moral game of chicken, with one side thinking one rule is more important, and vice versa. It shouldn't be debatable. Both sides should automatically know who has r-o-w without thinking, even if the rule is arbitrary. The entire system operates around this premise.
And because speed is always going to be a personal sliding scale (maybe 5 over is ok but 20 isn't), the simplest, most practical, consistent resolution (whether "fair" or not) is to yield the lane to the passer behind you.
Look at it this way: You wouldn't worry about momentary speed to pass someone on a two lane road, if you needed to. You'd focus on getting past and getting over before the oncoming traffic gets to you. It should be the same way on multi-lane highways, even if the traffic is overtaking instead of oncoming. That's why it's called the passing lane.
Surely it's only polite to allow the faster guys past before you do your thing. It doesn't really matter to me generally because few things on the highway annoy me, but it's sort of habit for me to not be in the way. So even if I'm doing 10 over and there's a chap coming up doing 20 over, I let him go before I go.
You don't have to do that, and I won't judge you for it. It just seems like a harmlessly nice thing to do for your fellow driver.
And it's rare to be in a situation where it's reasonable for you to overtake at 5 mph more than the other car while there are +20s whizzing by so it doesn't seem like it's really something that needs defending.
There should be a very simple rule - if there's a car behind you in the left lane, no car ahead of you, and this situation persists for a bit, merge right.
Make the /right/ choice - the pedal, or the lane ;)
Why put the conditional if? Avoid conflict entirely by eliminating judgement calls. Like how close a car needs to be in front or behind you for you to react. It just provides justification (in their mind) for a driver to stay left.
Just pass and get over, regardless of if anyone is behind you. Driving rules should be as simple as possible.
The fact that the lane isn't being used by anyone else isn't an excuse for you to use it as you see fit. Anymore than driving on the wrong side of a 2-lane road, just because there's no oncoming traffic.
Driver education doesn't matter when it stops at 16 years old. I've been in cars with these bad drivers doing less than the speed limit in the left lane... I told them they should get over... they said they prefer to drive "in the fast lane"... like they'll get there faster. They stayed in the left lane until the exit, and then exit across 2 lanes. I don't see how you can help these people.
