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Comment by matthewmcg | Hacker News Reader

It's not just some people. It is actually the law in most states (albeit a seldom-enforced one).

Don't cruise in the left lane.

I wish this were true of most states in the USA. It’s certainly true in many parts of Europe.

I don’t have an especially authoritative source, and the first map I found was made seven years ago, but I don’t think things have changed much:

http://jalopnik.com/5501615/left-lane-passing-laws-a-state-b...

Only the green states would map to “don’t cruise in the left lane”; the laws in the majority only say you shouldn’t drive slower than normal traffic in the left lane.

Thanks, that helps explains why my driving experience is so poor. There isn't a national standard for the protocol so everyone gets together and has impedance mismatches.

That's being overly charitable though; self-driving cars, even with different protocols, won't suffer from the rubber-necking or phantom slowdown issues. Their algorithm designers might even be smart enough to relieve the pressure of virtual blockages by going a little faster than the speed limit on the outbound side(s) to relieve the pressure wave.

I recently took a road trip from CA to NY and back. As soon as I got out of CA, people were obeying the "left lane is for passing" idea -- except Vegas.

I spent weeks in highway driving bliss with pretty much everyone obeying this rule. Then when I came back, and hit CA, I was immediately pissed off at traffic -- nobody was following this rule. But at the same time, the traffic is usually so bad it makes this rule meaningless, so I think we just forget about it after a while.

That map is out of date. Oregon is now in the green group.

Good to know!

This is such a problem in Utah that last time I was there, the traffic status billboards over the freeways just said, "Camp in the mountains, not the left lane"... and the left two lanes were full with the right lanes empty. If I hadn't been driving I would have taken a picture to savor the irony.

Most people cruise at a speed that is faster than everyone else in the other (non-left) lanes.

But, please don't be the car that is cruising at 60mph in the left lane. It is a leading cause of accidents.

Ie speeding?

Some states are 70mph, and most cops won't pull people over unless they're doing 10-15mph over.

Unless you are just really unlucky XD

Not sure why the downvotes. (Some states are 80mph actually!)

Speeding enforcement in the United States is fairly loose, with usually roughly a 10mph buffer. (The exception being various "speed traps", atypically mostly rural towns that rely on ticket revenue for an outsized portion of their town budget.)

I think this adds to the problem with left lane issues; even if the "true" speed limit is 80mph, if the "posted" speed limit is 70mph, some people will do no more than 70mph no matter where they are.

Yes. Speeding will result in frequent overtaking. Hence the use of the overtaking lane.

Does that mean the left lane should be unoccupied if everyone in the other lanes are driving at the speed limit?

Yes.

No. It should be unoccupied if nobody is passing. If it is empty on a particular stretch, somebody will decide to pass.

But if everyone is driving the speed limit no one can pass.

you can exceed the speed limit by a certain amount while passing. at least here.

I'd like to see where that's written into a statute book; doesn't sound correct.

It's in the book you have to study when you get your license here in Texas :) you can exceed the limit by 5mph. Have a nice day!

Maybe on a state by state basis as I just googled it and you can't do it in California.

I specifically said "at least here."

You too!

The reason that I said I'd like to see where it's written into statute is that I can't think of a reason why it would be legal. It sounds like driver folklore rather than law.

Having a speed limit that can be exceeded simply for overtaking (rather than by emergency services) means the practical speed limit then becomes "the limit + 5" in traffic, which increases the chance for collisions (for no reason I can think of).

I'm of course open to being shown otherwise! I couldn't find anything searching for "Texas passing speed limit" or variations, but my license is European, so I'm not sure where to look.

That certainly depends on how the law is written. Where I live, the wording is that you are recommended (and on certain roads, required) to stick to the rightmost available lane – which means that you're certainly not breaking the law by driving at the speed limit on the leftmost lane if all the other lanes are already at full capacity, which also makes perfect sense to me. (However, exceeding the speed limit would be against the law in any situation, unless perhaps where you could avoid an accident by doing so – although that may be hard to prove.)

This doesn't apply at all in most of California. We need the left lane for capacity, not flow regulation. Also left lanes are frequently diamond lanes, so you're basically telling people not to carpool.

"left lane" is colloquial for the passing lane. It means the left-most lane in a group of equivalent lanes, not the HOV/reserved lane

In most places that have rules relating to lane use, it means every lane that isn't the rightmost lane, excluding lanes reserved for a special purposes (HOV, etc.).

A lot of the capacity issues end up being just a lot of cars clustered in an area. If you are able to escape the bunch there tend to be nice stretches of open road. Flow regulation would help avoid clumping of cars by making sure the left lane is not used for cruising.

That typically means the right lane is turning into an exit lane.

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