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.
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.
No mercy shown! Jokes on them though I never paid the ticket and I'm never going to.
To me it shows a lack of responsibility and a huge lack of respect for the local laws. I guess not everyone feels that way though.
fwiw, I take traffic flow very seriously. I will always move over if I notice someone driving close behind me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A. You don't have high gas taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#/media/File%3AFuel_ta...
B. You build a lot of roads.
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.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s...
And not all taxes are hitting our roads...
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.
[0] = https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3948#Overview_of_Gove...
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...
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!
Honestly it's so backwards.
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 illegal != taken seriously. In Spain it was both.
Until you get to a road with more than 2x2 lanes. You have people half asleep in the middle lane going 10 km/h under the speed limit.
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.
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.
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.
Comparatively, it's pretty chaotic here.
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 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.
Ahem... he's the one that actually knows what a zipper merge is, and you are the one who needs to learn a thing today.
There is no line in the zipper merge. You are supposed to merge at the very end to keep the traffic flowing, like a zipper would.
Read up, and don't be that guy: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/traffic-lane-zipper-merge.htm
(Unless you are talking about something else entirely, but the parent comments were talking about this scenario)
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.
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.
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.
Right. While matching speed.
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.
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.
There's no dispute on this point. It's the right call to merge at the last workable moment.
One can also make another wrong call in failing to match speed and negotiate tooth-gap arrangement (still in separate lanes) before doing so.
If drivers don't do that, it isn't a zipper merge, even if everyone waits.
- 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
For merging (on ramps), waiting to the last moment is collectively efficient. For diverging traffic (exits) it isn't, especially if there's a backup.
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.
"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.
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. :-)
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.
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.
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.
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).
So instead of constant lane switching, use the middle lane for going straight ahead, and the leftmost lane for passing.
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.
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.
This means that they generally stay in the rightmost lane, as slower traffic is supposed to keep 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.
In the US there is no priority with 3+ lanes
There is no monolithic Nationwide vehicle code. Laws can vary state to state. You can legally plod along in the left lane without passing anyone.
Generally false. Definitely false in CA: Slower traffic keep right, notwithstanding speed limits.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.
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.
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.425
Not doubting you, just wanna know.
> 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.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/driver_ha...
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.
Left-most lane on controlled access highways should be rear car, by default, has the right-of-way.
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)
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
Just follow the damn rules.
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.
Adding new capacity to shorten journey times is a fools errand. The new capacity soon fills up as longer and more commutes become acceptable.