.. we have large 3-lane each way limited access highways, and during commute hours there are times when the occupancy of the left lane exceeds 60%! This is not to defend SnArl, whose behavior has been justly addressed already, but there are many problems caused by lazy driving, such as the lonesome car traveling in anything but the right hand lane. Here are some of the things I wish people would do.
1) If there are frequently more cars behind you than in front, and you are not to the right, shift right!
2) Learn to pass properly. Look, signal, speed up around 5-10, make your pass, and then (after an appropriate interval) pull back in and slow down to your cruising speed!
3) If you are nervous about passing, then don't! Do NOT sit there in the passing lane, right in the other person's blind spot, trying to figure it out. When you do pass, don't creep by, give yourself an appropriate speed differential. (Yes, SnArl, a deleta of 60 mph is too much..). If you find yourself slowing down to pass, or actually speeding up after you pass, you are in the wrong.
I refer to the "everyone in the left lane" phenomenon as a traffic inversion. It's amazing how few cars scattered about in the middle and right lanes, along with someone who refuses to shift right, can stack up a dangerously dense set of cars all in the left lane, all with drivers getting very frustrated. When I run accross them I just shift all the way to the right, set a comfortable speed, and wait for them to disolve. However there have been times when the person causing it was so intransigent that it lasted for 20 miles or more.
The bottom line is that multi-lane highways are crowded, and people do want to drive different speeds. The goal should be to stay spread out, and to avoid close proximity and large speed differentials (are you reading this SnArl?). If you drive in the 50 percentile in speed, then you should pass as often as you are passed. If you're not, or are only passed on the right, then you are being very lazy, and should shift right, and then do the work to pass safely when you feel the need. |
