This week I am traveling with a coworker on business. She is a government employee, while I am a contractor. We are driving from Ohio to Oklahoma and back in a rental car. According to DoD regs, she must be the driver, and I must be the passenger.
(I am still in Oklahoma, by the way. We will be driving back to Ohio in a few hours.)
During the entire trip out here on Monday she was driving in the left lane at a “normal” speed. Cars were constantly passing us on the right and (understandably) giving us dirty looks. It was embarrassing.
I don’t know why she drives in the left lane. I am not sure if she’s clueless on the “rules” for driving, or simply doesn’t care. I felt like saying something, but I didn’t want her to feel insulted. She’s also my contract sponsor, so I really don’t want to say anything negative to her.
You’re very nice. But I would try to explain to her that she is in the wrong. Stick to the right except to pass and try not to increase the irritation levels of the rest of the drivers stuck on the highway.
Actually at least in NJ they can issue tickets for what you’re describing. Thankfully in this state, it doesn’t come up that often. Usually involves out of state plates.
Around here, the rule is “Slower traffic keep right”. If you’re going faster than most other people on the road, this minimizes the number of lane changes you have to make, but it also requires you to get out of the way if someone is overtaking you.
Of course, that requires you to be paying attention, which many drivers just don’t seem to do.
Oh, yeah, that really pushes a button with me! Just this morning on the way to work, some complete ass was driving a U-Haul, yes a U-Haul, in the left lane at about 60 MPH, and would not move over. What’s worse is that he was traveling right next to a car at it’s exact same speed, thus creating a two lane “wall” on the interstate. I accelerated all the way over to the 2nd land and back around to the 4th lane. As I was entering the lane in front of him, I was laying on the horn the whole time.
People like that not only choke traffic, they create a real hazard.
In upstate NY we have had a infux of NYC ‘citidiots’ who really clog up our highways by doing such things. I do figure that in NYC it really makes no difference and left lane travel is in the norm for driving and using it for passing there just doesn’t work due to volume and left exits on highways, along with left turns on city streets but annoying as heck and does create unsafe passing conditions out in the sticks.
In the UK, driving in any other lane but lane 1 (the left lane here) is illegal unless overtaking. It’s not specifically illegal to pass someone who does on their left but it could be construed as careless driving.
A problem we do have, and on two-lane highways it can be a major problem, is where one truck is overtaking another when there is very little difference in their speed, This comes about because trucks here are mechanically limited to 56mph, even though the speed limit is 60, so both trucks will be driving ‘on the limiter’ but the settings may vary a small amount, or one truck is heavier, so the overtaking manoeuvre can take a mile or more. No excuse for this as the driver of the slower truck should drop their speed until they are successfully passed.
How about saying something like: “Did you know that in some states, you can get a ticket for driving in the left lane if you’re not passing anyone to the right?”. I think this is about as neutral as you can make it. I foresee 3 main responses:
a) “Wow, really? I did not know that, thanks!” [proceeds to drive with proper lane discipline. OK, I know, but we can dream, right?]
b) “Sure, but there’s no cops around, and they should have better things to do anyway. If people want to pass, they can go by on the right.”
c) “Do you have a problem with the way I’m driving?”, in this case you could answer “Not at all, just something I was reading the other day. I appreciate you driving so I can relax a bit, thank you.”
In any case, you’ve done pretty much all you can to raise the issue and need feel no guilt if she does indeed get a ticket.
I mean, not really. But we take this much more seriously here, and she absolutely would have been pulled over and ticketed probably within minutes.
As an American transplant, I legitimately had to relearn how to drive. Not in a general sense, but in these kinds of little details. After you first learn to drive, your practices and habits become pretty automatic, and you drive without thinking most of the time. But for the first year after I moved here, I had to drive fully consciously, making sure I was adapting to local expectations.
That year was exhausting, because you forget how much mental effort is required to operate a vehicle safely. Now, of course, it’s automatic again. I’m in the right lane unless I’m moving left to pass one or more slower vehicles, and when I’m done I move back to the right. Period.
If there’s a slow truck, and a gap, and then another slow truck, and another faster car comes up behind me as I’m passing the first truck, I move right into the gap and let the faster car pass before moving left to pass the second truck (and then I move right again). That’s just how it is. No exception. Everyone does it.
The one time I went back to the U.S. and did some freeway driving, it drove me absolutely crazy. It’s all just cultural habits, but I foamed and cursed because it felt so lazy and selfish.
I wish this were done more often and in more places. There are a lot of 2-lane highways around these parts (1 lane each direction) with limited visibility. They will sometimes have passing lanes where one direction gets 2 lanes. There are signs to move over. I routinely gun it, while in the right lane, past the idiots that continue in the left lane after the explicit sign. What is even worse is when the slow car moves to the right lane and then someone in front of me gets in the left lane and proceeds to inch past the slow car allowing no one else to pass. Move it moron! When my family is in the car, I keep my cool. Barely.
‘Overtaking’ can comprise passing a series of cars in lane 1, as part of a stream of lane 2 traffic that is generally going a bit faster than lane 1. (People who obsessively swerve back into lane 1 for a very short distance before overtaking the next car, might also be construed as causing a hazard).
That’s the rule everywhere. Too many drivers are just clueless.
A lot of them must settle in Florida. I vacationed there a few years ago and drivers seemed to make no distinction whatsoever about which lane they were in relative to how fast they were going. On the 8-lane (4 each way) interstate between Tampa and Fort Meyers, everyone just seemed to drive randomly in whatever lane they felt like, regardless of speed. Absolutely infuriating.
You’re a good man. I couldn’t endure it without Xanax.
