# Driving "rules" that they don't teach you in driver's ed

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-rules-that-they-dont-teach-you-in-drivers-ed/527254>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 1, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-rules-that-they-dont-teach-you-in-drivers-ed/527254 "2010-02-01T16:08:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 14

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**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-rules-that-they-dont-teach-you-in-drivers-ed/527254/261 "2010-02-08T00:52:56Z")

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> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#):
>
> I get what \*\*Balthisar \*\*is saying. The center lanes he’s talking about are meant to be used by both sides of traffic for turning left into businesses on the opposite side of the street, so that left turners don’t block through traffic in the lanes. Since they share the lane and there are businesses on both sides of the street, you want to spend as little time in the lane as possible so as not to interfere with left-turners going in the opposite direction. In some states (apparently not MI, though), that lane can also be used to turn left from businesses so that a vehicle entering the roadway does not have to wait for traffic to be clear in both directions at the same time. The idea, though, is that you stop once in the center lane and wait for traffic to clear in the closest through lane in order to merge. Nobody should be traveling in the center lane to get up to merge speed because it interferes with other center lane users.  
> .

That makes sense, actually.

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