Really, Peremensoe, do you find that many Americans have good lane discipline, slower drivers keeping right and faster drivers passing on the left, and then after passing they move back to the right? If so, where does this happen?
I tend to agree more with SpeedwayRyan. I live on the west coast but travel often enough and drive in all 4 time zones in the Lower 48. Plus Hawaii.
Most American drivers do not keep right except to pass.
I love driving in Germany, where drivers drive smartly and assertively (as opposed to lolly-gagging around), and they have good lane discipline. If they want to drive leisurely and want to lolly-gag, that’s fine, but they do it in the right lane.
Arrogant blather. From Seattle to Denver to Savannah my experience with high beams from behind has been in conjunction with some asshole in a European car (typically an Audi, but a fair number of BMWs as well) roaring up on my ass at well over the speed limit and almost kissing my rear bumper. I’ve learned it to be an aggressive action because they REALLY go nuts when I slow down to match the speed in the right lane so I CAN get over (I usually pull back in behind them because they’re cop bait when they’re in front of me). And why am I driving in the ‘passing’ lane? Because I always seem to end up in suburbia where the slow lane is occupied by construction vehicles and grampas (wearing ‘go-faster!’ hats) so that lane runs at 10-15 below the limit.
Now, on road trips on rural interstates? Different story. I’m off to the right when I’m not passing. And damned if it isn’t always an Audi or BMW that does that roaring up on my ass in the right lane, flashing and then passing after damn near brushing my rear bumper as they get over.
Roaring up on your ass? I think the accurate phrase for most American drivers (not saying this is you) would be that they weren’t scanning their mirrors, so they didn’t notice the faster-moving vehicle coming from behind until the car was already behind them and had been waiting to pass for some time.
I drive a 2001 Honda CR-V, underpowered with a small 4-cylinder engine. So I don’t roar up anyone’s ass, but I do like to drive faster than the flow of traffic, and most American drivers do not scan their mirrors regularly. For the most part, most American drivers don’t care about who is behind them. And that is arrogant behavior.
There are exceptions encountered on any long trip, but most people are aware of the drive right/pass left rule, and try to adhere, within the limits of traffic conditions and their ability (I grant that many drivers aren’t very good, which means it doesn’t always flow as smoothly as it ideally could).
I’m thinking mainly of driving on rural interstates and state highways in the South. I hardly ever actually flash-to-pass, because it’s hardly ever necessary.
I was going to add that in my recent driving over the last few years, I wasn’t in the south. Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, yes, but that’s not the south. Florida, yes, but that’s not the south either. Georgia, yes, and that’s the south. But I haven’t been to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana or Arkansas in a long time.
Glad to hear that you hardly ever have to flash-to-pass in the south. I wish the rest of the USA was progressive and polite that way.
Wait. If you’re in the left lane because of slower vehicles in the right, you are passing. There’s no way you should be slowing down just in order to merge right and clear the lane for a speedster. Complete your pass. If it’s impossible to merge right without slowing, because of traffic volume, you might spend miles in a continuous passing action, but that’s fine. As long as you’re actually overtaking slower vehicles, you have as much right to be in the left lane as anybody.
That’s why I say that absolute speeds are irrelevant. And there are always at least three vehicles whose speeds and positions are relevant for each driver’s reckoning (the classic mistake is for people to look only at the one immediately ahead or behind).
I think everyone is trying to classify everyone on the road as either someone who will ride your tail and flash even when you are passing a solid block of cars at a differential of 5-10 mph with no space to pull over, or someone who will set their cruise control at the speed limit in the left hand lane and just park it. Whereas reality is more shaded than that.
There are also counterexamples where being nice does not pay off, most notoriously the people who will tailgate you and then not speed up when you move over, usually then blocking you in behind slower moving cars.
Then there’s the people who do the same when you are trying to pass them, taking their own sweet time in moving over to the right, then speeding up to your speed when you try to pass them. They’re then basically blocking you from the right hand lane and making everyone behind you think that you are a left hand lane hog.
Couple rules I’m teaching the budding young drivers in my household: Rule 1) EVERYONE is trying to kill you. Don’t trust an active or inactive turn signals, don’t expect others to obey lights, stop signs, lane markings or even direction of travel. and NEVER trust the construction site flagger–just because he’s flipped the sign from STOP to SLOW does NOT mean it’s safe to go. Rule 2) Be predictable, not polite.
There are pockets. Once you start getting away from metropolitan areas in the Midwest, there does seem to be some lane discipline. I remember as a kid driving through Wisconsin on the way to UP Michigan and asking my dad why everyone was driving on the right side of the highway (two lanes in each direction) because I had never seen it before. Maybe it’s their Germanic roots, or something, but there are pockets of places in the States where people do follow those rules for the most part.
The current general rule of thumb around here is that headlights are for seeing and being seen and should not be considered a communication device. And there is good logic behind this: in my car (a Focus), on the roads that I travel on, I often see the cars behind me flashing their headlights, but they are actually not flashing at all, they are hitting bumps/dips in the road that briefly brighten their low beams. I am not sure I would notice a “flash-to-pass” because I have trained myself to ignore changes in headlight brightness behind me. It makes more sense to find a clear spot and blow past as quickly as possible, just assume the other driver is oblivious. It is kind of like a bicyclist on a path calling “on your left!”, even I, a seasoned cyclist, fail to react properly when on foot.
I have no problem waiting on someone to complete a pass before getting out of the left lane, but an incredible number of drivers around here just set up shop in the left lane and make no effort to let faster traffic by. If you flash-to-pass, they generally see it as an act of aggression, or ignore it entirely, rather than getting right. Judging by what I see on internet forums, these people use the reasoning “I’m already doing the speed limit/5 over/10 over, why should I get over to let someone by ME?” instead of always letting faster traffic pass. They’ll allow a long line of cars to build up behind them, and gladly let people pass them on the right rather than just getting over.
Obviously not every driver does this, but it’s very common around here.
Amazing that you knew I drove a German car (a BMW, not an Audi).
I manage to use the left lane for passing only, and if I see a faster car approaching from behind, I do my absolute best to get out of its way before it gets to me. On the interstate, causing someone to slow down is a cardinal sin in my book. If there’s faster traffic approaching and I know I can’t complete a pass before it gets to me, I’ll let them pass first. If I need to increase my speed to get over in the right lane sooner, I will…I can’t imagine slowing down because someone behind me is trying to pass.
It doesn’t matter to me if a car is going the speed limit or if they’re doing 100mph…if they’re faster, I avoid getting in their way and if I somehow do, I figure out how to let them overtake as smoothly and quickly as is safely possible.
During the day, you can flash your brights, but, at night, turn your lights off and on, please. At night, the 18 wheeler driver is staring into his mirror trying to see if it’s safe to move over. If you flash your brights, it ruins his night vision.
Are you kidding me. They’ve actually codified that kind of behavior?! I’m talking about being in the passing lane, driving faster than the person I am safely passing but apparently not fast enough for the Masshole behind me who rides my ass flashing his brights. And some states have endorsed this. Unbelievable.
This is what I was going to post about. Back in the 1970s I noticed that truckers would always give me a courtesy flash after I’d passed them on the freeway. Only truckers ever seemed to practice that, though. Does anyone still do that? I can’t recall having seen it in many years.
Note that it does say “to the left and abreast of another motor vehicle” implying (IMHO) that the car in the left lane is *not *passing the car to the right but blocking progress of traffic wishing to go faster.
I wonder if that statute is intended primarily to allow off-duty emergency responders to get to a scene unhindered in their personal vehicles if necessary. Surely it’s not a proactive measure to stem the effects of road rage.
Happens a lot around where I live. And it’s something I do.
A few weeks ago, I was on the expressway and needed to get over - I pulled up a little ahead of a semi, put on my turn signal, and he flashed me that it was ok to get over.
