This is something that has always been bugging me ever since I started driving.
It first caught my attention with a bumper sticker I remember very distinctly:
“<-- Passing side/Suicide -->”
I thought it was just a retarded bumper sticker. Then I noticed people constantly mentioning “Passing on the right is dangerous”, and I thought about it for a minute and concluded somebody else simply didn’t. Then I heard that some jurisdictions make passing on the right illegal. Say what? Now I am firmly confused because usually I can figure some sort of reasoning behind laws and ideas, but I can’t even come up with a passable theory right now as to why would somebody decide passing on the right is more dangerous than passing on the left. To me they’re both about equally safe, but passing on the left requires a little more care and I am less comfortable with it. If I had to pick the more dangerous one it would be passing on the left, not passing on the right. Note that when I say passing I mean using another lane in the same direction on a highway, not passing on the hard shoulder(right) or oncoming lane(left), and I am referring to driver-sits-left-and-drives-on-the-right countries.
Passing is the act of 1) Wait until there is a big enough clearing ahead and next to you in your passing lane of choice 2) Do a shoulder check, change lanes 3) Overtake the car that was in front of you, get a safe distance past them 4) Do a shoulder check, make sure the space ahead of the car you passed is still clear, change lanes back.
Steps 1 and 2 for passing on the left involves merging into a lane that typically has traffic that is traveling faster than you are. As in when there is sufficient clearing somebody behind you is quickly closing on it. For passing on the right Steps 1 and 2 involve merging into a lane that typically has traffic traveling slower than you are. When there is sufficient clearing, the car ahead of you and in plain view is the one closing the gap. Since you are the one performing the maneuver, it’s your responsibility to estimate a sufficient clearance to finish it without causing anybody else to do anything (like slow down, etc.) and that’s a lot easier and safer with things ahead of you, not behind.
Steps 3 and 4 also seem safer on the right. For passing on the right, the issue is that while you are executing step 3 somebody might merge in front of you into your clearing causing you to slow down and get stuck in that lane. For passing on the left you’re running a much bigger risk of somebody merging into your clearing and possibly right into your right blind spot causing a collision during step 4.
So what gives? As far as car maneuvers go that involve changing lanes I consider there are four, with the safest being accelerating and merging into a clearing on the right. Second safest accelerating and merging into a clearing on the left. Third safest (not particularly safe actually) is decelerating and merging into a clearing on your right. And fourth completely unsafe one is decelerating and merging into a clearing on your left. I’m sure this is just a :smack: on my part and I am not considering some factor, but it’s legal in my state and I am much more comfortable passing on the right.
Groman
P.S. I have this weird deja-vu feeling I’ve posted on this same topic some time ago but I can’t find it, nor do I actually know (or remember?) the answer. So I apologize if this is the case.