In the US, the left lane on the highway is supposed to be the "passing lane." If you're not going fast enough to pass someone, you should be in the right lane. There are even signs on the highway that say "Slow traffic keep right."
Now, I have noticed a trend. Old people. Old people are generally bad drivers anyway, but they (much more than any other age group) are always in the left lane, and they're always going very slow. So I have to wonder...
Was the left lane always the passing lane? When these old people were younger, was driving slow in the left lane acceptable, and they just never got updated on the new driving laws?
My understanding is that the left-most lane has always been the "passing lane" but i think looking at it that way is kind of... narrow.
It's better to say "slower traffic should keep right."
The "idea" should be that slow traffic (traffic going the speed limit or less) should be in the right-most/#3 lane, crusing traffic (traffic going reasonably over the speed limit) should be in the center/#2 lane and fast traffic (wild speeders) should be in the #1 lane.
I mean, it's obvious silly and impossible for all traffic to be in the righter lanes as that kind of defeats the point of having that many lanes to begin with. A highway with 1000 cars on it can't all have them in one lane, congestion would be mad. So the idea is you have three kinds of drivers, slow drivers, speeders and wild speeders and they all pretty much have their own lane to do their thing each lane moving to the left faster than the other so it's possible to overtake someone not going as fast as you like.
Someone who wants to go the speed limit in the #3 lane behind someone going the min. speed can go a little faster, move into the #2 lane and then move back into the #3 lane and continue cruising. Everyone is happy.
Unfortuanlty this kind of stuff is stuff you should "learn" on the roads and most people forget by advanced age and very poor re-testing during renewals and people forget this notion.
So, yes, you end up with that old person going below the speed-limit in the #1 lane, making them a hazard on the road and thus more likely to get pulled over than a speeder (as "going with the flow of traffic" is safer and better regarded than going slower and making yourself an obsticle.)
I see people many times in the faster lanes going at or below the speed-limit and usually they're either driving bolt-upright death-griping the wheel scared out of their minds, on the phone, or an older person driving with the mouth hanging open with a dazed look on their face.
If someone is going at or below the speed-limit in the #1 lane they're an asshole, they're a danger to everyone on the road -as it forces people to pass on the right- and they shouldn't be on the highway.
We also need stricter and more involved licsesne renewals in this conuntry for all ages and evern stricter renewals/retesting and reaction-time testing for people older than I'll say 65.
