Passing on the right on a highway
Why is it illegal to pass someone on the right on the highway in the US? In Canada if there’s a three lane highway which, in my case, isn’t very prominent, there’s really no law that enforces it, it’s more of a respect thing here on two lane highways both ways if someone is going slow in the left lane to go into the right but I’m just curious as to why it’s actually enforced in the US?
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Slower moving traffic should be on the right. So to pass someone you should need to move to the left lane. In some states in the US it is also illegal to be in the left lane unneeded, and I known of cops that would use the justification of being in the left lane to pull someone over even if it not illegal.
I think this was the thought process, but it's just not true in my experience. All the highways where I live are 4+ lanes. I go with with the flow of traffic. If I slow down to stubbornly not pass the person on my left, I'm really gonna fuck up the traffic flow.
On a 2 lane highway, I'll only pass on the right if the person in the left lane is completely oblivious that there are a line of people behind them and don't move over.
Yea the whole thing breaks down because people don't keep right when they're not passing. They pick a middle or left lane and squat in it at whatever speed they're cruising at (assuming they're even paying enough attention to maintain a steady speed) and clog everything up. If people were doing wht they were supposed to you wouldn't be able to pass on the right because the people you're passing would be occupying that space in front of you.
Maybe, but I'm not completely convinced. It's hard to apply that to all situations, especially when involving stop and go traffic, which is the majority of what I drove in until recently when I moved away from the city. Also, carpool lanes really fuck that up, too.
A big part of why stop and go traffic happens in the first place is because people don't follow it. At least on the highway where stoplights aren't a factor.
I'm just not convinced. It seems like stop and go traffic is caused by having 4 million people all leaving work at the same time while trying to use the same 3 highways. And merging lanes. That causes stop and go traffic as well.
This is why it's so important for people to follow the rules regarding lane usage in order to achieve as much throughput as possible.