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Re: A Left Lane Laggard Wants to Know



hosee@hongkong.robadome.com wrote:
: ziggy29@rahul.net (Tim Irvin) writes:
: >Corey Alambar (corwyn) wrote:
: >: It is a
: >: point people, especially out here on the West Coast seem to miss:  The left
: >: lane is NOT a through lane, but merely a passing lane.  Those here in
: >: California would do well to learn from Oregon, which has actual signs detailing
: >: etiquette and lane usage.

: >This is true, but California traffic tnds to be heavier.  Driving in the right
: >lane on an urban California freeway is very difficult; there is so much 
: >traffic merging on to and getting off the road that you must constantly 
: >brake and accelerate, brake and accelerate...

: Well I agree with the above on say three lane highways/expressways
: around here in the BA(one lane being the dreaded carpool lane -- strategically
: placed as the rightmost lanes at times). However on big 4 lane freeways,
: (101 & I-280 here in the BA come to mind) I find it quite irritable
: to find traffic doing EXACTLY the same speed across all four lanes
: (with plenty of open road ahead). 

With four lanes, I tend to cruise in the second lane from the right when
there is heavy traffic; later at night or early morning on weekends, I
cruise in the right lane.  

On urban freeways, you do need at least three lanes each way (four if 
there is a carpool lane) because the right lane is basically an 
acceleration/deceleration lane in many cases for merging traffic.
Try staying in the right lane on northbound 101 from southern San
Jose to Sunnyvale in the morning.  You could make a convincing 
argument that you need to stay in the the #2 lane because you are
"passing" constantly arriving traffic from the onramps.

But there is certainly no need--and no *excuse*--for staying in 
the left lane of a highway with more than two lanes each way.  There
is also no excuse for staying in the left lane on a rural highway,
even with only two lanes.

: It's amazing to see all the faster cars
: pile up behind the moving roadblock and yet not one of the ignorant
: drivers wants to move over and let faster traffic go by. This causes the
: more aggressive drivers to cut across 4 lanes of traffic, cut people off, pass on the right,
: and then swerve all the way across back to the left. Then the ensuing
: rush of other hey!-that-driver-made-it-by-passing-on-the-right-so-can-I!
: drivers go for it too.

At least with four lanes, it's hard to get four vehicles travelling at
the exact same (slow) speed side by side.  Here in the San Jose area, that
happens all the time on two lane highways (880 between Montague and 101,
87) and on three-lane highways during carpool hours (85).  It's very
annoying.  It's happened to me--even on Speedway 280 on the peninsula,
where ethere is four lanes each way and relatively little traffic.

Unfortunately, with idiots clogging up the left lane for no good reason,
passing on the right has become a necessary evil.

-- 
* Tim Irvin is ziggy29@rahul.net      * WWW:  http://www.rahul.net/ziggy29
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