[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago. I was driving in a rural area, and there was a car cruising along at around the speed limit in the left lane. I had to pass it on the right, and it was a couple of people chatting.

It got me thinking about a focus group of drivers that I did many years ago. A young woman in that group said that she took off on a road trip, and figured out after a couple of hundred miles that she wasn't supposed to cruise in the left lane. She said, "I grew up in the city. You're supposed to cruise in the left lane there. How was I to know that it's different in the country?"

She actually brings up a good point about our inconsistent lane philosophies. If you're in a major metro area and you're going to travel 20 miles on a highway, you're supposed to move toward the left so it's easier for others to get off and on. But if you're outside a metro area and you're going to travel 20 miles on a highway, you're supposed to stay in the right lane.

I guess maybe the consistent part is that you leave the leftmost lane for passing, whether it's a 2-lane road or an 8-lane road. But even in metro areas you get the idiots who are cruising at a very high rate of speed and they're camping in the left lane.

One might think it's an issue of 2-lane roads versus multi-lane roads, but in a metro area a 2-lane road gets cruisers in both lanes, and that's kind of necessary.

So it makes me wonder. At what point when you're departing a metro area are you supposed to make the philosophical switch and never cruise in the leftmost lane?

If there's more than 2 lanes in a metro area then the far left lane is still the "fast lane".