Screw The HOV Lane, Shouldn't The Fast Lane Be For "Better Drivers"?

Biggest mistake Americans make is calling the "Passing Lane" the "Fast Lane" instead. The left lane is for passing. It is sad the state police never enforce the law of keeping right except to pass. I get stuck behind at least four left lane sitters each way to work daily.

I don't think that's a law in most state in the US. Not only that, I don't know how well that law would work in Southern California with its multi-freeway interchanges and the lack of only two lanes going each direction. Other than the annoying 65-max drivers on the carpools, such a law would be useless, especially since the freeways in SoCal are either open or full of traffic.

The current carpool law works very well. I don't even want to think about the complications of categorizing "Better Drivers"; also, those lucky drivers are just gonna end up with ugly but costly stickers, and once there are a few accidents, people will wrongly use statistics to criticize the Better Drivers, which will probably include a population of young people... I'm already lost in my own words. :P

I agree with you, HS. I love to use the left lane to pass throughout all 30 minutes of my commute. it's sad when you see people (not generalizing) move all the way to the left lane and then slam their brakes to go at 65, even if there's people behind them.

10 states have laws restricting the left lane to passing. (and no, this doesn't mean that everyone has to stay in the right lane during rush hour)

30 more states have laws that require slower traffic to keep right.

So it is much more prevalent than you think.

If slow people would just freaking keep to the right! Slow mini vans in the left lane is stupid. They're going 65 which is the speed limit and seem to have the mentality of "well I'm going plenty fast everyone else just needs to slow down". This is why we have cars weaving in and out of traffic on our freeways because slow drivers don't move over.

People that wease all over traffic are even worse than the left lane hogs.

Most of the time traffic is too heavy to keep the left lane empty just for passing and most cars in the left lane move at a decent rate except for the slowpokes.

This is a great idea, and honestly I have dreamed of it myself but I just don't think it's feesible (or however you spell it). The main reason because even if yourself is a good driver, you still can't control the other lunatics, crackheads, and oblivious people on the road which would still cause back ups and accidents. It's just sad that many of the bad drivers cause accidents but don't get in accidents themselves...

I agree 100% but unfortunately, this will never happen. A good start would be a higher degree of driver training with an annual or semi-annual license renewal fee of $500+. This would take a lot of drivers off the road and allow an increase of the speed limit.

Of course the easier way would be for authorities to restrict hybrids, minivans, PT Cruisers and HHR's out of the number 1 & 2 lanes all together.

Good luck with that pipe dream. It's not the "skilled" drivers that we need to worry about. It's the others that will cut you off to spite you that are the real issue. There are laws that protect the rights of those as well and believe me, they know the phone numbers to the right lawyers to call. They are listed on the back cover of every phone book in the country!

I think what we are all touching on here is that in the US there is no concept of lane discipline. Any one who has driven in different countries will know what Im on about. You can blame that on the minimal standard to get a license, driver complacency and no tickets given by those that could enforce the rules.