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by c223 hours ago |
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upvoteby Sohcahtoa822 hours ago|
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It's wild to me how often the left lane is not the fastest lane.

I've had times where the right lane ends up being the fastest. On I-5 near Woodburn, OR, it's 3 lanes. So many drivers, including truckers, will often stay out of the right lane entirely to avoid being caught up in traffic coming on/off. Meanwhile, the left lane is going 5 mph under the limit because there's a left-lane camper somewhere miles ahead. So I can fly past everybody in the right lane because there's actually barely any traffic coming on/off and everybody is avoiding the right lane for no reason at all.

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upvoteby rootusrootus2 hours ago|
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> On I-5 near Woodburn, OR

The section of I-5 between Portland and Salem is absolutely psychotic, and I have never been able to reason out exactly why. It consistently has a left lane jammed with angry people going at or below the speed limit, a fairly normal center lane filled with cruisers, and a mostly empty right lane with the occasional big rig and regular very-high-speed cars expressing their frustration with the left lane by going 25+ mph over the limit in the right lane.

I know that's what you basically just said. Just venting. The driver behavior in that section of freeway confounds me, and I do not know what the underlying cause is. It is otherwise an unremarkable bit of interstate like any other.

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upvoteby crest1 hours ago|
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It's wild to me that it's allowed and accepted to overtake on the right on US highways.
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upvoteby stuporglue15 minutes ago|
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That's the freedom we're talking about when we say "land of the free".
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upvoteby genocidicbunny2 hours ago|
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Truckers sometimes have a good reason to do that -- they can't brake or accelerate as quickly as a small vehicle, and thus can end up going very slowly if they stick with the right lane. To a driver going 3 exits down the 205 it's not a big deal, to a truck driver doing the same they may be at the end of a long haul up the I5 and every minute starts to count since it can affect their pay. And if you can avoid hard braking/hard acceleration in the right lane, that can help your fuel costs quite a bit since slowly coasting behind someone doing 5 under in the left lane is more efficient than jerking around in the right lane.

There are plenty of ramps on I5 and 205 that I merge to the left for because I know they will spill into the right and (when it exists) middle lanes. Because of how traffic also reacts to brake lights (some people brake too hard even when they have sufficient distance to let off the gas and coast to a slower speed) it seems like it ends up making my experience through those stretches a bit better.

Ultimately, any individual behaviour is largely irrelevant, it's what the whole mass of cars moving along does that affects things the most. Often you don't want to be the (significantly) odd one out regardless of the situation.

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upvoteby nradov2 hours ago|
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That's not a good reason, those truckers are just assholes. I'd like to see the authorities enforce the law and fine them heavily. Put them out of business.
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upvoteby genocidicbunny1 hours ago|
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I've done a few tours around the world on the interstate system, so I've seen my fair share of truckers. Yeah, some are assholes, but there are stretches and routes where their behaviour makes sense, even if I don't like it. It's on them for how they behave, but understanding why they behave that way can make it simpler to deal with them in real life. As real, squishy people, not a system of rules.

Would I love to see CHP or OHP fine every left lane trucker in the 'no trucks in left lane' zones? Hell yes, but until that happens, I understand the trucker behaviour.

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upvoteby maerF0x02 hours ago|
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It's not the fastest often because it's oversubscribed and people do not understand that the car has a 3rd, mostly underuntilized, state of neither pedal depressed (ie "coasting") ... so they create cascading braking pileups ...
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upvoteby crest1 hours ago|
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If everyone that had it turned adaptive cruise control sigh.
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upvoteby rootusrootus2 hours ago|
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> as long as you travel in neither the leftmost nor rightmost lane

What I really hate, however, is that plenty of people will cruise in the center lane but still not leave a decent gap between them and the car in front. They effectively turn a three lane freeway into two one-lane freeways by hobbling the ability of anyone else to switch lanes. The freeway moves way smoother when there is a modest, predictable speed differential between each lane so that people can find their way into the next lane over without having to force the issue.

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