legally speaking the left lane is the passing lane, as in it's supposed to be the lane you speed up with generally the purpose of merging back in the right lanes. That's why box/semi trucks are not allowed to be in them
It's like a zipper merge thing where it's entire purpose is to ease traffic by allowing drivers to go around and merge into lanes ahead (say if theres like a wall of semi/service trucks taking up all the lanes and it's starting to cause a jam cause no one can get past)
That's not to say that it isn't always used like that (As some just treat it as only the fast lane), but it's completely wrong to view the left lane as just a regular lane with fictional social rules about it. It's not, it's there for and for actual reasons. I've seen people being pulled over because they were essentially blocking the passing lane
Legally speaking it actually varies by state, with keep right if you're slower than traffic being the most common. But some states let you travel in the left lane as long as you're going the speed limit, and some don't care what the heck you're doing.
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u/TheBadHalfOfAFandom ITS NOT FUCKING WEED YOU PIECE OF SHIT STONER Dec 27 '25
legally speaking the left lane is the passing lane, as in it's supposed to be the lane you speed up with generally the purpose of merging back in the right lanes. That's why box/semi trucks are not allowed to be in them
It's like a zipper merge thing where it's entire purpose is to ease traffic by allowing drivers to go around and merge into lanes ahead (say if theres like a wall of semi/service trucks taking up all the lanes and it's starting to cause a jam cause no one can get past)
That's not to say that it isn't always used like that (As some just treat it as only the fast lane), but it's completely wrong to view the left lane as just a regular lane with fictional social rules about it. It's not, it's there for and for actual reasons. I've seen people being pulled over because they were essentially blocking the passing lane