Driving 101: Lane discipline

Image courtesy of courgarnews.com

Continuing our lessons on driving, our next topic of discussion is very near and dear to my heart, mostly because it is one of the things that irritates me the most regardless if I am on two or four wheels. The concept of lane discipline is absolutely lost on most American drivers. The idea is that if we are more disciplined with how we occupy traffic lanes, then there will be freer flow of traffic and everyone will have a much more enjoyable behind the wheel. That is the ideal situation, anyway. Reality feels more like total chaos with most drivers more interested in asserting their dominance as opposed to demonstrating their mastery of driving.

Drivers generally occupy whichever lane has the fewest cars or wherever they happen to feel like being with little consideration for the impact this has on other drivers. However, this often results in traffic being tied up as people rather selfishly, or perhaps just obliviously, occupy the lanes without a thought to traffic patterns at large. Sometimes, this is due to distractions in the car, which is a whole other topic, but sometimes it is due purely to a lack of understanding of how their actions can impact everyone around them.

So, through a series of examples, I hope to highlight several key situations and point out which lane discipline principles to apply to help make traffic flow more smoothly for everyone.

Editorial: Florida to Introduce New "Road Rage" Law

In March, my brother posted an article about a woman who was ticketed for driving two miles per hour under the speed limit in the far left lane (read that post here). The problem was not the fact that the woman was driving two under, but that she was holding up traffic in the passing lane. Many accidents and bouts of road rage are caused by drivers who lack any sort of lane discipline. In an effort to hopefully curb road rage and decrease the number of accidents cause by slow drivers hogging the left lane, Florida state House and Senate have passed a bill that would fine drivers $60 for driving 10 miles per hour under the speed limit in the left lane on a highway with two or more lanes.

News: Woman ticketed in Maryland for going 2 MPH under the speed limit

The title is a little misleading, but a woman in Maryland was ticketed for going 63 MPH in a 65 MPH zone due to the fact that she was driving under the speed limit in the leftmost lane of a freeway. Her reasoning at the time was that it was windy and she was taking extra precautions and driving carefully. However, her  actions may have actually posed a greater danger to drivers around her as they are forced to have to treat her as a rolling chicane and go around her. What she should have done was to keep moving right until she was in a flow of traffic that matched her desired speed or was in the right-most lane.

Most states have laws requiring drivers to stay right unless passing or designate the left-most lane as a passing lane. However, it seems that most American drivers completely lack the lane discipline to follow these rules or simply are ignorant of their existence and it is nice to see them enforced every once in a while. I agree with the actions of the ticketing officer and hope that most people have the sense of mind to see how forcing other drivers to go around a slower-moving object is more dangerous than if that slower-moving were not there in the first place. When I drive on any divided highway, I make an extra conscious effort to monitor my mirrors and to move over at the first safe opportunity when the traffic behind me is moving faster than I am. To me, it just makes sense to get out of the way.

Tell us what you think about this situation and if you exercise good lane discipline while driving.