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It's been a trend for several years now and getting worse. Seems statewide, but worse locally. Where I live, in the "big city" in the metro area, ~200K, where it's 3 lanes, trucks are now mostly running in the middle lane. Especially during the extended commute lane hours which are 5.5 per day. They also have a 55 speed limit, which they pretty much abide by, meaning everyone who isn't in the diamond/HOV lane is stuck at 55 since you can't see around them so you're stuck at 55 in a 65 zone. Classy. Not. I get that it's more convenient not to have to deal with merging traffic, convenient for them not me, but if convenience is all that matters they could stay off the road when I'm on it. And there is that little thing about slower traffic keep right, but I've never heard of that being enforced, just speeding in that vein.

So is this a national movement or just a California thing.

My road to Boston is the lower reaches of Rt3. Down where it is still only 2 lanes + breakdown lane, you are allowed to drive in the BDL during rush hour . It becomes the "hammer lane" If you're doing less than 75,you're holding up traffic. It becomes a little tricky to merge . Its a mess when somebody uses the lane for its intended use. Usually a dead Pontiac or Taurus. I'm glad to be out of that race.

Years ago traveling the 95 in CT, there were overhead signs for the middle lane, something like trucks, and the slow lane saying something like exit and entrance, giving folks the idea that if they aren't leaving or just getting on the road, they should pollute the middle lane at the very least. I believe the third lane was called the travel lane. Notice there is not passing lane.

Now in Germany, with strict lane discipline, there are empty fast lanes when the roads are not crowded. They know more how to drive on limited access highways than those in the US do but we have the freedom...freedom to plug up whatever lane we want to travel in on the highway. And since most suck at driving staying in one lane they get there and stay.

When traveling on I-35 in Texas I often see trucks side-by-side, neither passing the other, blockading the right lane and the middle lane.

Blue Shadow wrote:Now in Germany, with strict lane discipline, there are empty fast lanes when the roads are not crowded. They know more how to drive on limited access highways than those in the US do but we have the freedom...freedom to plug up whatever lane we want to travel in on the highway. And since most suck at driving staying in one lane they get there and stay.

I'm less than impressed with the autobahn after spending a couple of years driving in Germany. The three- & four-lane sections of the 'bahn are usually around large cities, and busy as all get-out. In typical German fashion, they've reduced a term like "traffic congestion" and "traffic jam" into a single-syllable word; stau. Listening to the radio, you can pick out that word even if you know very little German; radio stations will broadcast traffic alerts talking about, "funf kilometer stau", or "oct kilometer stau", pretty regularly. Then those big, wide stretches of autobahn are like great big parking lots filled with angst-filled Germans ready to tell you what you're doing wrong as only Germans can do.

In outlying areas it's just two-lane freeway; when those sections weren't crowded, there were usually trucks on the road that made that fast lane pretty much useless. Trucks are governed at 100 km/h (~60 mph), but one truck's governor ≠ another truck's governor, so you often come upon rolling roadblocks when one decides to pass another, and it takes a long, long time.

When it works, it works great, but it sure isn't all it's cracked up to be.