A lot of drivers think the left lane is a place where one gets to drive a fast as they dang well please. I can be driving six or seven miles over the speed limit in the left lane, but that’s not fast enough for the guy tailgating me. The reason I’m not in the right lane is because the drivers there are driving UNDER the speed limit. You leave me no choice.
I used to drive as fast as the fastest person I could follow. Now that I don’t do that anymore, I find that I often have to pull over into slower-moving traffic to let speeders pass. And sometimes that means that I get stuck for a while, and other people get to pass me.
But I find that I almost always still get where I want to go, and I don’t have pissed-off people tailgating me.
What I hate is when I pull over to let someone pass, and then they DO pass, but drive slower than I was driving before, and they don’t move over to let me go by them.
I also hate when I let people into the left lane to pass a slower-moving car, and then they decide to camp in the left lane and block me. Makes me sorry I was courteous to them.
But when I’m driving in the left lane, I always watch for people in the center lane who want to pass people, and I let them come over, even if I have to slow down. It’s the courteous thing to do, and encourages people to stay in the slower lanes except to pass.
It bothers me on most american highways when the entire left lane is full, the center lane is half-full, and the right lane is empty.
Although in those cases, I’ll just pull into the right lane, and pretend that’s the only lane, and just drive, passing people I meet on the left, while ignoring the line of cars in the far left lane. Yes, that means I’m “passing them on the right”, but it’s not like I can pass them on the left when I’m in the right lane and there is no “lefter” lane than they are in.
I’ve been there. I’ve seen them come speeding up from behind me. Life is easier and less aggravating if I find a gap and shift over. I can usually shift right back.