Why the middle

I drive in the left, middle, right lane what ever I wish depending on the traffic.. Listen the speed limit in either lane is the same. Just because you have a hammer lane, doesn't give you the right to go faster than the posted speed limit. And if you pay attention you will also notice on most interstates that sign that says " left lane for passing only"

Beside I hate being in the right lane as you have to move over or slow down all the time to let cars on or off the roads.. And since most people think the left lane has no speed limit, I can keep my safe driving distance better than in the middle or right..

 

I prefer to drive at night, its my thing, less traffic, less merging in of 4wheelers and other truckers, i usually run the middle lane simply cause i dont want to be the guy who hits a guy parked on the shoulder changing his flat tire with only a flash light in his mouth and no 4 way flashers flashin.
and the deer and large wildlife hang out close to the shoulder, lickin up the road salt, inching their way closer and closer the that far right lane.
but once a see a driver rearing up i simply hit that far right lane, allow him/her to pass on by the legal way, then simply head back to the middle, and repeat as often as needed.

 

GONZO, if a 2 MILE wait for a truck to pass another is too long, maybe ya should hang it up man. 2 minutes is a very short amount of time to get worked up about.
now the 10 mile race IS annoying, SOMEONE should concede, but 2 MILES c'mon driver...

 

ooo, ill admit this one, a few months ago, another driver and myself, same company were driving cross country together, in our own trucks, and we didnt really stay together the entire time, maybe a mile to five between us at times, only cause we run the same speed. anyway, at one point we were nose to ###, and a flatbed was just off my front end, left blinker blinkin merge over, pass flatbed, i suspect was an o/o, my buddy throws his blinker on merges over after i get a few miles up, cc at 65, as im watching in the rearview, i see that he is hanging out in that left lane for a long time, so i key up, were on our company chan. not 19, and ask him what the hell he is doing, tells me the flatbed picked his speed up just a wee bit, enough not to allow him to pass on by, so he asked me to slowly drop my speed down a bit to slow the flatbed down so he could pass, i did, he passed him and myself and we regain our cruisin speed of 65, 45 mins later the flatbed comes flying passed us, 75+ and gets in front of us, and drops his speed down to 62, causin us to folllow his non proffesional driving, traffic steadly moving in the left lane, so we cant pass him, we decide to drop down to chan 19 to hear him asking us how we like it... we said we love it and thanks, he went on saying that he has all day to mess around with us, well, petro, next exit we see, take it to the home chan and agree to suddenly take the exit.
we do so, drop back to 19 and whoolaa, he is gone, and he is pissed now cause he cant have anymore fun with us. we had dinner at petro, and continued on our way figuring he would be way ahead by now, hit the state line, and theres buddy ol' boy at the coop with what seemed to be a creeper leaning on the left steer....

 

Well whats even worse is when you get some guy with a slow truck who goes out to pass another truck and then the jerkoff in the right lane decides to speed up to match the speed of the passing truck so he can't get around him and everybody starts yelling at the guy trying to pass who did nothing wrong. That really boils my blood. Alot of our drivers have their trucks governed so they are guaranteed the fuel bonus but this is exactly the reason i do not. I appreciate that our company gives us the option and lets us govern ourselves to get it. Some guys who have heavy foots can't do it on their own so they have it governed by the company. I personally have never missed it governing myself.

 

I can see a pattern here.. All the people who are trying to "defend themselves" seem to have only been driving 1-3 years.. So I pretty much rest my case. You do not even know what I am refering to say 15-20 years ago.. (I started driving in 1988)... Other drivers would yell at you on the CB for passing on the right... They "gave you the blink, blink to let you know it was okay to come over.. If you wanted to BS on the CB ya went to a different channel, 19 was for "business" not BS.. You used to be able to run together.. I have had great times in huge "convoys" w/ 50-75 trucks or more all chatting, BS'ing and telling jokes all the way across TX... Boy did the time and miles fly by..

To me it does not matter what the "speed limit" is. IF a truck is going faster than me I get over to let them pass, simple.. There are some circumstances where you don't want to let up on the fuel.. Your turbo will lag and loose boost.. By the time it spools back up and developes the boost it was producing before.. Too late you've lost the advantage and must drop a gear ...

It's not so much of an issue today with the big motors, but, say someone is running empty? Why does he have to pay for some other idiot in the middle lane loaded to the max.. too ignorant to move over? Even if there are indentical speced trucks w/ identical governed speeds, there is always going to be a weight difference.. hence a speed difference...

To get upset with someone taking 2 miles to pass can take longer than 2 min.. Try climbing Fancy Gap, VA .. I've seen morons side by side going 30mph refusing to give an inch.. They cause a log jam of faster trucks hitting their brakes up hill.. All because they're inconsiderate and their truck will do .0001mph more than the other guy... I know I am not the only one who's seen this..

Anyone else care to challenge this observation??

 

Absolutely i see it all the time. Those guys need a good ***whoopin! Just plain ignorant and stupid.

 

Oooh, no one has the right to go faster than the posted speed limit! Were you a Hall Monitor in grade school?

 

i fully agree on a grade or such. i am refering to 2 miles at normal highway speed.
i usually won't even attempt a pass on a hill with this de-nutted company rig.
but, if you pull out around me to pass ya better get it done, like you stated, ya lose SO MUCH momentum even "burping" the throttle for a second.
BTW i ain't one of them drivers that hangs out in the middle for no good reason either.

 

I actually agree with your observations, I had this BS the other day on 24 and then on 75 both while EMPTY. Thus I could climb better than the other trucks for a change. Now as to the other question of hanging out in the middle lane at hours where this is little traffic I will do this occasionally. This isn't an inconsideration on my part, but rather I have learned that if I am in an unfamiliar city I can move left or right (as needed) if I am in the center. I have come across too many locations where I had the wrong directions from the company (exit on opposite side of the interstate across 3-4 lanes of traffic. Once I am more familiar with a location I stick with the lane I know I will need to do the fewest lane changes with.