A couple of years ago, I had a good whinge on this blog –
http://blog.privatefleet.com.au/home/keep-left-unless-overtaking/
The crux of it was complaining about how Australians seem to ignore the ‘Keep Left Unless Overtaking’ law. The law seems to be observed in countries overseas but not in Australia and I just couldn’t understand why…
Well, the reason became apparent to me last week. I was gobsmacked to find out that I have been completely wrong for all these years. It appears that in Australia on a 3-lane freeway, despite the signs, one is perfectly entitled to sit in the middle lane!! The signs ‘Keep Left Unless Overtaking’ really means ‘Don’t use the Right Lane Unless Overtaking’.
Here’s the simplified rule as per the motoring authorities:
On multi-lane roads with a speed limit of more than 80km/h, motorists
must not drive in the right-hand lane unless they are:
• overtaking
• turning right or making a U-turn
• avoiding an obstacle
• driving in congested traffic
• driving in a special purpose lane or if there is a Left Lane Must Turn Left sign or a left traffic arrow and the driver is not turning left.
So, I’ve been wrong all these years. All this wasted anger and frustration directed to these ignorant law-breakers who it turns out were doing the right thing all along (in a legal sense)! So let me hold my hand up and humbly apologise to all those who have been the subject of my angry feelings and/or glares. I’m sorry.
Meekly, I will make a defence that I learned how to drive in the UK and have driven extensively in Europe where ‘middle lane hogging’ is clearly outlawed. Further I will add that the signs used in Australia contributed to my mistake – why refer to the left lane at all when it is the right lane that the law refers to?
However, saying all that, I am now even more astounded. It’s not ill-informed motorists doing the wrong thing but the government! What on earth were they thinking? Many road rules in Australia have been adapted from overseas so why take this one and then snip off an important part for no apparent reason. Why on earth did they do it?
Let me put forth an objective list of reasons why I think the European model works better:
- 3-lane freeways become 2-lane freeways
- Traffic Flow. The rate of traffic (cars per hour) is increased reducing congestion. Of course, once it hits a point where all 3-lanes are crawling, you’re stuffed but it takes longer to hit that level if ‘left lane discipline’ is observed. If drivers stick steadfastly in the middle lane, it tends to turn 3-lane freeways into 2-lane motorways. In general drivers will (sensibly) prefer to overtake on the right fearing meeting some particurlarly slow traffic in the inside lane and getting ‘boxed in’. So the left lane gets under-utilised – the only users being the most diverse groups – the very slow and the very fast and impatient.
- If everyone keeps to the very left, there’s no need for undertaking (passing a driver in the left lane). This increases safety for all drivers as there’s now only one side that you need to anticipate drivers passing you rather than two (notwithstanding the facat that a good driver should anticipate hazards from all angles and situations but you get my drift)
- Speed Differential. This is the big one in my opinion. Think about any accident and you’ll see that two objects travelling at different speeds is what caused the accident. The bigger this difference the more dangerous it is (eg a car at 80km/hr hitting a tree at 0km/hr).
We’ve all had the experience of coming up to the crest a hill and having to brake relatively hard as a heavy vehicle crawls up the hill at snails pace. Traffic entering main roads from side roads is often a high risk accident zone for example as the car entering may not always attain the prevailing speed fo the main road in time.
So when you allow middle lane hogging, and left lane overtaking, you combine some of the fastest speeds with some of the slowest! You have speed freaks mixing with flat-capped, caravan pulling Sunday drivers in the same lane!
Look at the example of the right to see what I’m talking about – as the speeding car passes the truck, there’s a needlessly dangerous 20km/h speed differential.
Does the above sound right to you? Or am I missing something? The following pieces of evidence do seem to support this argument:
- Traffic seems to flow better overseas in developed countries. It just does and anyone who has driver overseas will no doubt have noticed it. Simply put it takes a lot more cars to clog a 3-lane motorway than it does here.
- Further illustrating the ‘speed differential’ argument. If you are on a freeway and overtake a car doing 105km/h while you are doing 110km/h, it’s relatively straightforward. You slowly move past them even though there may only be a metre or s0 between the wing mirrors of the two cars. But would you be so comfortable cruising past a row of trees that close doing the same speed?
Now, how about an argument for the current rules. Thinking hard, I can only come up with one… and that one is dubious too.
- There is less lane changing when drivers are allowed to sit in the niddle lane. Yes, I can see that in low-traffic scenarios (remember those?) – a car driver for example may just sit in the middle lane avoiding slow trucks etc in the left hand lane. However sooner or later, a faster driver will come up behind and be forced to change lanes tothe far right lane to overtake whereas with the strick keep left model, he may not have to. Also, the dangerous practice impatient drivers are ‘forced’ into of darting to to the left to undertake and then quickly scoot two lanes to the right to overtake the next two vehicles may mean that this isn’t the case after all.
So, I’m still confused and still frustrated but should I be? Is this even an issue worth talking about? Let us know in the comments below if you agree or disagree.