Slow Lane = Laid Back Lane
When driving during the commute time, more people should consider the slow lane as the laid back lane! The fast lane (the lane on the far left or the one next to the high occupancy vehicle [HOV] lane) should be considered the more aggressive lane because the vehicles are going faster, tend to have minimum distances between vehicles, and the drivers want and try to get somewhere faster than the lanes to the right.
What really gets me is that in the slow lane, some people, during high traffic periods, act like they are in the fast lane. They keep minimum distances partly to not let other vehicles in front of them. Now, this causes some on-ramps to back-up, and with the site of that, the slow lane traffic will slow down or stop, all together.
The department of motor vehicles state that the rule of thumb on distance between two vehicle is one vehicle length for every 10 miles per hour. This allows some space to react when braking so the chances are lower that you will hit the vehicle in front of you before you come to a complete stop, or slow down enough to allow you to get back to the minimum recommended spacing.
…oh, this is just the start of many threaded discussions on driving!
