In all of Europe, undertaking is illegal. When we come to the US, driving feels like you are in a third world country.

In the UK it's actually not illegal: it's just advised against, and considered bad form in most situations by most drivers. And, of course, if you cause an accident by undertaking the police will (rightly) throw the book at you.

Examples where it's considered acceptable to undertake:

- In heavier or queuing traffic inside lanes might move faster than outside lanes: this is OK, and it's considered better and safer to stay in lane than keep changing lanes to overtake.

- Motorcycles filtering through traffic, which generally occurs between the middle and outside lane on motorways. Where gaps are bigger motorcyclists will often move from the outside to middle lanes to get around slow moving vehicles in the outside lane. Again, this tends to apply when traffic is heavier.

If you do it on a reasonably clear road to get around someone hogging an overtaking lane, and the police see you, they're going to pull you over and give you a fixed penalty notice for careless driving though. I know this from experience.

Interesting. On the A1M heading to and from Peterborough I've also seen them flash and pull people over for lane hogging so at least they're enforcing it both ways.

Super annoying when you're cruising along in the inside lane and then have to cross the entire width of the carriageway to overtake some clown hogging the middle lane: always feels a bit risky, especially if there are vehicles coming up from behind in the outside lane.

Same when you get someone who's pulled out to overtake a lorry but can't be bothered to pull in again even though the next vehicle they'd overtake is hundreds of metres ahead of them.

Me too! M4 from London to Cardiff for the Ryder Cup. Had lived in Texas for years, was fresh off the plane and forgot it wasn't legal.

No mercy shown! Jokes on them though I never paid the ticket and I'm never going to.

I always find it interesting when people brag about not paying fines — especially when the fine is issued in a foreign country.

To me it shows a lack of responsibility and a huge lack of respect for the local laws. I guess not everyone feels that way though.

there is a certain cynicism regarding traffic laws in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection or to give the police an excuse to pull you over, absent any real safety concern. in my state, for example, it is against the law to have anything dangling from the rearview mirror. if I so much as forget to take down my parking permit in the morning, I can be pulled over at any time.

fwiw, I take traffic flow very seriously. I will always move over if I notice someone driving close behind me.

> in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection

That's not a US only phenomenon. For example, in the UK there is a - somewhat justified - suspicion that some speed[1] cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with revenue raising.

[1] Ahem, sorry, I mean "safety" not "speed", obviously.

just wanted to add some context for the EU readers who I (perhaps mistakenly) assume have a bit more respect for government and for traffic laws in particular.

the US has a somewhat fraught history with traffic laws. by default, police are not really allowed to stop you for no reason and possibly search your vehicle/person. of course, this is very inconvenient for police, so over the years many traffic offenses have been created to remedy this. if a cop wants to (legally) pull over the most upstanding citizen in the country, all they have to do is follow them on the road for a mile and they'll have a reason.

You've been punished enough by sitting through the tedium of golf tournament. :)

Your estate will likely pay the ticket with 50 years of interest when you die.

"But it's not illegal in my country"

Like many other things in the Highway Code there may be no specific offence for failing to follow it but the police have enough freedom with fixed penalty notices making disregarding the rules an ill advised activity.

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q891.htm

I have no problem with this as long as they consistently enforce against lane hogging in the same way. (In my A1M example they clearly do.)

The Highway Code says you shouldn't do it unless you're in slow moving traffic. RAC article here: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/

The problem with undertaking for me is that it reduces options when you need them the most.

If I'm in the middle lane doing 70mph and thinking "I can't pull into the inside because that car is only 30 foot off my bumper", that driver deciding to keep up with me at 70mph or undertaking reduces my outs in the event of a tyre blowout or other incident (e.g. a broken down car or debris in the middle lane ahead).

Where there is a dynamic hard shoulder or all-lane running, options become fewer still and the chance of a problem even higher.

And then there are the lorries on the inside of a 50mph average speed check contraflow undertaking in narrow lanes at 0.25mph more than the outside lane - that's just an accident waiting to happen.

I've also been on the outside lane overtaking somebody who was doing 65mph in the middle lane with an empty inside lane who as I moved to overtake sped up. Not undertaking: just blocking me from moving past and back into the middle lane.

I then had a boy racer come in behind me at 90mph and have to throw the anchor out whilst flashing his lights at me, and my options are basically "hope for the best". We were on a relatively tight corner for a motorway (it's that horrid section of the M60 that runs through Stockport), so deciding to accelerate to get out of this would have meant potentially losing control of the car, and the guy in the middle lane was likely going to pin me there anyway...

For me then - especially in the narrow lanes of UK motorways - it is not just about using middle and outside lanes for passing only, there is a responsibility of the drivers on the inside to allow that to happen and give those around them enough options if they need them, and not doing so should be considered just as much a case of careless driving as undertaking in most other scenarios.

Perhaps worse in terms of consistency. Private drivers education, public school drivers education, or uncle Bob can just teachya!

The testing is remarkably pathetic. It's impressive this system works as well as it does. Red light runners, meh, just fine them! Pot smokers, fine and imprison them even if they weren't near a vehicle!

Honestly it's so backwards.

My experiences of driving in Italy point to a slight disregard for the law in that case - I've never seen more egregious undertaking than I have on the motorways there... .

I used to hold that position too, but then I realized a couple things that could fill several books. It boils down to the fact that the USA was essentially first to build a road network based on assumptions of low population density, high abundance and first to access requisite resources; and assuming a civilized society with a baseline of standards, culture, and customs that were essentially tacit and implicit to the system without having to be regulated or explicitly managed.

If you are European, although the significantly increased government control of its population will mitigate things somewhat, reality is that as Europe has now imbued itself with third world people and the customs and proclivities they carry, the road behaviors will also change even more than they clearly have, as anyone who has driven in Europe for more than 20 or so years, can attest to.

And before anyone gets triggered on some conditioned and well trained pavlovian assumptions, what I described above was equally observable when East Germans started meshing with West Germany, where after 55 years of having been exposed to relentless psychological engineering to break East Germans of their German-ness and proclivities and identity, they lacked what are commonly understood to be certain German traits and preferences for methodical order, systematic structure, and social courtesy; all of which the East Germans had far less of a connection to. That led to a lot of poor driving on roads and that has really not changed all that much either since as anyone who spends any distinct time on West German Roads and East German roads can attest to, even though the impact is being muddled by things like Polish drivers in East Germany and increasingly foreign drivers from all over the place.

Essentially it also comes down to the fact that now people with drivers licenses from various other European countries with lower driving standards, are also just allowed to drive in Germany without having to meet the far higher German driving class standards. It's yet another way in which democracy itself is being utterly disassembled, as foreign minorities are advantaged over native majorities … a total in version of democracy and even basic morality and ethics.

As for the USA, things have gotten so bad in many states that just ignoring the overcapacity of most of the road system due to unfettered and uncontrolled invasion by foreigners driving on US roads, you now have a whole ethnic driving license racket going on where an ethnic communities pass their own in spite of essentially not passing or being safe drivers.

I know that is not what people here want to hear, but reality simply is that this whole system is failing and it is failing due to deliberate bugs intentionally injected, and instead of fixing those bugs, people are just covering them up and making excuses and using ever mounting number of hacks to obscure and hide the ever more brittle system. It's quite telling that even in this kind of forum no one seems to understand that they are looking at a totally broken system and one that is failing at every increasing speed; all while willfully ignoring the inevitable cascading and total failure.

So many aspects about driving in the US are so terrible.

The road conditions are pretty bad, and what i would like to understand are the gas taxes and other taxes which ostensibly go into road infra.

We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going?

Some countries have high vehicle costs and their roads to me seem pristine and perfect by comparison. Specifically in fresh memory is both Singapore and Hong Kong.

The condition of their roads just seem to be flawless.

In the US we even have potholes jokingly having birthdays thrown for them, gas prices include large per gallon taxes and road conditions never appear to improve - and yearly reports of “crumbling infrastructure” and “deteriorating dangerous bridges” keep coming out.

> We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going?

A. You don't have high gas taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#/media/File%3AFuel_ta...

B. You build a lot of roads.

Nope.

California comes in second on the list of states with the highest gas tax at 72.76 cents per gallon. Rising fuel prices and increased taxation are the primary reasons for this.

A law that was passed in 2017 allowed the state of California to increase the gas tax by a steep 12 cents, because it seemed like the most viable way to obtain the funds needed to replace several bridges and fund other important road projects.

You can expect the state’s gas tax to increase further by 7.5 cents per gallon in a few months.

We consume 10% of the US’ gas consumption i. California.

We consume more than 40 million gallons per day. There are opaque additonal taxes on each gallon sold at the nearly 9,000 gas stations and billions in taxes are also missing.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s...

And not all taxes are hitting our roads...

That is a very low gas tax. In Germany it's €2.47 per gallon/ €0.65 per liter.

Edit: Your numbers for california amount to about $10.6B per year - and the transportation budget for california for the current fiscal year is $23.5 billion [0]. So the tax pays for less than half of the costs.

[0] = https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3948#Overview_of_Gove...

Singapore and Hong Kong are both in areas which never experience freezing. The act of freezing and thawing of water in temperate climates is super harsh on roads - as water will seep into cracks and then expand when it freezes. It's the main reason why many roads are bad in many US cities like Chicago.

Another reason might be due to regulations. I faintly recall hearing that European highways are built on an 18" base, whereas the US only a 12" base, but I'm sure it varies...

Given that Singapore and Hong Kong are cities I would imagine that both of them have a much higher population density per road mile. Indeed, a quick search brings up unconfirmed numbers which indicate road per capita for the total US exceeds that of Singapore by an order of magnitude.

In addition, the Hong Kong fuel tax on unleaded gasoline is roughly 2.95 USD per gallon.

I'm not sure what it's like in Spain but, in France, if you hog the outside lane you will get flashed and beeped at. French drivers do not tolerate lane hogs at all and generally manifest excellent lane discipline: I wish the UK were more like that.

It's not simply against social norms: in (some/most?) European countries you can get a ticket for hogging the left (fast) lane. You are supposed to move over, if traffic allows.

I've started driving again after a couple of years off, and it still astounds me that people lane hog the middle lane.

I don't know if it's laziness, ego, or fear of motorways but it should be taught as a rule. I usually make it a point to overtake and then, if possible, go straight back across to the left lane. Highly doubt the hogger is paying any attention, but I feel more content feeling like I've taught something...

Still amazing still motorway driving isn't taught or tested at all (I think? Been quite a while since I got my license).

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there's a lot less hogging in 2 lane scenarios, which I why I try and find A roads now rather than motorways.

I drive when and where I feel comfortable. Usually at or slightly below the speed limit. I'm mostly optimizing for making the minimum number of lane changes once I get on the motorway. Preferably that means as soon as I get on the motorway switching to whatever lane will take me directly to the exit. A lot of people do what you do. Doesn't bother me a bit. My logic is no one is really actually getting anywhere any faster anyway. They're just increasing risk for barely any benefit. Changing lanes seems to me like the most likely time to have an accident, so the people who insist that driving at the speed limit isn't fast enough and that they must change a lane to go around me and then change back again taking a small risk twice for the privilege are just impatient.

As the old saying goes "everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, everyone who drives faster than you is crazy".

Fun fact: I also take routes that minimize the number of times I have to turn into oncoming traffic and/or judge gaps where the landscape gives poor visibility of the traffic, so long as the detour is no more than a few minutes.

I drive at the speed limit as well - the number of people you see doing 60mph in the middle lane though is worrying. I see that as the dangerous thing (and would argue that it inherently makes changing lanes more dangerous as you have 3 trafficked lanes, rather than 2 with a usually empty middle).

If you stick to the middle when the slow lane is even going faster than you, that's definitely the time to move over.

My aim is to be a good road citizen and obey by rules and convention to ensure everyone's journey is smooth, not only my own.

If you think of the lanes as one driving lane and the others as overtaking lanes like they do in the UK or some other countries then there is no conception of slow or fast lane and there are no people going slower in the overtaking lanes, or someone with a faster car just hogging the outside lane. They have to move over always.

I suspect it's just out of fear. they don't want to deal with cars merging into their lane from entrance ramps.

> generally manifest excellent lane discipline

Until you get to a road with more than 2x2 lanes. You have people half asleep in the middle lane going 10 km/h under the speed limit.

Yeah, it works because a lot of motorways in Spain have two lanes, and people like to drive fast, so lane hogging isn't tolerated.

There's no concept of lanes in India. Vehicle volume and variety are so huge that it kind of makes sense to have all the vehicles move tightly packed.

Comparatively, it's pretty chaotic here.

And a lot more people die per mile.

It’s a trade off. You can’t neatly organize ox, a guy pulling a heavily loaded cart, an ox driven cart, a bicycle, a scooter, a motorcycle, a rickshaw, a car, and a heavily loaded truck which is probably overcapacity.

You can certainly neatly organize those. First of all, ox and horsecarts don't even really need tarmac, and so in many countries where these means of transportation persist, they are only allowed to use the earth surface parallel to the road. Scooters should be expected to do the same, as even the cheap Chinese motorbikes found throughout the developing world have tires thick enough for earth or even sand.

If you’ve been to India, you will see that there is no earth surface parallel to the road in many places. It’s a path that is two lanes wide, maybe a little longer, and everything is negotiable. It may be possible to reign it in with China style authoritarian rule, but Indian culture is not like that in my experience. Although perhaps it would result in a safer environment.

A lot of those fatalities are from minor mishaps on mopeds combined with hard surfaces and a lack of helmets.

As Stevvo said, it's not that they're serious, it's that it's illegal to do otherwise.

Traffic laws are the only laws most people (in any country) will disregard willingly without feeling like a criminal.

So illegal != taken seriously. In Spain it was both.

I've also noticed (around Costa Blanca) how seriously they take tailgating (I mean it as a positive thing). As soon as there was a slow car in the left lane there was another literally 2 meters behind it... I tend to tailgate left lane hogs but I wouldn't ever go so close for safety reasons. In 0-2 minutes, the slow car is merging right. I wonder if those two are related.