[rpvitiello]

Well not EVERY state has a mandatory keep right law. Many states require you to "keep right" ONLY if you are going below the posted speed limit. As long as you stay right at the speed limit many states allow you to stay in the far left lane.

CT does enforce the keep right laws to a degree. I know people who have been pulled over before for driving a passenger car in the left hand lane for no reason, and ticketed for it. As for interstate if it is 3+ lanes, trucks are almost always restricted to the right 2 lanes. That applies to big rigs, buses, motor homes, or trailers even a car with a tiny 200lb trailer. Unless you are a passenger car or motorcycle, you can NOT use anything but the right 2 lanes here. Just way too much traffic and it would get WAY too chaotic to have those vehicles driving in the left hand lane. I see restricted vehicles illegally in the left lane of a highway (or on a restricted highway) maybe once or twice a year. Cars will start flashing you, other truckers will tell you on the CB to get out of the left lane, and people will call the police on you (which they do respond to) trucker in the left lane = BIG no no here. Most of the time it is either some tool from out of state towing a trailer with their pick up truck, or someone in a U-hall or something that drive illegally in the left lane, I could not tell you the last time I saw an 18wheeler drive in the left lane.

It is still idiots on cruise control in the middle that slow things down. What winds up happening is the center lane is the travel lane, the left lane is the "car" passing lane, and the right lane is the "truck" passing lane on 3 lane highways. because of this they have lately been adding SUPER long acceleration/deceleration lanes that go all the way from one exit to the next exit to the far right of the highway so cars can speed up and wait for trucks to finish their pass before they get over into the "center" travel lane. Because of this we are winding up with some “exit” lanes that are a few kilometers long and go past 2 exits before they finally “exit” the highway.

as for trucks they are more concerned that the truck is in good working order than the trucker speeding. We had a few horrific crashes over the last few years where trucks had a major brake failure or something like that, turning into 20+ car accident with 10 fatalities. They are pushing for safety inspections to make sure the trucks here are safe to drive not so much pull them over for "speeding."

I don’t know if you ever drove in CT, but it is a major cross road for the northeast, the amount of truck traffic is crazy here, mixed with a huge number of commuters. At certain times the center lane can have a line of 200+ trucks all in a row. You just better hope you don’t need to get off the highway any time soon I you are in the left hand lane, your only hope is to speed up and try and pass a few hundred trucks and find a “break” in the traffic before you have to get off.

They are not complete bastards to truckers though. They are actually planning on tearing down almost all the current rest stops, rebuilding the restaurants etc as an elevated platform OVER the highway, and using the land from the old ones for truck parking so truckers can easily get a good rest and comply with federal sleep regulations.