In Illinois the left lane is called the passing lane. It is illegal to drive in the passing lane unless you are passing. A vehicle being passed may not increase speed again until the passing action has been completed.
And everyone on Illinois roads follows this to the letter 
Maine is the same. “Keep right except to pass.”
And I’ll add, “or unless you’re just an ass.”
Some variation of “slower traffic keep right” is the law in 49 states. Only South Dakota does not require it except for slow moving vehicles like farm equipment. Alaska, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Puerto Rico do not require vehicles traveling in the left lane to yield if they are going the speed limit.
All other states require a yield to faster traffic regardless of speed limit.
I was driving to Rhode Island a few weeks ago for my late father’s memorial, and I could tell I had reached New England when, within 2 miles of reaching the Connecticut border, a man in a brand-new Mitsubishi, still with the cardboard tag, drove up the breakdown lane and for some reason decided to cut right in front of me without signalling and forced me to brake hard to avoid a crash. I’d forgotten how much fun driving in New England traffic was, particularly at 3pm on a summer weekend Friday, and wondered why he’d chosen me, a native son returning home, who learned to drive on these overcrowded highways — was it the Virginia license plates, or did my driving style somehow trigger his predatory insticts, or maybe it was becasue I was driving a Mazda and he was driving a Mitsubishi? Who knows, who cares. What happened next was the fun bit.
It was the usual stop-and-go traffic, sometimes hitting 30mph, often standing still for minutes at a time. No reason, other than a major intersection up ahead and a cultural refusal to let others merge or pass, really. A pickup hauling a very long trailer was in the ‘passing’ lane, and we’d passed each other several times in this particular traffic jam over the last couple of hours. This truck pulled up along side the Mitsubishi, and started rolling coal on it. Now, I do not like, nor approve of rolling coal, so all I thought was ‘great, now I’m going to get the smoke as we drive along, what an asshole.’ After a few minutes of this, the driver of the Mitsubishi rolled down his window and threw what looked like one of those paper ice-cream cups, possibly yogurt or something else in a squat container, at the truck. Much like a bully who’s looking for an excuse to beat up a kid who squealed on him, this was enough for the truck driver, the next time traffic started moving the truck swerved into my lane, directly at the offending car, forcing it off the road and back into the breakdown lane to avoid being struck. Having passed whatever caused him to leave the breakdown lane in the first place, the car drove off, at which point the truck returned to his own lane. As I cautiously filled in the gap ahead of me and drew alongside, the driver waved at me, honked his horn with a “Dixie” tune right out of “The Dukes of Hazzard” and drove off.
Well done sir, you are ten feet closer to your destination!
Now you only need to move every single driver between here and there.
And in Kansas, if you lived on the west side of town, the sun in your eyes both ways!
I’ve lately noticed enough cars doing a less aggressive version of this that I swear it’s being taught as the proper and correct way to drive. What I mean is that they aren’t tailgating as much as not leaving half the proper safe distance. And when there is a proper gap, they feel it must be filled.
The result is long lines of cars on the freeway going 100+kph with no more than two car lengths between them, guaranteeing a very bad collision should one of them actually need to stop for some reason.
someone in a black pickup truck was driving dangerously and possibly being a rage filled jerk!
im SHOCKED! . totally. shocked.
Folks on the east side of Detroit are so not hip to this. Countless times we’ve had to pass clumps of slow moving idiots by using the right hand lane. Whenever encountering something similar elsewhere (which is rare), mom would say, “Fuck! You’d think we’re on the east side!”
Great story!
Some jerk in a pickup tried to run two friends and I off the road in southern Colifornyah. My friend who was driving screamed at it, "What, late for your hitler youth meeting?!"
Right?!? (I grew up East Sider 
)
Yeah, the brake checker is no angel. And he himself did some super-dangerous maneuvers, moving laterally and then weaving so as to apparently remain ahead of the pickup truck(?) They both deserve tickets.
If someone is aggressive behind me and there’s cars directly ahead of me, I just pull over (when I can), and enjoy the show when the aggro tries to get the next car to move over.
I don’t understand why a person illegally speeding has priority over a person illegally driving within a lane.
Because most states have somewhat flexible laws regarding speeding. If you’re traveling with the flow of traffic, you’re not speeding, within reason (usually speed limit +30 or 100 mph).
Ironically, the passive aggressive asshole blocking the fast lane can often be cited for both speeding and failing to yield, since they aren’t moving with the flow of traffic. They are separate laws. For example, in some states, a person traveling 60 in a 55 mph zone while blocking faster traffic in the left lane would be doing both.
Because the primary goal of the law is safety. No matter what speed others are driving, steadfastly moving slower than surrounding traffic is dangerous compared to everyone driving at the same speed, even if that speed is excessive.
Having lived in Milwaukee, on the occasions I had to head south, crossing the border into Illinois was like flipping a switch with the passing lane usage. So yeah, in my experience, most people did follow that rule.
This was also 30 years ago, things might have changed.
That was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The truth is the exact opposite: in Illinois (and Indiana), slower traffic keeps left. I sometimes joke that British people would be quite at home driving here.
I got the sarcasm! What I failed to convey in my comment is that however bad Illinois drivers are at that, Wisconsin drivers are worse.
