Trucks driving in center lanes

I was taught that trucks and other slower vehicles should drive in the rightmost lane unless passing an even slower-moving vehicle or preparing to make a left turn. In the last few months, however, I've seen more and more trucks driving in the center lane on main roads and highways with three or four lanes in each direction. This is not a simple passing maneuver because they remain in that lane for miles, causing faster-moving traffic behind them to pass them, sometimes on their right side. Is this some sort of organized campaign or just bad driving practice?

More generally, I wish all drivers on multi-lane roads would move to the right when possible and let faster traffic pass on the left. I drive Telegraph Rd [[US24) southbound every day from M-59 in Waterford to Ten Mile Rd. in Southfield. There are three or four lanes in each direction on Telegraph. I am often stuck in the left lane behind vehicles who are going slower than prevailing traffic when other lanes to the right are clear. This forces faster cars to try to pass the slower cars on the right, adding to congestion and slowing everyone down.

Telegraph and Southfield are messed up with extra traffic created in recent months by detouring from the I-275 rebuild / shut down. I'm sure that along with confused commuters is creating some of the issues. The north-south mile roads parallel to to 275, like Haggerty, Newburg and Farmington are also clogged up because of that.

You will often see trucks do this to avoid to have to make aburpt braking and acceleration due to turn-offs, driveways, and on/off ramps on highways.

On roads like Telegraph there are many people who make aburpt right turns, or back-ups of turning traffic that would lead to more frequent braking and stops in the right lane.
On highways like the Southfield there are limited merge lanes for the ramps, so they would face constant traffic and braking.

The common strategy these days for cars seems to be heading directly to the leftmost lane and then going whatever the hell speed you feel like, ignoring anyone behind you while you play on your phone.

Its good for them to sit in the middle as DTWflyer mentioned. It may be more orderly as lunatics can't go crazy using the center lane as a passing lane. I'd rather they stay there then having to deal with them merging onto the freeway.

State vehicle code states slow moving traffic must keep to the right. It's a judgement call on the part of police officers, but it's not given much attention these days. And for what it's worth, 98% of truck drivers are good guys, concerned with safety as much as anyone. There will always be a few yahoos, just like car drivers.

Old cop here, just sayin'.

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Originally Posted by DTWflyer

You will often see trucks do this to avoid to have to make aburpt braking and acceleration due to turn-offs, driveways, and on/off ramps on highways.

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This. It can be annoying, but it's better for their wallets and the environment to not have those big trucks frequently braking.

Also, the "slow to the right rule", in my mind, only applies to freeways. On normal roads I don't expect people to move out of the way for me.

Michigan's "keep right" law is weak and confused.

At MCL 257.634[[2), drivers are required to use the rightmost lane except when overtaking. But this requirement is nullified by MCL 257.634[[3), on freeways having 3 or more lanes in each direction. So the law applies on freeways with 2 lanes on each side, but not 3 or more. The law also does not apply when all lanes are full of traffic.

The law does not distinguish between freeways and ordinary roads, but I have never heard of it being applied on free-access roads.