Using a collector/distributor lane to pass mainline traffic: Yea or nay?

[Zzonkmiles]

I was driving on I-95 through North Carolina recently. Those of us who have driven this unpleasant route before know that it sucks because it's only two lanes each way. So if a truck or a slow vehicle tries to overtake another truck or slow vehicle, traffic can back up. Anyway, I-95 in NC has at least three A-B exits separated from the mainline as collector/distributor lanes. As I approached one of these C/D lanes, I noticed that there were no cars trying to enter this lane to get on the interstate mainline. So I took the exit to the C/D lane, hit the gas, passed the slower traffic on the mainline, and merged back onto 95 without incident with nothing but open road ahead of me.

A part of me feels like I did something terribly unsafe (even though the C/D lane was empty) and was lucky I didn't get a ticket, but another part of me feels like I used the available lanes strategically.

Anyway, what's your verdict? If you have an open C/D lane available to you and you can safely use it to pass slower mainline traffic, should you just stay on the mainline behind the slower traffic or is it okay in your book to use the C/D lane as a quick passing detour?

[Zeffy]

I've seen people do it at this interchange on the Trenton section of I-95. I do have to say, I will give that person kudos for utilizing an exit lane as an auxiliary lane to skip ahead of traffic. Usually though, I don't have to wait too long for the center or left lane to open so I can bypass the slow traffic, so I've never considered doing this before.

[jeffandnicole]

I have done it before, such as on 95 in Delaware at the 141 interchange. Also on long accel/decel lanes, such as between the truck weigh station and exit 4 on 295 in NJ.

I do to as a last resort, mostly when there are two slow motorists in both the travel lanes.

It's not illegal per se, and unless there's a separate speed limit sign, you can technically go the speed limit. Bit zooming down in excess of the speed limit is probably going to get you noticed by a cop if in the area, and "unsafe" is in the eye of the beholder. 

[1995hoo]

VDOT in fact used to encourage this practice in certain locations to reduce the amount of weaving back and forth caused by entering traffic having to cross paths with exiting traffic. The old Springfield Interchange, pre-rebuild, used to have signs directing southbound traffic on I-95 to use the C/D road as an option.

Whether I will do this normally depends on where it is and the amount of traffic and whether I want to consider bailing out onto a surface street. On eastbound I-66 at Exit 62 (Nutley Street), I usually opt for the C/D road because traffic is almost always quite slow, there are frequent accidents, and I'm always ready to exit the Interstate in favor of a parallel arterial that will take me to the Beltway. I should also note the configuration is such that it's a fairly long C/D road–you have to make up your mind quite early whether to use it. So I use it in order to give myself options as I get further down the road to the point where I can see what the traffic is doing. In cases where it's a more conventional shorter C/D road, such as one associated with a standard cloverleaf that has no additional ramps or nearby exits, I'm less likely to do this because I can see the traffic better.

I will hasten to point out that I don't floor it down a C/D road to use it like a passing lane where I try to race past as many people as possible. That strikes me as unsafe, and possibly reckless, in case someone does in fact come down one of the entrance ramps or in case someone has pulled off with car trouble. But even if I'm going, say, 45 mph, if the traffic situation is such that I felt the need to use the C/D road, odds are 45 mph is still faster than I'd be doing out on the mainline.

I suppose, as I re-read this, I'm suggesting something maybe a little different than the OP. I don't necessarily enter the C/D road intending to use it as a bypass lane because I'm usually prepared to exit if I think that to be the better option. But I have no problem with using a C/D road with the intention of merging back onto the mainline at the far end, as long as the motorist is aware that the potential for entering/exiting traffic at slower speeds makes it generally inappropriate to treat it as simply another ordinary lane of highway.

[02 Park Ave]

Would it matter if the C/D lane is a continuation of the right hand travel lane?  E.G., if there are four travel lanes before and after an interchange but only three lanes in it.

[1995hoo]

Would it matter if the C/D lane is a continuation of the right hand travel lane?  E.G., if there are four travel lanes before and after an interchange but only three lanes in it.

That might make me more likely to use it, though I'd still probably be wary of going through at full highway speed.

[Mergingtraffic]

There is nothing illegal about it really.  If the C/D lane acts as the right just divided for a 1/2 mile for the exit and on-ramps or so, and there are just enough lanes before and after the C/D lane it's a loop hole I think in traffic control. 

It's the same as if the left turn lane at a stop light is backed up and the right turn lane is clear.  Sometimes, when I want to go left but it'll take 2-3 light cycles to get through via the left turn lane, I'll take the right turn lane and turn right and then make a U-turn and hit the green on the cross street.  Is that wrong?  There are no signs saying "No U-turn" and I'm not cutting into traffic forcing them to slow down.

[Zzonkmiles]

There is nothing illegal about it really.  If the C/D lane acts as the right just divided for a 1/2 mile for the exit and on-ramps or so, and there are just enough lanes before and after the C/D lane it's a loop hole I think in traffic control. 

It's the same as if the left turn lane at a stop light is backed up and the right turn lane is clear.  Sometimes, when I want to go left but it'll take 2-3 light cycles to get through via the left turn lane, I'll take the right turn lane and turn right and then make a U-turn and hit the green on the cross street.  Is that wrong?  There are no signs saying "No U-turn" and I'm not cutting into traffic forcing them to slow down.

I've done the exact same thing to avoid having to wait at a protected turn light that has a long timer. Perhaps the road was not "intended" to be used that way, but there's nothing that explicitly prohibits it.

[triplemultiplex]

Sounds like one would get burned trying to pull that maneuver more often then they'd get away with getting around the pack of slower moving traffic.  It's very rare that you can see all of the potential merging traffic from the start of a C/D lane.

More importantly, how much time is that really saving you? 8 seconds?  12?  I know we've all been programmed to be impatient, but I don't see the benefit compared to the high risk of getting stuck behind even slower vehicles still getting up to speed.

[Kacie Jane]

I agree with the last post above.  It's not likely to save you much time.  However, there are definitely certain circumstances where it could, and generally speaking, it's not illegal, so if you think it will save you time, go for it.

I said generally speaking though. If you are going to do it, make sure that you're not on I-405 SB in Kirkland, WA.  The blurred out line on the bottom says "except buses", so perhaps buses that need to make the right-hand freeway stop at the next exit are encouraged to make this maneuver though.

[roadman65]

I say its fair game to use the c/d roadway as its technically part of the main roadway.  I see the nonsense of people clogging roadways all the time by driving too slow in all lanes with a free (open) road ahead of them.  It gets annoying at times when people should keep right except to pass.  This is why we have so much road rage, because of bullies like these who take over the traffic flow for whatever reason lies inside their heads.

[dfwmapper]

I'm pretty sure I've seen a sign one of the freeways in SoCal that had "THRU TRAFFIC OK" added to an overhead sign for a lane exiting to a C/D road. No idea where though.

[hbelkins]

I don't see anything wrong with doing it. In fact, I was encouraged to do it once. There's poor "right lane must exit" signage on I-264 in Louisville at the Breckinridge Lane exit. I got caught up in it and ended up exiting onto eastbound Breckinridge and had to make my way back to I-264. I complained about the signage to someone in the Louisville office, and ended up hearing back from an engineer who said that if I had stayed in the lane instead of exiting onto eastbound Breckinridge, I could have merged back onto 264 because it was a C/D lane.

[jp the roadgeek]

Oh, it worked beautifully one July Sunday night on I-95 in New London, CT.  Used the southbound c/d road south of the Gold Star bridge, got around a mile of traffic, back onto I-95 for a couple hundred feet then off onto CT 85, avoiding a 14 mile backup over to CT 9

[rickmastfan67]

Does using a Rest Area as a 'collector/distributor lane' count?

Was on I-81 in PA once just North of I-80.  Traffic was almost at a complete stand still because of an accident having the entire highway blocked.  We happened to be just right near the Rest Area there going NB.  So, we get off, take a rest break, and get back onto I-81 ~15 minutes later, and still passed several cars that had been ahead of us! hahahaha!

[DTComposer]

I'm pretty sure I've seen a sign one of the freeways in SoCal that had "THRU TRAFFIC OK" added to an overhead sign for a lane exiting to a C/D road. No idea where though.

I know it was on I-405 in Long Beach, although I believe the newer signage no longer has it. I believe they were on some exits of I-10 near La Cienega/La Brea as well.

[Brian556]

Quote from Merging traffic:

It's the same as if the left turn lane at a stop light is backed up and the right turn lane is clear.  Sometimes, when I want to go left but it'll take 2-3 light cycles to get through via the left turn lane, I'll take the right turn lane and turn right and then make a U-turn and hit the green on the cross street.  Is that wrong?  There are no signs saying "No U-turn" and I'm not cutting into traffic forcing them to slow down.

It's amazing how many people cannot figure this out.
Once, in Forest City, AR, I-40 was backed up. There was a mile long line to turn west onto US 70 from SR 1. My mom was driving. I told her, hey why not get in the right lane, go past the intersection, then turn around, or just go around the block. Duh.

[DandyDan]

This sounds like a nice idea in theory, but at least at the one C/D road in Omaha (I-80 westbound at the I-L-Q interchange), they reduce the speed limit on the C/D road to 50 while the mainline in 60, so I would have to say no to that idea there.

[Kacie Jane]

This sounds like a nice idea in theory, but at least at the one C/D road in Omaha (I-80 westbound at the I-L-Q interchange), they reduce the speed limit on the C/D road to 50 while the mainline in 60, so I would have to say no to that idea there.

Unless of course, traffic is moving at 50+ in the C/D lane and <40 in the mainline lanes. Not sure how likely that is in that location, but it's certainly plausible. Speed limits do not reflect actual speeds in all traffic conditions.

[02 Park Ave]

On the New Jersey Turnpike, i've done a "drive through" at a service area to switch from the inner lanes to the outer lanes to avoid congestion.

[Zzonkmiles]

These are all very interesting responses, and I'm glad to know several of us take these unspecified shortcuts.

One thing I refuse to do, however, is drive in the emergency lane of an interstate when there's a traffic jam or an accident. For losers who do that, there's a special place in rush hour traffic on I-95 south of Washington for them. Hmph.

[briantroutman]

Perhaps this has been discussed before, but what about using a full-fledged exit to bypass traffic?

Here's a very relevant example that's local to me: During the afternoon/evening rush, the eastbound lanes of both I-580 and Sir Francis Drake are clogged with motorists trying to get home to the East Bay across the San Rafael-Richmond Bridge. The on-ramp from Sir Francis Drake to I-580 East becomes an exit only lane for a seldom-used ramp to the back door of San Quentin. Of course many regulars speed down the off ramp, make the obligatory rolling stop at the bottom, and immediately race back up the corresponding on-ramp.

I might be inclined to accept this practice except for this side-effect: So many people have adopted this off-on shortcut that the bypass is now almost as congested as the through lanes. And I've already been in the position of driving to a business on Francisco Blvd–and therefore actually using that interchange for its intended purpose–but being stuck 15 or 20 minutes in a queue of people overwhelming a low volume interchange that they have absolutely no use for or connection to.

In a way, the question is similar to the problems posed as Waze and other navigation apps "discover"  unused residential streets paralleling a congested freeway. Is it desirable for a few dozen local residents' LOS to go from A+ to F- so that a thousand distant commuters' LOS can go from F-- to F-?

[mrsman]

In my opinion, a legal move is a legal move.  If the traffic authority wanted to disccourage a practice, they could put up signs to prohibit the move.

So I see no problem in people using residential streets to bypass traffic on arterials.  There are many areas that address this problem after resident complaints with turn restrictions.

[1995hoo]

Does using a Rest Area as a 'collector/distributor lane' count?

....

The rest area/welcome center on I-66 just east of Manassas suffers from that problem. It's dangerous because the route people use to do this goes directly through where the trucks parallel-park. The rest area signs have auxiliary white signs beneath them saying something like "Rest Area Traffic Only/No Thru Traffic." I think I have a picture somewhere; if I can find it in my Photobucket, I'll come back and edit this post.

Edited to add: Here it is. The people who cut through the rest area drive straight through between the trucks ahead.





In the situation briantroutman describes, I know of some places in California where that sort of behavior became enough of a problem that exit ramps were signed as turn-only, making it illegal to go straight to re-enter the highway, and the cops then did multiple sting operations in which they wrote a bunch of tickets. I've never been to California and so have not seen this myself, but Stanley Roberts (the guy who does the "People Behaving Badly" segment on Channel 4 in San Francisco) did a trilogy of videos about it. They're on YouTube. I'll see if I can find them.

Edited to add links: It's a multi-part story. BTW, the third video features a quick glimpse of a US highway cutout shield.

http://youtu.be/9Ia4pzskae8

http://youtu.be/2xL1JSdJDhE

http://youtu.be/Trx6Pxgo9i4

....

One thing I refuse to do, however, is drive in the emergency lane of an interstate when there's a traffic jam or an accident. For losers who do that, there's a special place in rush hour traffic on I-95 south of Washington for them. Hmph.

By "emergency lane," do you mean the shoulder? I agree with you completely. There have been some bad accidents from time to time due to people flying down the shoulder and hitting vehicles that were legally stopped there–indeed on I-95 south of DC, back in the days when the shoulder was in part-time use as a lane during rush hour, a tractor-trailer being driven illegally on the shoulder outside rush hour struck a broken-down Mustang and killed its driver. This is why I-66 uses the red "X"/green arrow lights for its part-time shoulder lanes and colors the pavement differently to underscore the point further. Of course, some of the self-important types use it illegally anyway.

[cjk374]

Sevetal years ago, LaDOTD decided to repave I-20 with new concrete at the Minden exit (exit 47). The eastbound exit ramp is a c/d exit. This was used to detour all of the eastbound traffic off of the mainlanes to complete the reconstruction.