When driving, are you able to keep the car perfectly centered or slightly off to the side? (lemmy.world)

submitted 22 hours ago by mazzilius_marsti@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Assume left handed driving, right handed drivers please reverse the direction lol.

What i meant was that are you able to leave perfect spaces on the left and on the right? Or you tend to drift little more to one side e.g. 51/49 drift toward the left instead of 50/50 exactly?

I notice that experienced drivers drift to the side too. So i am curious and i have my theories for this:

Drivers are more likely to drift just a bit toward their driver side. E.g. for left hander driving that means drifting toward the left. This is because the wing mirror is the closest to the driver, so it is easier for the eyes to follow and track.
I've been to places where we have to share roads with bikes and motocycles. So a lane road is literally 2 lane: cars need to hug the left lane to create spaces on the right. So drivers from those countries are keen to drift to the left; even when they are on the highway without any motocycles.
For left handed driving, you usually dont drift to to the right UNLESS you are on the phone or using the giant touchscreen while driving.

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[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Where I am, it's taught you're actually supposed to favor your driver side alignment. There's a couple of reasons:

It's safer for parked cars and the odds of someone hopping into the lane (via car door or from around it) make pedestrian danger real. Same for bike lanes. Those on the passenger side are always more vulnerable on city streets.
You inherently have more control over the driver's side than the passenger side; same reason you're also supposed to pass slower vehicles on that side (trucks can see you better on their drivers side, although I feel like they mostly drive with mirrors for that).

Unofficially there's also: 3. Some intersections have an unspoken rule that you can allow right turners a lane if everyone favors the driver side line. It's typically a parking lane that ends, so it's not always as wide as you'd like. I'm not 100% on its legality, though.

Plus, let's be honest, nobody can be pure center. Luckily it mostly doesn't matter unless the roads gets really narrow; most highways in the US at least are wide enough where it barely matters where the fuck you are in your lane... although some pickups eat up that whole lane anyway nowadays so who knows, lol.

Edit: oh and the next generation might be screwed. My little sister who's ten years younger just lets her car's lane detection steer her wheel. Her car just fucking bounces from left to right to left like a game of pong. Absolutely maddening!

[-] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 18 hours ago

There's an adage I've hard a couple times across developing countries where the edges of the road have pedestrians, random animals darting out, and are usually crumbing anyway, "keep your heiney on the liney." Basically, keep far enough from the edge you get extra time to react, and still far enough over that you just move back for curves, hills, and cars passing the other direction or overtaking you. Driver fully over the center line.

Honestly, it feels much safer once you start to get used to it. Not for every day use, just highways.

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

I may need to remember that, heiney on the liney... haha. US counts as a developing county, I'm sure.

this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026

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