I've spent a lot of time on a car forum where this topic gets discussed to death. There are a lot of people out there screaming, "Stay Right Except to Pass!" but the fact is, I don't really see how this works in the real-life situations I find myself driving in. I have concluded that these people must be talking about different types of roads than the ones I drive on. I have no desire to hold anybody up, and appreciate it when others let me pass by, but if I stayed in the right lane I would be piddling along behind some fish delivery van at 50 mph, and I have no intention of letting that happen to me.
When I try to envision "stay right except to pass" I get a mental picture of a road where the right lane is impossibly clogged up with cars, and where those cars are jumping in and out of the left lane like pogo sticks as they pass each car in front of them and then merge back over. How could this possibly be considered safe?
Pretty much I figure when I get in the left lane and stay there, I
am passing. I'm passing every car in the right lane as I go by, and I see no need to join them unless it's to move over for some speed racer who wants to go faster than me.