People speeding in the far left lane don't bother me. Your advice to "stay out of the left hand lane" and have a "car... on the left side shield you" are bad, dangerous advice.
Pass on the left. If you're passing people on the right then you're driving dangerously. (With an obvious exception for the occasional person going 60 in the left lane that you're forced to go around)
I do a quite a bit of night driving. I'm always in the right hand lane on three lane roads. Night traffic is very light, so I won't change two lanes just to go around people that insist on driving in the middle lane when the right lane is empty.
1 and 2) So everyone should have to change lanes to get around you, but you shouldn't have to change lanes for anything?
3) Typical 3 lane highways have 4 actual lanes, the right most one being the breakdown lanes and can be used in an emergency. That means being in the middle lane gives you one lane to your left and two to your right, vs. one to your right and two to your left. Same difference, no added benefit.
Fair point. edited to reflect this, I didn't want to give the impression that you should ordinarily be zipping by folks on the right. On the other hand if you're two lanes removed and the middle lane is empty, it's reasonably safe.
If tickets for dangerous driving were given instead of for speeding, then people might optimize for what is safer, not just what would not give them a ticket.
Pass on the left. If you're passing people on the right then you're driving dangerously. (With an obvious exception for the occasional person going 60 in the left lane that you're forced to go around)