Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Will self-driving cars know what to do in the middle lane?

The trick is that there's no one rule. Try doing that with an algorithm

[Getty Images/iStockphoto] 
issue 15 February 2014

I am convinced that when I took my driving test in 1983 I was asked by the examiner, ‘What lane of a three-lane motorway should you use when driving at a speed of 70 mph?’ And I am equally sure that the ‘correct’ answer to this question at that time, as given by the early 1980s version of the Highway Code, was ‘the middle one’.

My memory is that the three lanes of a motorway back then were designated 1) the slow lane, 2) the fast lane and 3) the overtaking lane. Whenever I mention this, however, no one else remembers anything of the kind. Rather predictably, about one in three people then takes the bait and embarks on a long rant about people ‘hogging the middle lane.’

In reality, this practice is much rarer now than it was a few years ago.

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