In general I think the reason for the ‘left lane cruisers’ is that they dont wanna think. Only in the left lane are you assured that vehilces will be entering only from one side. And while right lanes often end and traffic must merge, left lanes rarely do. So you have a lane that is continous and mostly merger free, consisting mostly of people going a signifant distance (say 10-15 miles +). It is easy to turn off the brain and cruise along while your brain bairly keeps track of the two red lights directly infront.

It scares the hell outa me sometimes to think how many people are hardley thinking while doing 60+ in a 1000lb+ battering ram. As humans, we SUCK at indentifing risk and reducing it. Is there ANYTHING we do on a daily basis that holds more risk than driving? I cant think of anything. And that is when you wanna turn your brain off and cruise???