I think the "middlesticking" issue should deserve a proper 3d. Seems like the whole world suffers of this bad motoring illness.
Well, I cannot find a cause for this phenomenon, but we can start explaining that in Italy many drivers still apply an outdated Driving Law, which imposed the outer lane on a 2x3 motorway being used only by trucks traffic.
It's been years since the law has been changed to the more logical "keep on the right if lane is free", but only a few, mostly younger people, got the new rule.
So, since in the weekends freight traffic is not allowed, and the worst drivers decide to get on the move all together, any 2x3 italian motorway turns automatically in a "2x2 with overgrown emergency shoulder"
This is pretty annoying, of course: traffic is generally slowed down with no reason, and sometimes you see some absurd behaviours on the road.
If you're in the middle lane and are being overtaken, and in front of you a slower car is overtaking the air in the right lane, you'll discover that nothing, nothing can make that driver move away. You can flash light, sound horn, praise God... nothing. Probably they would not move even if kicked in the arse
It's like the extra lane simply doesn't exist.
The air-overtaker will then reluctantly push himself to the edge of the middle lane, as if instead of the right lane there is a dark and deep pit. But just as a courtesy, ok?
Young people call
it "the Shame Lane". I've heard that, putting your wheels on that, you'll get Ebola. Some say
it will drain out your fuel tank. Some say you get a mandatory sex change, driving on
it. Some say
it is just a hologram drawn on the emergency lane.
Good Lord.
Sometimes you will feel the urge to overtake on the right, but please don't allow yourself. Chaos is not an answer to chaos.
The new Driving Law includes fines for those not respecting the "right rule", but nobody is really monitoring the traffic dynamics.
But since we are talking about Italy, we -of course- have found a brilliant backdoor solution!
Our Police say, on its website, that a special rule applies in this case. In fact, who wrote that has made a widely personal interpretation of a couple of rules.
Btw, the magic rule is: if you're in the middle lane and move right to overtake a vehicle,
it is an effective overtake and you get fined.
BUT! If you are travelling on the right lane yet, and you meet a slower vehicle on your left, you are allowed to pass
it without changing lane.
Crazy

Please, don't ask me how you can determine "how much before" you have to move to the right during your travel, to be considered as "yet on the right", since I have no answer. Crazy!
Actually they're not so wrong: overtaking on the Shame Lane is much less dangerous than cutting three lanes to and fro. During the maneuver you have to carefully check the movements of just one idiot, instead of the whole motorway.
So, the standard arrangement of a 2x3 on a Sunday is: a crowd of cars tailgating each other, willing to go faster than limit but stuck in the slow jam, then a bunch of daydreaming middlestickers, and then me and some lonely trucker allowed to drive.
Our standard 2x3 motorway. Please note the non-existent safety distance.
Some weeks ago I was driving on the A4 between Verona and Brescia, on a Sunday afternoon, and I was the witness of a phenomenon too absurd to be real.
The cars on the left lane were so much, all willing to overtake everyone, that the lane started to slow down for congestion. And I mean - seriously slowing down, maybe at 80 km/h or so. In the middle, many middlestickers at 100-110. On the right, me and some others at 130 (the limit).
After driving many km on a so arranged motorway, I started asking myself if I had missed a junction and got on the UK M4 instead of the Italian A4
Segnalibri