The hammer lane is another term for the passing lane. Its etymology originated with truckers in North America and compares a foot pressing hard on an accelerator pedal with the slamming action of a hammer. Truckers often use the hammer lane in moderate traffic, where it is legal to do so, since they travel long distances. In many areas, tractor trailers are banned from using the hammer lane for safety reasons; these restrictions are normally found along urban, often congested highways with multiple lanes (e.g. Interstate 40 west of Raleigh, North Carolina), or on rural freeways with 6 or more lanes (3 in each direction). HOV lanes are not usually considered hammer lanes, but are also used for express travel by commuters.
Read more about this topic: Passing Lane
Famous quotes containing the words hammer and/or lane:
“In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well oiled in the closet, but unused.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“That way of life against which my generation rebelled had given us grim courage, fortitude, self-discipline, a sense of individual responsibility, and a capacity for relentless hard work.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)