Overtaking
act of one vehicle going past another slower moving vehicle
Overtaking or passing is the act of one vehicle going past another slower moving vehicle, travelling in the same direction, on a road. The lane used for overtaking another vehicle is often a passing lane farther from the road shoulder, which is to the left in places that drive on the right and to the right in places that drive on the left.
Rules of overtaking
In English-speaking countries
On a single-carriageway/undivided-highway road, the lane used for overtaking is often the same lane that is used by oncoming traffic. An overtaking vehicle must be able to see clearly ahead of them for the entire overtaking manoeuvre plus a margin of error. For example, in New Zealand it's instructed in the Road Code that an overtaking driver must be able to see at least 100 metres (330 ft) of clear road in front of them as they finish the passing manoeuvre. In the UK, guidance for passing and overtaking is given in rules 162-169 of the Highway Code.
In some jurisdictions, the "overtaking zone" is indicated by a single broken centerline (yellow or white in most countries) if overtaking is allowed in either direction, or paired with a single solid line beside it to indicate there is no overtaking from the solid side. In the UK and New Zealand, the format of the centerline is not used to regulate overtaking, only to indicate whether crossing of the line is prohibited or permitted. In Australia, drivers can cross a solid centerline to overtake a cyclist.
In the Republic of Ireland, many national primary roads were upgraded in the 1990s and 2000s to wide two-lane road (two-lane road with space for three lanes, in addition to hard shoulders) to allow more space for overtaking (a very common manoeuvre in a country that had little dual carriageway until the early 2000s).
The public source identifies “Overtaking” as act of one vehicle going past another slower moving vehicle. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Overtaking, vehicle and going.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1931051. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Overtaking” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.