How to block the motorway without really trying

[Observer2]

Vaux said:

Greensleeves said:

Highways Agency should be banned from travelling on any road at less than 70mph as they are a bloody danger to all other road users and work in conflict to the smooth flow of motorway traffic.

I disagree. In light to moderate traffic, motorway traffic will run more freely with a decent degree of variation in vehicle speeds. If the slowest traffic is ~56mph (speed limited LGVs) and the fastest traffic is ~70, because a police car or HATO is sticking at 70, everyone bunches up at 70 or less and there will be more congestion than if the police/HATO stick to 60 and allows faster traffic to overtake (say up to ~7 or possibly more) without panicking about a speeding ticket or because it must be 'wrong' to overtake a marked vehicle (police or HATO).

I have seen trafpol state that they are directed NOT to cruise on a motorway at 70 for exactly this reason.

[Strangely Brown]

Yung Man said:

What can you do when a driver decides he can't be bothered using his mirrors and the only option (IMO) is to break the law and do a undertake?.

Exactly what law do you think you've broken by passing on the left?

[Yung Man]

Strangely Brown said:

Yung Man said:

What can you do when a driver decides he can't be bothered using his mirrors and the only option (IMO) is to break the law and do a undertake?.

Exactly what law do you think you've broken by passing on the left?

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

I know you might say "Its not a rule (law)" but would you take the chance if plod was 2 cars back of you?.

I wouldn't.

[CommanderJameson]

Yung Man said:

Strangely Brown said:

Yung Man said:

What can you do when a driver decides he can't be bothered using his mirrors and the only option (IMO) is to break the law and do a undertake?.

Exactly what law do you think you've broken by passing on the left?

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

I know you might say "Its not a rule (law)" but would you take the chance if plod was 2 cars back of you?.

I wouldn't.

What about the circumstance to which I alluded, whereby L1 is travelling quicker than L2, therefore "undertaking" is going on en masse?

If you were in L1, and said plod was 2 cars back, would you move from the quicker L1 to the slower L2 in order to avoid passing vehicles to your right?

[Strangely Brown]

Yung Man said:

Strangely Brown said:

Yung Man said:

What can you do when a driver decides he can't be bothered using his mirrors and the only option (IMO) is to break the law and do a undertake?.

Exactly what law do you think you've broken by passing on the left?

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

I know you might say "Its not a rule (law)" but would you take the chance if plod was 2 cars back of you?.

I wouldn't.

But what I asked was, which law are you breaking? You stated that it was illegal. So is it? or isn't it?

[Vaux]

Yung Man said:

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

And the next bit says:
".....If the queue on your right is moving more slowly than you are, you may pass on the left."

[Yung Man]

Vaux said:

Yung Man said:

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

And the next bit says:
".....If the queue on your right is moving more slowly than you are, you may pass on the left."

I am not disputing what you are saying but in the OP there was only a Fiat Panda in lane 2, even Nick Freeman couldn't call that a queue.

[Yung Man]

Strangely Brown said:

Yung Man said:

Strangely Brown said:

Yung Man said:

What can you do when a driver decides he can't be bothered using his mirrors and the only option (IMO) is to break the law and do a undertake?.

Exactly what law do you think you've broken by passing on the left?

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

I know you might say "Its not a rule (law)" but would you take the chance if plod was 2 cars back of you?.

I wouldn't.

But what I asked was, which law are you breaking? You stated that it was illegal. So is it? or isn't it?

It is.

[Strangely Brown]

Yung Man said:

Strangely Brown said:

But what I asked was, which law are you breaking? You stated that it was illegal. So is it? or isn't it?

It is.

So I'll ask you again... exactly which law are you breaking if you pass on the left?

[Vaux]

Yung Man said:

I am not disputing what you are saying but in the OP there was only a Fiat Panda in lane 2, even Nick Freeman couldn't call that a queue.

Ooops! Ignore that bit then....

[Christabel]

I'm not sure about the law, but there is an argument that you are not EXPECTED to undertake and therefore you do place yourself and other road users at risk if you're behaving in an unexpected manner. The unwary (and probably inattentive) driver in the outside lane may spot you and panic or indeed behave in an unexpected manner themselves.

I would imagine plod might suggest you were driving without due care and attention, if they caught you doing the left hand manoeuvre.

Just a thought.

[Strangely Brown]

Christabel said:

I would imagine plod might suggest you were driving without due care and attention, if they caught you doing the left hand manoeuvre.

So, it's not actually an offence then... and therefore it is not illegal.

Yes, BiB may try to prosecute under some form of due care or something but I suspect it would be difficult to make it stick unless you were obviously behaving stupidly. In the circumstances described in the OP I doubt they would bother.

The point is that, AFAIK, there is no law against passing on the left.

[Hooli]

boocks to the numpties just get past them anyway you can. this dont undertake they might suddenly move left is rubbish in my eyes. if they are too dumb to move left for the last 105miles (approx) then unless its their exit they wont swerve till they can cross the hashed box anyway.

[Andyr86]

Just a quick question. Is it not curtious to move to the middle lane on approach to a sliproad to allow traffic on the other side of the sliproad to join the motorway easily?

Just joining the M4 last night some numpty decided to sit on the left lane doing 70 with lanes 2 and 3 clear making it hard and dangerous for me to join. Needless to say he got beeped.

Andy

[marshalla]

Andyr86 said:

Just a quick question. Is it not curtious to move to the middle lane on approach to a sliproad to allow traffic on the other side of the sliproad to join the motorway easily?

Just joining the M4 last night some numpty decided to sit on the left lane doing 70 with lanes 2 and 3 clear making it hard and dangerous for me to join. Needless to say he got beeped.

Andy

It is the responsibility of the traffic joining the motorway to ensure that they have attained an appropriate speed and have space to move into. If you cannot make those two simple judgments - don't use the motorways, you are an unsafe driver.

I suggest you read this : http://www.smartdriving.co.uk/Driving/DefensiveDri...

[Andyr86]

Hi Thanks for the reply.

I was always advised in my pass plus that it is advisable to move into the middle lane so that vehicles joining the motorway from a sliproad can join easily. I seem to see alot of people doing it so I presumed that it was correct.

[marshalla]

Andyr86 said:

Hi Thanks for the reply.

I was always advised in my pass plus that it is advisable to move into the middle lane so that vehicles joining the motorway from a sliproad can join easily. I seem to see alot of people doing it so I presumed that it was correct.

I agree that it's courteous and can protect you from people who don't know how to join using an acceleration lane, and I do it myself when it's safe and appropriate. BUT that's from the perspective of someone already on the faster road.

From the point of view of someone joining the faster road - I have no idea what's happening behind the junction that I'm using (the view is usually obscured by bridges/geography etc.) so never assume that traffic in lane 1 will pull across to lane 2 to let me out - it may not be safe, they might be asleep etc. etc. From the start of the acceleration lane I try to spot the gap I want and the vehicle I intend to pull out behind of (not in front of) and match speeds to make that manouevre safe. If I can't get out safely, then I slow down or even stop early in the lane so that I have room to accelerate to a safe speed when an appropriate space appears. This is a regular occurrence for me (every morning) because I have to join a dual carriageway using a very (some would say inappropriately) short acceleration lane. Traffic is usually fairly heavy and comes round a left hander so most drivers don't see the slip road until they're on top of it. It's quite usual to have a queue of up to 6 cars stopped at the start of the slip, waiting for space to accelerate out.

(here's the very junction ; http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geoc... )

First principle of the safe driver : "everyone's an idiot who's about to do something to harm me..."

[Brother Mycroft]

I wrote to the DfT [MOT at the time] many years ago suggesting that all motorway slip roads should have a zigzag line between lanes 1 and 2 for about half a mile after the end of the slip road, this area is not to be crossed between 7am - 9am and 4pm - 6pm this would stop the foolish jumping lanes early slowly and incrementally slowing the traffic to a crawl or even a stop in lanes 2 and 3.

It was dismissed as 'unworkable'.

I think that they are wrong, the zigzags just 'emphasise' the road rule of not impeding the flow of traffic.

Edited by Brother Mycroft on Saturday 6th October 13:23

[vonhosen]

CommanderJameson said:

Yung Man said:

Strangely Brown said:

Yung Man said:

What can you do when a driver decides he can't be bothered using his mirrors and the only option (IMO) is to break the law and do a undertake?.

Exactly what law do you think you've broken by passing on the left?

The highway code states in rule 163

"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in".

"Move back to the left" means you must have overtaken on the right.

And again rule 163,

"only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so"

I know you might say "Its not a rule (law)" but would you take the chance if plod was 2 cars back of you?.

I wouldn't.

What about the circumstance to which I alluded, whereby L1 is travelling quicker than L2, therefore "undertaking" is going on en masse?

If you were in L1, and said plod was 2 cars back, would you move from the quicker L1 to the slower L2 in order to avoid passing vehicles to your right?

That's covered in the highway code, it's allowed in slow moving queues

Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 6th October 13:45

[Heebeegeetee]

Andyr86 said:

Hi Thanks for the reply.

I was always advised in my pass plus that it is advisable to move into the middle lane so that vehicles joining the motorway from a sliproad can join easily. I seem to see a lot of people doing it so I presumed that it was correct.

It is the right thing to do, and for lane 2 drivers to move into lane 3 as well if it helps. Only pedantic and utter numpties would disagree. It is incumbent upon any good driver to do all he can within reason to assist in maintaining the flow of traffic. Nissan Micra drivers never know anything about this, so its our choice which camp we want to be in.


Another thing numpties do, is having joined a road via a slip road, they are totally unaware that the traffic in lane 2 has moved over to let them on so they don't give them the courtesy of allowing them back into lane 1. Don't let yourself look a numpty.