Keep left on the motorway?

[s55shh]

re the Managed Motorway folly, the 2 recent M25 sections have cost £321M. Surely the cost of a new motorway would not have been more (like between Milan and Turin). The disruption caused by the drawn out construction works and the fatalities and life changing injuries suffered in the contraflow mayhem should result in a major rethink.
However now we have a hard shoulder that morons drive down when its closed (overhead signs are invisable?!) and the stealth tax of varied speed limits that often result in panic braking (why 60mph, 40mph, 70mph in the space of a mile) and dubious NIPs (M42/M6 toll 70mph when no limit was shown)

[Basil Hume]

Driving around the country with work, I've noticed that this is markedly worse in the South - near London especially.

[All that jazz]

Basil Hume said:

Driving around the country with work, I've noticed that this is markedly worse in the South - near London especially.

I'm usually on the M61/M6 between Manchester and Carlisle most evenings/nights or the A1M in N Yorks and I can assure you that it's just the same. Just sitting there in lane 2 with absolutely nothing in front of them as far as the eye can see.

[Scuffers]

340600 said:

The Police can't be everywhere unfortunately, especially on the motorway.

I'm not sure barreling down lane 1 in excess of the speed limit is going to encourage people to keep left either.

don't say that, somebody will sniff an opportunity for a new video-based stealth tax system...

[anonymous-user]

Looks like the M4 on a normal day. How those people manage to do that I will never, ever know. This causes SO MUCH traffic in this country!

[hammo19]

It works in America - traffic flows really well there - we should do it here. The number of knobs in the 3rd lane on stretches of the M25 where it's clear is getting worse. That and people pulling out on you at a junction just to turn off or stop 100 yards down the road should all be lined up and shot.

[Martin_Hx]

That's bad OP, as many have said I would have done exactly the same and I do it myself when I run into this, usually just the one car though!

Just come back from France, they know how to drive on anything with 2 lanes!

[Herman Toothrot]

Since the announcement that the police were supposedly going to start booking MLMs I have taken to just under taking lines of cars, my experience seems to be if you are for example sat on a more or less empty motorway cruising along keeping left and some morons are to the right, more or less as soon as you have passed them it has prompted them to pull left. M5 was dreadful last week, I did about 5 miles in the left lane ~ 75mph and not once had to pull out to over take anything as every other vehicle was to my right. I take it that if you are maintaining steady speed and not active going from right to left then you are doing absolute nothing that the police could take issue with. It's every one else not following the rules you've managed to pass who should be done.

[MKnight702]

It's quite simple people, you are all working with an obsolete copy of the Highway Code. The current version now states that you should keep right unless you are taking the exit, and for extra kudos you should delay moving left or indicating until the dotted lines for the junction have started.

OP I feel your pain, I use the 4 lane stretch of the A1, they may as well have left it as 2 lanes since hardly anyone uses the left hand two.

[R0G]

calibrax said:

Look how effective it was giving police those new powers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh3pTwGNPMQ

100% Nothing illegal or unsafe done by the driver in lane 1 on that piece of footage

Had the driver moved from lane 2 to 1 in order to pass using lane 1 then there could possibly be a charge but staying in lane 1 = no possible charge

[Exoticaholic]

This happens on the M42 and M6 a LOT. On several occasions the hard shoulder was a live lane and the speed limit was 60mph shown on the overhead gantries. But the hard shoulder was very empty, and a number of cars were on L1 doing 50mph.

While it is illegal to undertake, I had to do it because I did not want the live lane 'wasted'

I think, but doubt whether measures will be taken to address this; easier said than done about motoring law, like usage of mobile phones.

[Triumph Man]

BMRuss said:

I would have driven the same as you.

People just aren't concentrating rather just ambling along in a world of their own.

I agree, only thing that sometimes stops me going up the inside is the thought that if they are ambling and in a world of their own, they are less likely to notice a car to their inside. My fear is they will wake up, and swerve over.

[Sensibleboy]

R0G said:

100% Nothing illegal or unsafe done by the driver in lane 1 on that piece of footage

Had the driver moved from lane 2 to 1 in order to pass using lane 1 then there could possibly be a charge but staying in lane 1 = no possible charge

Quite right. An undertake or overtake would involve a lane change. No changing lanes here.

I didn't have my sound turned up. I hope every pass involved a blast of the horn if only to make others aware of the passing vehicles presence - nothing to do with highlighting the errors made by the other drivers.

[fausTVR]

Here's my take on it.

Most of us PHers are driving enthusiasts and as such take an interest in using the rules of the road correctly as we understand them. In fact there is satisfaction to be had in that.

However, the majority of road users are not at all interested in driving for its own sake. They use the terms 'fast lane / slow lane' and consider themselves neither fast nor slow, hence they mindlessly default to the abstain lane bang in the middle.

It's no coincidence they'll listen to Heart radio in the car, tend to prefer ITV at home, go to the busiest big supermarket at its busiest time, etc,.

Yes, it's true, they have turned me into a bigot and a snob, the bds.

[bigfatnick]

hammo19 said:

It works in America - traffic flows really well there - we should do it here. The number of knobs in the 3rd lane on stretches of the M25 where it's clear is getting worse. That and people pulling out on you at a junction just to turn off or stop 100 yards down the road should all be lined up and shot.

Thing is, in america, lorries are allowed to go the same speed as cars, so you don't get the anti lane 1 effect.

[M4cruiser]

calibrax said:

Look how effective it was giving police those new powers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh3pTwGNPMQ

Not many MLMs there. All the cars in the moving queue behind the black Mazda 2 had every right to be there.

Agreed the black Mazda 2 looks in the wrong place but I'd really need to see how it got there. Once you were approaching it couldn't move left could it?

[anonymous-user]

Feel the frustration but usually lane 1 has such a poor road surface, all rutted by the lorries that driving cars with large wheels I.e 18" or bigger together with low profile tyres makes the car unstable and sometimes just scary to drive and this isn't helping persuade people to drive in the left lane.

Add to that, when you come to overtake a lorry the car in lane 2 cuts you off so you end up slamming on the brakes or becoming an attachment to the lorry.

All this really encourages compliance but it was bizzare seeing everyone driving in lane1 when the law came in and then returning to normal as people realised they weren't even remotely likely to get a ticket.

[M4cruiser]

calibrax said:

Look how effective it was giving police those new powers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh3pTwGNPMQ

Just ran this video again and it looks like the car in front of you (black with a chrome strip (Kia??) ) was alongside the black Mazda 2 before you got there, so maybe the Mazda 2 was ok where it was. It's more complex than it looks.

[callahan]

hammo19 said:

It works in America - traffic flows really well there - we should do it here. The number of knobs in the 3rd lane on stretches of the M25 where it's clear is getting worse. That and people pulling out on you at a junction just to turn off or stop 100 yards down the road should all be lined up and shot.

Not sure if I agree with this. I spent a couple of weeks in California in April and saw a huge number of shunts. The freeways were flowing but it was mayhem with cars all over the place. However, I agree wholeheartedly about the knobs on the M25, it seems that if you add more lanes the idiots just move further out. If it was a 10 lane road they would be in lane 9 until they get to their junction.
As usual with these things, it all comes down to education, which is why it is so much better on continental Europe. Why we don't teach people how to drive on the fastest section of roads is bizarre. In fact, I think driving is so potentially dangerous that we should all have to attend continual training (not testing, it's not ofsted) throughout our lives so we can all be safer and make the best use of the space that we have.

[M4cruiser]

Turkey said:

Unreal, that looks worse than any group of MLMs I recall seeing. A lot of people are quite stubborn with driving habits!

A lot of people there are keeping to rule 264 - "drive in the left hand lane when the road ahead is clear". Note that for most of them the road ahead was not clear, so they don't have to drive in the left hand lane.