Keep left on the motorway?
Discussion
I pass on the left almost everyday on my commute. It's pointless trying to 'make progress' so I aim for 55-60mph in lane 1.
A typical scenario is me in lane 1, lane 2 has more traffic travelling not much faster.
Driver (lets call him bawbag) joins road from left and immediately forces their way into lane 2. That causes lane 2 all to brake and bunch up. Lane 1 is empty, I haven't changed my speed, so I pass them all on the left.
Bawbag driver then sits in lane 2 until they reach their turn off and swoop from lane 2 to the slip road at the 100m marker. I see bawbags doing this where there is barely 2 miles between slip roads.
Increasing numbers of drivers just seem to think that lane 1 is not for them.
A typical scenario is me in lane 1, lane 2 has more traffic travelling not much faster.
Driver (lets call him bawbag) joins road from left and immediately forces their way into lane 2. That causes lane 2 all to brake and bunch up. Lane 1 is empty, I haven't changed my speed, so I pass them all on the left.
Bawbag driver then sits in lane 2 until they reach their turn off and swoop from lane 2 to the slip road at the 100m marker. I see bawbags doing this where there is barely 2 miles between slip roads.
Increasing numbers of drivers just seem to think that lane 1 is not for them.
johnS2000 said:
What I want to know is this :
That video seems to me to be quite clear .
The number plates are easily legible .
Why would the police not view this video and then be able to send out 3 points and a fine to all the mlms in the film ??
Why do you need a police officer to actually stop and issue a ticket to every mlm.
I was once told that every inch of our motorway network was covered by a camera .
Why is the footage not reviewed and points/fines sent in the post ??
Not just for mlms but other offences as well .
Just think of the reduction in congestion if these people were actually forced to drive properly or get forced off the road .
Nope, I'm still not sure if you're being sarcastic.That video seems to me to be quite clear .
The number plates are easily legible .
Why would the police not view this video and then be able to send out 3 points and a fine to all the mlms in the film ??
Why do you need a police officer to actually stop and issue a ticket to every mlm.
I was once told that every inch of our motorway network was covered by a camera .
Why is the footage not reviewed and points/fines sent in the post ??
Not just for mlms but other offences as well .
Just think of the reduction in congestion if these people were actually forced to drive properly or get forced off the road .
callahan said:
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 it all comes down to education, which is why it is so much better on continental Europe. There's the German way in which speed is considered good and the overtaking lane/s are meant just exactly for that purpose the faster you can overtake to keep the overtaking lane/s moving/clear the better.
Or there's the American way in which speed is considered bad and the idea in that case is that it doesn't really matter what lane it is because it's all about moving lots of traffic within the ridiculously low speed limits.Therefore it should be no surprise that we find UK motorways now looking more and more like American ones.Than the German ones which we had during the 1960's/70's before limiting speeds to ridiculous levels became the priority.
The fact is it all started with the dumbing down of the speed regime and the driving environment we're now seeing is just a direct result of that.In that the idea of lane discipline won't work in a highly speed restricted environment and lane 'hogging' actually acts as a form of speed restriction.Which is probably why the law isn't making much of an attempt to sort out the problem.Unlike the speed issue.
While you can bet that,just like their British counterparts,all the muppets in the American video,would say that the German example is the one that would make the front page news in papers like the Daily Wail and Guardian being that,in their view,everyone should be driving the 'safe' American ( and now British ) way.
As for the idea of overtaking on either side the rule is drive on the left overtake on the right or vice versa in Germany etc.Anything else is just yet more dangerous s
t that's a symptom of the idea that speed is bad and dangerous and we should all drive the American way on our motorways. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjaJkSia6M0
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBxdYiSQ0Mg
MH said:
johnS2000 said:
What I want to know is this :
That video seems to me to be quite clear .
The number plates are easily legible .
Why would the police not view this video and then be able to send out 3 points and a fine to all the mlms in the film ??
Why do you need a police officer to actually stop and issue a ticket to every mlm.
I was once told that every inch of our motorway network was covered by a camera .
Why is the footage not reviewed and points/fines sent in the post ??
Not just for mlms but other offences as well .
Just think of the reduction in congestion if these people were actually forced to drive properly or get forced off the road .
Nope, I'm still not sure if you're being sarcastic.That video seems to me to be quite clear .
The number plates are easily legible .
Why would the police not view this video and then be able to send out 3 points and a fine to all the mlms in the film ??
Why do you need a police officer to actually stop and issue a ticket to every mlm.
I was once told that every inch of our motorway network was covered by a camera .
Why is the footage not reviewed and points/fines sent in the post ??
Not just for mlms but other offences as well .
Just think of the reduction in congestion if these people were actually forced to drive properly or get forced off the road .
Deadly serious .
Why cannot ,with all the cctv in operation ,a picture be taken , fine + points be sent in the post ????
When people are in an average speed limit area do they speed ??
No , most do not because the know points and a fine would be on its way .
Why not with MLMs ?
Or tailgaters ?
Or those who cannot indicate on roundabouts ?
What is so difficult in giving out fines for poor lane discipline but so easy for speeding ?
Its a genuine question to which I would like an answer especially as middle lane road hogs upset so many people but could be so easy , with the use of cameras, to police.
johnS2000 said:
No ,not sarcasm .
Deadly serious .
Why cannot ,with all the cctv in operation ,a picture be taken , fine + points be sent in the post ????
When people are in an average speed limit area do they speed ??
No , most do not because the know points and a fine would be on its way .
Why not with MLMs ?
Or tailgaters ?
Or those who cannot indicate on roundabouts ?
What is so difficult in giving out fines for poor lane discipline but so easy for speeding ?
Its a genuine question to which I would like an answer especially as middle lane road hogs upset so many people but could be so easy , with the use of cameras, to police.
Because ........... once again........there are no laws being broken !Deadly serious .
Why cannot ,with all the cctv in operation ,a picture be taken , fine + points be sent in the post ????
When people are in an average speed limit area do they speed ??
No , most do not because the know points and a fine would be on its way .
Why not with MLMs ?
Or tailgaters ?
Or those who cannot indicate on roundabouts ?
What is so difficult in giving out fines for poor lane discipline but so easy for speeding ?
Its a genuine question to which I would like an answer especially as middle lane road hogs upset so many people but could be so easy , with the use of cameras, to police.
Middle lane hogging MAY be DWDCAA
Passing on the left MAY be DWDCAA
Why do you want everyone (except yourself I guess) fined ?
Were you bullied ?
Nigel Worc's said:
Because ........... once again........there are no laws being broken !
Middle lane hogging MAY be DWDCAA
Passing on the left MAY be DWDCAA
Why do you want everyone (except yourself I guess) fined ?
Were you bullied ?
Excuse me !!! Are you telling me that hogging the overtaking lane on a motor way is not an offence ??Middle lane hogging MAY be DWDCAA
Passing on the left MAY be DWDCAA
Why do you want everyone (except yourself I guess) fined ?
Were you bullied ?
It doesn't carry a 3 points and fine ?
I apologize profusely if I am wrong because I thought it was .
As for your last two comments I have to admit to thinking them unnecessary and pathetic .
You must be very sad person as well as a
. I come across this all the time when towing. Cuts the motorways into 2 lanes and not only do you have to put up with trucks, you then have the "50 mph Im not driving in that lane" brigade who refuse to move to let you pass so I generally stay in lane 1 and stick at my limit.
I drove to Zandvoort a few weeks ago and was shocked at how it is the opposite in Holland - I was leaving a safe distance and the majority of drivers see a space and move into it. Almost to the point of it being dangerous with nothing in the other 3 lanes on a 4 lane motorway!
I think it boils down to laziness, its easy to stick at a set speed in 1 lane rather than move over, pay attention and concentrate on what they are doing.
I drove to Zandvoort a few weeks ago and was shocked at how it is the opposite in Holland - I was leaving a safe distance and the majority of drivers see a space and move into it. Almost to the point of it being dangerous with nothing in the other 3 lanes on a 4 lane motorway!
I think it boils down to laziness, its easy to stick at a set speed in 1 lane rather than move over, pay attention and concentrate on what they are doing.
johnS2000 said:
Nigel Worc's said:
Because ........... once again........there are no laws being broken !
Middle lane hogging MAY be DWDCAA
Passing on the left MAY be DWDCAA
Why do you want everyone (except yourself I guess) fined ?
Were you bullied ?
Excuse me !!! Are you telling me that hogging the overtaking lane on a motor way is not an offence ??Middle lane hogging MAY be DWDCAA
Passing on the left MAY be DWDCAA
Why do you want everyone (except yourself I guess) fined ?
Were you bullied ?
It doesn't carry a 3 points and fine ?
I apologize profusely if I am wrong because I thought it was .
As for your last two comments I have to admit to thinking them unnecessary and pathetic .
You must be very sad person as well as a
. You happier now you know that ?
You may also apologise for spelling apologise using a Z, if you'd like too !
Nigel Worc's said:
I am indeed telling you that hogging the middle lane is not an offence, and it doesn't carry a fine and three points.
You happier now you know that ?
You may also apologise for spelling apologise using a Z, if you'd like too !
No I am not happier knowing that as I was under the impression that it was an offense .You happier now you know that ?
You may also apologise for spelling apologise using a Z, if you'd like too !
Makes the whole purpose of this thread irrelevant then .
Makes me wonder why so many people complain about it . And so often .
I do apologise for spelling "apologize" with a "z" .
My spell checker seems to think it should be spelt with a "z" .
Must be foreign .
Not reading all of that but I drive the M23/A27 everyday and that clip just shows poor mway etiquette which is endemic in this country. M25 is just pick a lane and stick to it. Agree that the BIB should be more proactive but there simply isn't the numbers.
The govt have think bike, drink drive etc initiatives and it would be logical to educate the uneducated on lane discipline in the same way.
If I was being cynical then perhaps the education is lacking to allow the govt to push the anti car agenda.
The govt have think bike, drink drive etc initiatives and it would be logical to educate the uneducated on lane discipline in the same way.
If I was being cynical then perhaps the education is lacking to allow the govt to push the anti car agenda.
It would be good if the motoring public in the UK recognised that lanes 2 and 3 were for overtaking but the vast majority are probably not as aware of driving sensibly as the average PH member.
For whatever reason MLM is not being targeted and speed here is an issue. The issue is that speeds in lane 2 and 3 are too low.
We really need minimum speed limits in 2 and 3 which are enforced when 2 is empty.
For whatever reason MLM is not being targeted and speed here is an issue. The issue is that speeds in lane 2 and 3 are too low.
We really need minimum speed limits in 2 and 3 which are enforced when 2 is empty.
Thanks calibrax for posting just to outline the problem. By the way good driving, you obviously had your whits about you and concentrating on driving and filming rather than the vast majority of drivers who perhaps were not. What were they thinking about is a very good question.
Actually I am very interested in the psychology of drivers and what they are thinking about. This occurred to me many years back when I overtook a plain clothes police car at 110mph and got pulled over. He let me off, thank you sir, because I was driving well and concentrating at that speed.
I find myself driving at 60-70 and just not concentrating. I like cars and think I am observant, to be honest though in the last few months I have had to catch myself pushing buttons or thinking about something in the car and then realised 1 mile later I am actually driving on auto pilot. It's like walking down the street where you don't even look at where you are going, you are thinking about what to buy at Tesco's and yet amazingly you miss all those lamp posts and dog turds and ladies with prams. But that is not a good way for people in cars to drive. But do you get the feeling most people do this?
Matt Prior of Autocar did a nice piece on this in the last 12 months or so. He was wondering why people do it. His summation was that people don't want to move out of the middle lane into the inner lane because they might got stuck there and have to move out. So they sit there thinking about other things as it is the easier option. Matt was completely right about this. People don't want to have to think if they do not have to. Far better to take the path of least resistance.
That's one edge to the argument, but I have another, and that comes about because I, for my sins, travel Junction 4 M25 anticlockwise to Junction 2 most work mornings at 4.45am. When there is not much traffic to get stuck behind.
AND THEY STILL DO IT
They will sit in the middle lane with nothing else on the road within 1 mile.
I have a theory for this. It's to do with safety. Being in the inner lane you are closer to the nasty trees and such. True there is a hard shoulder, but even so. In the middle you are safer. The problem with this is you are not safer. There are no tight corners on the M25 to catch you out and make you go understeering into the vegetation. However there are cars and lorries on the other carriageway coming at you with great speed. It is actually more dangerous to be in the middle lane rather than the inner.
But to the human mind who has not thought this all through the middle lane is the best lane in the world ....ever.
The only way you will defeat it is to make all cars be intelligent and the road system and then apply road charges for which lane you use, if you want to use the middle lane a bit faster then you have to pay more. Guess what will happen then? Suddenly people start thinking about which lane they should be in ...
I mentioned psychology earlier, which I am interested in, so what happens when you add more than 3 lanes? This is a tricky one, say you had 4 lanes, maybe on the southern stretch of the M25, this proves a bit of a conundrum for the middle lane hoggers. Do they choose lane 2 or 3? My experience is they choose lane 3. So this gives me Gandahars law of lane hogging
A lane hogger will always choose N-1 lanes to be in, where N is the total number of lanes available.
Amen
Actually I am very interested in the psychology of drivers and what they are thinking about. This occurred to me many years back when I overtook a plain clothes police car at 110mph and got pulled over. He let me off, thank you sir, because I was driving well and concentrating at that speed.
I find myself driving at 60-70 and just not concentrating. I like cars and think I am observant, to be honest though in the last few months I have had to catch myself pushing buttons or thinking about something in the car and then realised 1 mile later I am actually driving on auto pilot. It's like walking down the street where you don't even look at where you are going, you are thinking about what to buy at Tesco's and yet amazingly you miss all those lamp posts and dog turds and ladies with prams. But that is not a good way for people in cars to drive. But do you get the feeling most people do this?
Matt Prior of Autocar did a nice piece on this in the last 12 months or so. He was wondering why people do it. His summation was that people don't want to move out of the middle lane into the inner lane because they might got stuck there and have to move out. So they sit there thinking about other things as it is the easier option. Matt was completely right about this. People don't want to have to think if they do not have to. Far better to take the path of least resistance.
That's one edge to the argument, but I have another, and that comes about because I, for my sins, travel Junction 4 M25 anticlockwise to Junction 2 most work mornings at 4.45am. When there is not much traffic to get stuck behind.
AND THEY STILL DO IT
They will sit in the middle lane with nothing else on the road within 1 mile.
I have a theory for this. It's to do with safety. Being in the inner lane you are closer to the nasty trees and such. True there is a hard shoulder, but even so. In the middle you are safer. The problem with this is you are not safer. There are no tight corners on the M25 to catch you out and make you go understeering into the vegetation. However there are cars and lorries on the other carriageway coming at you with great speed. It is actually more dangerous to be in the middle lane rather than the inner.
But to the human mind who has not thought this all through the middle lane is the best lane in the world ....ever.
The only way you will defeat it is to make all cars be intelligent and the road system and then apply road charges for which lane you use, if you want to use the middle lane a bit faster then you have to pay more. Guess what will happen then? Suddenly people start thinking about which lane they should be in ...
I mentioned psychology earlier, which I am interested in, so what happens when you add more than 3 lanes? This is a tricky one, say you had 4 lanes, maybe on the southern stretch of the M25, this proves a bit of a conundrum for the middle lane hoggers. Do they choose lane 2 or 3? My experience is they choose lane 3. So this gives me Gandahars law of lane hogging
A lane hogger will always choose N-1 lanes to be in, where N is the total number of lanes available.
Amen
Edited by Gandahar on Saturday 2nd August 18:50
gottans said:
Feel the frustration but usually lane 1 has such a poor road surface, all rutted by the lorries
I know that's what some people seem to think is justification, but it's bks.There's hardly a stretch of motorway I wouldn't be comfortable doing 120mph on in clear, dry conditions even where the ruts are at their worst. The 60mph brigade shouldn't be on a motorway at all if they can't cope with them.
You see a lot of it where the sliproad onto the motorway at a particular junction becomes the inside lane. People going along the motorway in the inside lane don't see they should move over where another lane appears to their left. People joining move out because they don't pay enough attention to the signs and road markings telling them it's a merge and not a sliproad that's ending that requires them to move out.
People also go to pieces on managed motorway sections. Everything is normal and working quite well until they hit the managed section and they're wary of using the inside lane, whether it's a proper inside lane on an all lanes running section or a hard shoulder they're permitted to use. They slow to 10mph below the limit, even if it's NSL, and sit in their lane braking at every gantry more concerned at being caught out by a camera than using the motorway properly. Inevitably, outside rush hours where the motorway moving at all is probably better than how it was pre managed system, managed sections end up being slower and more dangerous and frustrating than they were when they were ordinary motorways.
People also go to pieces on managed motorway sections. Everything is normal and working quite well until they hit the managed section and they're wary of using the inside lane, whether it's a proper inside lane on an all lanes running section or a hard shoulder they're permitted to use. They slow to 10mph below the limit, even if it's NSL, and sit in their lane braking at every gantry more concerned at being caught out by a camera than using the motorway properly. Inevitably, outside rush hours where the motorway moving at all is probably better than how it was pre managed system, managed sections end up being slower and more dangerous and frustrating than they were when they were ordinary motorways.
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