Is it tine to make undertaking legal?

[MH]

Conscript said:

Whereas I genuinely believe that most people sit in the middle lane out of nothing more than ignorance. They just sit there, switch off, and don't think they are doing anything wrong, so their habits never change. Stick a big orange sign up and yes, some will ignore it, but I reckon there might be a fair few people who start to change their driving habits. Maybe "Keep Left Unless Overtaking - £60 Penalty" might wake a few up

This. So this. At the end of the day it can't hurt to alert people to the fact they're behaving selfishly - Better than some of the useless messages they put on those boards. People just switch off or are scared s**tless and in a lot of respects that's more dangerous than undertaking/changing lanes.

And I love the idea of reinforcing the matrix message with the penalty amount.

[Wills2]

Bradley1500 said:

Europa1 said:

Bradley1500 said:

MysteryLemon said:

I can think of countless times i've been keeping to the left on a quiet stretch of motorway only to come across someone dawdling at 60mph in the middle lane. I just hang in the left and carry on past them. On the odd occasion they will move in behind my on the left having probably just woken up. A number of times I've been flashed to tell me i'm in the wrong...

I've had this before and I really don't understand the mindset of someone who 'flashes' you after overtaking on the right. If they were in the correct lane to begin with this wouldn't of happened. It's not even like there's a huge speed differential between us, if so I could almost understand their reason for flashing their lights.

For everyone saying it's illegal to 'undertake' I attended a speed awareness course last summer. There were two ex Police officers taking the course, one of them openly admitted to 'undertaking' and had that morning on the M25 on the way to the course! He said it is perfectly legal and acceptable if you don't change lanes beforehand to complete the maneuver and you keep within the speed limit. Keep left unless overtaking, they are the ones breaking the rules! If you have enough time to pass on the left then they should move over.

Edited by Bradley1500 on Thursday 29th January 12:24

Edited by Bradley1500 on Thursday 29th January 12:25

The fact that the ex-police officers were attending a speed awareness course possibly indicates their grasp of traffic law...

I think you misunderstood, the two ex Police officers were holding the course, not partaking in it.

IIRC what they are describing is maintaining lane discipline.

[feef]

I've not been through the whole thread so excuse me if I'm going over old ground.

There'd be a lot of time and money required to introduce legal 'undertaking' under the existing system, whether that's signage, documentation and legislation as well as (re)education of driving licence holders, whether that (re)education is simply a public awareness campaign or individual notifications, I don't know.

However, if the same effort and money was ploughed into (re)education of drivers to eliminate the lane hoggers in the first place, it would probably be easier, cheaper and less hassle over all.

In the last 10-15 years, France has introduced a lot more road-manners type laws and have seen not only the road accidents drop significantly, but in my own experience, I find the traffic much freer flowing and road manners on the motorways are generally far better than I see in the UK with people pulling back in immediately after an overtake and not hogging the outside lanes.

I think we just need a concerted effort to make road etiquette and lane discipline something worth pushing.. it worked for drink driving and they are trying to make it work for speeding.