Slip road on to a motorway

[JohnMW]

I would be interested in others opinion on this. You entered the slip road to a very busy motorway, you build up your speed to match the traffic on the motorway, however, you find that there is insufficient gap between the vehicles to safely enter/merge and the traffic cannot move over a lane to let you in and don't appear to want to let you in within the length of the slip road, as sometimes is the case. Do you keep up your speed ready for when the opportunity arises, even though this means you have run out of slip road and are now on the hard shoulder doing 70mph or do you slow down and possibly stop on the slip road, oh and you are in a Model T or maybe camper van.

[JohnMW]

waremark said:

In 37 years of driving I cannot remember it happening (though admittedly much of it in vehicles with good performance)!

One minor point to note is that lane 1 is likely to be moving at 56 mph (heavies are limited to 90 kph) not 70 mph - so that is the speed to try to attain before the merge zone.

A recommendation is to choose the lane on the slip which has the longest merge zone, until you can see where you will merge - then run alongside a gap for a while before merging.

The highway code recommends drivers leaving the hard shoulder to build up speed on the hard shoulder before merging with motorway traffic. To be consistent with this advice, if you have really not been able to merge by the end of the slip it is better to continue on the hard shoulder than to stop.

Thanks guys - I suspected there would be mixed views and some ambiguos ones. I'm for the record with Waremark although he has not had the pleasure of the experience or should I say nightmare, I have many times from both sides of the equation, usually in a fully laden artic, which is both a tad more difficult to judge gap lengths and often there would be a car tucked behind a truck we can't see early enough and the fear of having to stop because someone was blocking the hard shoulder. The other side of the equation being on the nearside lane and finding someone trying to merge and seeing them stopping instead of keeping up with me until I could watch them in even if it meant them going on the shoulder since you can't afford to be slowing down in a fully laden truck especially on a gradient even with 500 gee gees under your toe. Even worse when they have following traffic on the slip road darting around them. The training in artic driving is to be agressive and not to be indecisive at all times but it does test ones heart rate.

I would like to hear other views if there are any.

[JohnMW]

Ok guys it looks like the majority are in agreement on not stopping when the slip road runs out if that occurs. Do you agree then that slip road markings should accomodate a better form of termination so that those who currently feel reluctant to cross the line can be encouraged to continue until the opportunity to join the carriageway is allowed without doubt. This could be enabled also by a mandatory rule that allows traffic to merge from the left in a sensible and considerate manner.

I intend to forward a proposal to the Highways Agency, therefore, I would like more comments from you all without it decending into a knocking charter please.

Incidentally I have noted that the majority of drivers of all types are gracious and considerate in this respect where they get enough warning and without having to clomp their brakes on to allow this.

Thanks

Edited by JohnMW on Monday 1st February 12:51