Sliproad etiquette

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Targarama

Original Poster:

14,638 posts

285 months

Wednesday 22nd September 2004
quotequote all
2 different situations I'd like to hear view on from our resident BiB:

1. Joining a motorway from a sliproad, car in front does not accelerate to match (or get close to matching) the speed of the traffic in Lane 1 - either joins eventually and causes a queue down the sliproad or stops at the end of the sliproad and waits for a non-existant gap in the traffic. Cars behind slow vehicle on sliproad end up joining motorway around slow vehicle.

I know the slow vehicle has the right over the cars behind it, but aren't they driving dangerously by not getting up to a reasonably speed on the sliproad? What do the Police do with these kinds of people (I'm sure you have come up behind them on your travels!).

2. Sliproad joining a motorway again, 2 lanes down to the motorway and kind of peter out into 1 lane (i.e. markings disappear and traffic usually just merges and joins. Let's say a car was at the end of the sliproad, waiting for a gap in the stationery traffic jam on the motorway, usually with some cars behind obeditently doing the same. What does the law say when a car comes down the sliproad and decides to swerve around the waiting cars and create his own entry point to the motorway a few metres further along, usually followed by a bunch of other cars. Now we have 2 queues trying to joing the motorway and the first queue, once joined have to let the new queuers from further up in too. Slowing the motorway down even more. Is this just inconsiderate driving or something else?

Comments appreciated.

Targarama

Original Poster:

14,638 posts

285 months

Wednesday 22nd September 2004
quotequote all
I believe they have the 'joining has priority' rule in the US (some states at least). Seems to work well, but over there you often have many more lanes to move over into and traffic only tends to use lane 1 when it's entering/exiting. They do have lights to control traffic joining at the end of the sliproad in busy areas/periods too though. Lane 1 has an annoying habit of exiting onto another road on you in the US - it's easy to spot the European visitors this way though