Reg puts his money where his mouth is - overtaking demo

[R_U_LOCAL]

It's all well and good writing my ramblings on here, but sometimes things need to actually be demonstrated before they make complete sense.

I had a run out with my two lads today to watch a rally, and there was a bit of charge left in the video camera battery once the stage had finished. Rather than waste it, I got my eldest to video part of the drive home. I've edited the footage down to show a small assortment of overtakes. I haven't commentated on the video for various reasons, but I've listed a few notes on the overtakes below.

There are several things to bear in mind when watching this. Firstly, the quality is quite poor. That's down to a combination of a quite bumpy road, an inexperienced cameraman and quality loss through uploading. I take no responsibility if you get travel sick watching it. Secondly, a video such as this is very restricted in view, so on a couple of occasions, I'm going out on an overtake in areas where it seems the view is restricted. I can assure you that the view wasn't restricted for me, as it seems on the video. Thirdly, watching the video back, my following position looks quite close. This is down to the limited depth of view from the video camera, and out on the road, my following position was mostly fine. Finally, all the overtakes took place on national speed limit single carriageway roads.

Oh, and this isn't a willy-waving excersise, it's just a practical demonstration of some of the stuff I've been going on about.

Overtake 1 - silver Skoda.

Whilst in the following position, you'll see me move my car nearside and offside to obtain a view ahead. The overtake itself takes place on a left hand bend, and it appears that I have a limited view. This isn't the case - the nearside of the road was lined with well-spaced trees, and I had a good view up the nearside of the Skoda before moving out.

Overtake 2 - Transit pick-up.

This was a relatively slow-moving vehicle which I followed for a short while, and overtook on a straight after a left-hand bend. I moved sideways, but delayed the acceleration slightly to make sure that nothing was emerging from the building on the right.

Overtake 3 - Silver 4X4.

This was a classic overtake off a right-hand bend. I closed my following position up to less than 2 seconds and positioned nearside. Although the two on-coming cars prevented me going immediately, they passed very quickly and the overtake was clearly on straight after they had passed, so I didn't drop back to 2 seconds.

Overtake 4 - Ford Mondeo.

Lots of interesting stuff going on here! I took my time getting into the following position, as the road was, initially, quite tight and governed by double white lines. I had to hold back for two on-coming cars, and at the point I went, I was conscious of a crossroads junction ahead - you can actually see a silver car approaching the junction and turning left towards me. In spite of this, the Mondeo was travelling fairly slowly, and I knew I could easily pass it well before the junction. After the overtake, you'll see the silver car emerge, which is a good example of why you should avoid overtaking with a junction to the right.

Overtake 5 - BMW 7 series.

A nice one, off a left-hand bend. On the approach to the bend, I initially moved left for the view, and then moved right to keep the nearside view. As we rounded the corner, I saw that the overtake was on by keeping that nearside view, and then confirmed it with an offside move prior to accelerating. It may look like there was a blind farm entrance to the right as I accelerated, but in reality, I had a nice clear view into it.

Overtake 6 - VW Golf.

This was more of a rolling overtake really. I had plus speed on the Golf, and it the overtake was clearly on from some distance back. One slight error though - I moved nearside after the pass, and then back offside for the left-hander. Staying offside after the pass would have been better.

Anyway, enough waffle - here's the video...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4OZwy6Piao

Enjoy.

[R_U_LOCAL]

standards said:

Very interesting-thank you.

2 questions-final O/T-gear change at start of O/T on right hand side of road-what's the offical line?
Secondly what's your car?

Wouldn't it be great to have that on a proper mounted camera and commentary. Maybe one day

I've had another look at that last overtake, and the gearchange wasn't ideal, but not for the reason you mentioned. There's no problem in changing gear whilst on the offside of the road, but I did change gear whilst I was alongside the Golf, which isn't ideal - I prefer to change gear before or after being alongside the overtaken vehicle. My fault entirely - the Golf driver was accelerating as the road opened up, and I underestimated how much he was accelerating, which meant I didn't travel quite as far forward as I would have liked before needing a higher gear.

As Nev said, the car is an E36 M3 Evo, with the SMG semi-automatic gearbox.

I said at the beginning that the camera work was a little shonky, but bear with me - it's the first time I've tried it, and the first time I've edited footage like that. I'll see what I can do about improving the camera mount next time. I'll also try and wash the car first too, as the windscreen was bloody filthy on it's unswept part!

willibetz said:

Thanks for that - a classy bit of driving, showing considered use of the available road and exemptions

RoSPA would blow a fuse .

One observation - what's current thinking on taking a higher gear while traversing the crown of the road?

WilliBetz

No exemptions, as I was in my own car. I tried my utmost to keep within the national speed limit (I'd be foolish to do otherwise when posting the video on the internet!), and the only time my speed crept up a bit was during the last one, as the Golf picked it's speed up a little more than I was expecting. The driver didn't do it maliciously, he was just driving at his own speed, but I'd committed to the overtake before I realised and *ahem* it seemed rude not to finish what I'd started.

As for changing gear when crossing the crown camber, it depends entirely on your car. Some cars, most notably powerful FWD cars with wide tyres (although not exclusively so), have a tendency to be adversely affected by crossing the camber when accelerating. I know that all the Volvo T5s I've driven have been particularly bad in this respect. My car isn't badly affected on the camber change when accelerating, so a gearchange at that point isn't a problem.

GreenV8S said:

I hope you didn't go out looking for overtakes.

Some of the ground/sky/ground/sky moments made it a bit difficult to view, I'd be very very interested to see more of the same if you can find a better camera mount (or train the one you have!). It all seemed completely comfortable and relaxed, nothing that would cause any concern to anyone involved.

I take your point about the depth of field on the video, but just counting time for markers to go past your following distance looked to be closer to one second than two a lot of the time. I didn't feel you were too close at any point though, despite the foreshortening effect of the lense.

Thanks for posting it, I envy you your quiet roads!

I wasn't looking for overtakes really - I was more interested in getting some cornering shots for a future article on reading the road. The overtakes were just a small part of about 20 minutes of (mostly quite dull) footage. I wanted to try editing the clips down, and in view of my recent article on overtaking, I thought I'd post it up. The overtakes, as I've said before, simply presented themselves to me.

I'm not in the habit of counting out a following position any more - I've been doing it long enough to be able to judge it just by sight and vehicle speed these days. It does look like I'm closer than 2 seconds at times on the video, but it honestly didn't feel or look like it at the time. I've been out for another drive today, and timed some following positions, as it was bugging me a bit, but whenever I felt as though I'd got it right, my timings confirmed that I had. I can't offer any better explanation than that I'm afraid.

Thanks for the positive comments though - I think it's a useful aid to passing on skills and I'll definitely use it again, with a better camera mount next time.

Not so sure about commentary though - I hate hearing my voice on tape.

[R_U_LOCAL]

No Steve, it's not correct.

[R_U_LOCAL]

zevans said:

Re overtake #1:

I'm pleased to say I read the road the same way, and I knew you were going to go when you did...

...but if I had done that, the Skoda would have given me the Vs and headlights. I find people get very upset about being overtaken on a road that wide, and/or on a bend, however slight. Do you also find that?

Likewise #2 and a few others, especially with the stone walls closing the view.

#3 I guess you'd already spotted the opportunity behind the second car and it was just a case of waiting for the two to pass you?

I didn't get any adverse reactions from any of the overtaken vehicles, and I don't often get them when overtaking. I try to make sure that I don't get too close when I'm in the following position or when I'm passing, and that I don't cut in too suddenly after the overtake. If you aim to not make other road users alter their course or speed to allow you to pass, then you rarely get bad reactions.

There are, of course, some drivers who think that overtaking is tantamount to raping their wives, but there's not a lot you can do about them - I just tend to give them a cheery wave and leave it at that.

That's after overtaking them, of course - not after raping their wives.

[R_U_LOCAL]

dfen5 said:

If you were driving a less powerful car would you still use the same technique?

Yes.

You need to plan further ahead and more space is required to complete the overtakes, but the basic technique is exactly the same.

[R_U_LOCAL]

Get Karter said:

Reg,

If you are behind a car doing 55mph on a single carriageway NSL road, with short straights/periods of visibility do you just tune in to Terry Wogan and light your pipe?

(or do you use the power that Bayer Motor Werk has endowed you with and nip past at 80mph?)

Just curious........

You may find the answer to your question here...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[R_U_LOCAL]

rsv gone! said:

Lovely stuff, Reg. The camera can be a bit deceptive of speeds and distances. And when you were overtaking the Alfa, I thought there was alorry coming. Turned out to be a tree.

My faves were the blue van on the twisty road and the caravan combo - bet that worried them. The following car probably related tales of BMWs overtaking blind because they'd not taken in the whole view.

Thanks, but I suspect you meant to post your reply in this thread?...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...