Indicating in general

[J4CKO]

Basically, I worked this out one day whilst driving, a woman in a white Q7 rounded a large roundabout with no indication as to where she was turning off, I was behind her for a few miles, through a few junctions and not once did she indicate, then we get one a dual carriageway and she needs to move, in traffic from lane one to lane two so she could turn right at the next roundabout and at this point, she was all about the indicators, so, when she wanted someone else to do something like let her into their lane she would make her requirement clear but when it was purely informational for other drivers it was too much trouble.

[Ferosferio]

simon1987 said:

its not compulsory so why waste your time

Unfortunately, this is the sort of attitude which plagues UK roads.


Re the comments around the incorrect/lack of indicating at roundabouts, it's a major frustration of mine. Not indicating when leaving a roundabout...

[anonymous-user]

Jayyylo said:

There is no reason to indicate when moving back to position after completing an overtake. The car you have overtaken is now behind you and won't be blasting up the inside and you use your eyes to see if someone in L1 is signalling to move into L2. Simples. People who indicate left on motorways is another example of poor driving, except when taking a slip road or moving onto a new road denoted by thicker white lines.

Beggars belief that even on PH there are people who can't understand that you use your indicators to show your intent other drivers. Such as in the example above a driver in L1 who may be considering making a move into L2. Use of indicators helps everyone by providing them with information about other driver's intentions.

The highway code is absolutely clear on the use of indicators:
"Signals warn and inform other road users, including pedestrians of your intended actions. You should always use them to advise other road users before changing course or direction, stopping or moving off"
Section 103.

[Captain Muppet]

Jayyylo said:

Simples.

Every time you use that word someone in marketing has an orgasm.

Which should be reason enough to stop using it.

[BOR]

FunkyNige said:

(where I was coming from so I needn't have stopped

You still have to stop, either way, so a lack of signal makes precisely zero difference to you.

[av185]

charltjr said:

Jayyylo said:

There is no reason to indicate when moving back to position after completing an overtake. The car you have overtaken is now behind you and won't be blasting up the inside and you use your eyes to see if someone in L1 is signalling to move into L2. Simples. People who indicate left on motorways is another example of poor driving, except when taking a slip road or moving onto a new road denoted by thicker white lines.

Beggars belief that even on PH there are people who can't understand that you use your indicators to show your intent other drivers. Such as in the example above a driver in L1 who may be considering making a move into L2. Use of indicators helps everyone by providing them with information about other driver's intentions.

The highway code is absolutely clear on the use of indicators:
"Signals warn and inform other road users, including pedestrians of your intended actions. You should always use them to advise other road users before changing course or direction, stopping or moving off"
Section 103.

I know of at least one ex traffic policeman (retired in last 5 years) who was motorway based for for the last 15 years of his career who did not consider it a requirement to indicate when moving from lane 3 to lane 2.

I always maintained he was totally wrong. Witness the large numbers of accidents (particularly sideswipes by especially left hand drive lorries having the infamous "blindspot") occuring when the lane 1 driver moves out to lane 2 at the exact time as the lane 3 driver moves to lane 2.

In most cases, indicating would prevent these increasingly common crashes.

[RobM77]

Symbolica said:

RobM77 said:

The really dangerous one is people turning right from the left lane of similarly simple roundabouts without indicating (no lane markings, just a straight Highway Code job) - something I see about once a week.

The only time I've genuinely come close to crashing in years was when some tit in a Skoda did exactly that on a mini roundabout.

And I bet they started hooting at you and shouting? Stupidity us one thing, but the aggression is what really gets me - do they really think they're in the right, or can they just not bring themselves to apologise?

[Jayyylo]

av185 said:

charltjr said:

Jayyylo said:

There is no reason to indicate when moving back to position after completing an overtake. The car you have overtaken is now behind you and won't be blasting up the inside and you use your eyes to see if someone in L1 is signalling to move into L2. Simples. People who indicate left on motorways is another example of poor driving, except when taking a slip road or moving onto a new road denoted by thicker white lines.

Beggars belief that even on PH there are people who can't understand that you use your indicators to show your intent other drivers. Such as in the example above a driver in L1 who may be considering making a move into L2. Use of indicators helps everyone by providing them with information about other driver's intentions.

The highway code is absolutely clear on the use of indicators:
"Signals warn and inform other road users, including pedestrians of your intended actions. You should always use them to advise other road users before changing course or direction, stopping or moving off"
Section 103.

I know of at least one ex traffic policeman (retired in last 5 years) who was motorway based for for the last 15 years of his career who did not consider it a requirement to indicate when moving from lane 3 to lane 2.

I always maintained he was totally wrong. Witness the large numbers of accidents (particularly sideswipes by especially left hand drive lorries having the infamous "blindspot") occuring when the lane 1 driver moves out to lane 2 at the exact time as the lane 3 driver moves to lane 2.

In most cases, indicating would prevent these increasingly common crashes.

If the driver moving from L3 to L2 observed the traffic flow ahead it would be fairly obvious if someone in L1 was quickly approaching slower moving traffic and likely to move out. In these circumstances I normally stay in L3 until I'm out of the blind spot of L1 driver before moving into L2.

I was taught by a traffic cop and he explained it well enough for me to understand and agree his methods were logical/correct.

[SteveSteveson]

That would be fine if other drivers were always predictable. I don't see how you are loosing anything by indicating to pull in. Not only dose it mean people I. Lane 1 know what you are doing but also people behind you know you are moving over.

[Dixy]

You should not indicate when moving from lane 4 to 3, from 3 to 2, from 2 to 1. We are British and we drive on the left, you have only used the right hand lanes to overtake and are then moving back to the correct position.
As taught by ROSPA ADI and police driving.
The suggestion that a car in lane one would have noticed your indicator but failed to see your vehicle is interesting.
Following vehicles will tend to accelerate if they see a left indicator and therefore remove your ability to stay in lane 3 if a muppet in lane 1 fails to observe correctly before indicating and moving right.

[anonymous-user]

SteveSteveson said:

That would be fine if other drivers were always predictable. I don't see how you are loosing anything by indicating to pull in. Not only dose it mean people I. Lane 1 know what you are doing but also people behind you know you are moving over.

Exactly this.

Yes of course you can (and should) observe traffic flow to determine if another driver is likely to move out or not but driving should be co-operative and by indicating you are providing others around you with more information. As a driver I may not get any benefit from it but to suggest it's somehow "bad driving" or detrimental to flick an indicator on before making a maneuver just doesn't make sense to me.

I can see that in police pursuit driving a driver would be more likely to use that evaluation because they're not going to want to be faffing around with the indicators but that's not what we're talking about.

[Vipers]

simon1987 said:

its not compulsory so why waste your time

Ever read the Highway Code. Then again it's not compulsory to be an idiot to drive a vehicle, but many seem to qualify.

[av185]

Jayyylo said:

av185 said:

charltjr said:

Jayyylo said:

There is no reason to indicate when moving back to position after completing an overtake. The car you have overtaken is now behind you and won't be blasting up the inside and you use your eyes to see if someone in L1 is signalling to move into L2. Simples. People who indicate left on motorways is another example of poor driving, except when taking a slip road or moving onto a new road denoted by thicker white lines.

Beggars belief that even on PH there are people who can't understand that you use your indicators to show your intent other drivers. Such as in the example above a driver in L1 who may be considering making a move into L2. Use of indicators helps everyone by providing them with information about other driver's intentions.

The highway code is absolutely clear on the use of indicators:
"Signals warn and inform other road users, including pedestrians of your intended actions. You should always use them to advise other road users before changing course or direction, stopping or moving off"
Section 103.

I know of at least one ex traffic policeman (retired in last 5 years) who was motorway based for for the last 15 years of his career who did not consider it a requirement to indicate when moving from lane 3 to lane 2.

I always maintained he was totally wrong. Witness the large numbers of accidents (particularly sideswipes by especially left hand drive lorries having the infamous "blindspot") occuring when the lane 1 driver moves out to lane 2 at the exact time as the lane 3 driver moves to lane 2.

In most cases, indicating would prevent these increasingly common crashes.

If the driver moving from L3 to L2 observed the traffic flow ahead it would be fairly obvious if someone in L1 was quickly approaching slower moving traffic and likely to move out. In these circumstances I normally stay in L3 until I'm out of the blind spot of L1 driver before moving into L2.

I was taught by a traffic cop and he explained it well enough for me to understand and agree his methods were logical/correct.

I disagree entirely.

So if there was the typical endless stream of nose to tail articulated lorries (regularly seen on in particular uphill sections of motorways), you would stay in lane 3 for" x "miles whilst lane 2 is clear? Dont think so!-Unless you liked contributing to congestion or wanted a possible 3 points on your licence.

This scenario would give a good driver observing the road conditions even more reason to indicate.

[Zod]

Jayyylo said:

panholio said:

Really annoys me on motorways. Especially when people don't indicate when moving from lane 3 to lane 2 when there are vehicles in lane 1. Downright dangerous.

There is no reason to indicate when moving back to position after completing an overtake. The car you have overtaken is now behind you and won't be blasting up the inside and you use your eyes to see if someone in L1 is signalling to move into L2. Simples. People who indicate left on motorways is another example of poor driving, except when taking a slip road or moving onto a new road denoted by thicker white lines.

On a motorway with not much traffic, I agree. With traffic, I agenerally indicate so that other drivers know that I plan to switch lane.

[Jayyylo]

I did state normally that's what I'd do, as in assuming normal driving conditions. Obviously there are exceptions but I'm hardly going to type out what I would do in every scenario.

Anyway, I've now stated how I was trained to do things and I'm not up for arguing on the subject. I'd recommend starting a topic in the advanced driving forum for a few more opinions as I'm happy to admit they probably have much more knowledge than I do.

[Vipers]

To sum it all up:-

Mirror, signal, manouevour.

Now that's easy, not too difficult.

[Dixy]

Correct indicate that you are moving in to a right hand lane to overtake and the conclusion of the manoeuvre is to return to the left hand lane where everyone would expect you to go.

[Vipers]

Dixy said:

Correct indicate that you are moving in to a right hand lane to overtake and the conclusion of the manoeuvre is to return to the left hand lane where everyone would expect you to go.

Absolutely, but we must make some exceptions for those idiots who indicate right on a dual carriageway to move from L1 to L2 to pass a car, leave the indicator on so you have decide if they really are just passing the car or going to turn right at the next junction/gap.

We can but try.

[Fantuzzi]

jonm01 said:

100% agree about roundabouts. Infact I'd like to see Police cracking down on this rather than minor speed limit infringements.

This.

[supersingle]

Vipers said:

To sum it all up:-

Mirror, signal, manouevour.

Now that's easy, not too difficult.

I think you forgot observation and anticipation. That puts you with 90% of road users out there.