Nat'l Highways 'Little changes, change everything' campaign

[Cliftonite]

National Highways 'Little changes, change everything' campaign

At last, some effort is being made to reduce tailgating and MLM activity!

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKHIGHWAY...

[Notsofastfrank]

A good idea, let’s hope it makes a difference.

[XplusYplusZ]

It's a shame they didn't think of this before they spent £Billions on motorway widening.. only to have lane 2 hoggers, now become lane 3 hoggers..

It's definitely needed - it seems most of the population are entirely unaware of L1.

Edited by XplusYplusZ on Thursday 14th March 13:11

[AlexRS2782]

Has anyone seen the TV advert yet? If you thought the previous "Go Left" to the soundtrack of "Go West" was bad, you'll be happy to know this one continues the same theme very well. This time with the driver singing "What A Man" after realising the error of his ways and congratulating himself of changing his behaviour

TBH some of the ad agency promo bullst is more hilarious than them thinking these ads will actually do anything meaningful - especially as for the fair chunk of £££ splashed at it, the budget spend only allows them to run for a total of 3 weeks until the end of March - wow

https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/little-cha...
https://www.marketing-beat.co.uk/2024/03/13/nation...

[wazztie16]

Cliftonite said:

National Highways 'Little changes, change everything' campaign

At last, some effort is being made to reduce tailgating and MLM activity!

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKHIGHWAY...

I don't think it'll work, if I'm honest. Maybe for tailgating, but not for middle lane.

People are just too lazy nowadays to be actually thinking about driving.

Tailgating has a higher risk of an incident occurring so like I say, that MAY work. But I won't be holding my breath.

[oldaudi]

I was sat with my 79 year old father in law last Sunday watching the football. The advert came on. He declared that the slow lane was for wagons, that’s why it’s called the slow lane. Why would you keep moving to the slow lane, only to drive up to another wagon, over take and then move back. You could get stuck in the slow lane if cars in the middle lane do not let you join.

Much better to stay in the middle lane he declared.

[Zarco]

Notsofastfrank said:

A good idea, let’s hope it makes a difference.

It won't unless it is policed.

Same for not indicating on roundabouts, and driving around with one headlight.

[911Spanker]

People in the UK are generally thick as two planks.

It won't work.

[55palfers]

Money better spent on pothole filling or upgrade of cameras detecting stationary traffic on smart motorways.

[boyse7en]

Everyone saying it won't work is right that it won't eliminate poor driving etiquette , but it might reduce the issue by a small margin, which makes a big difference overall.
If (made up numbers alert...) there 1000 middle-lane hoggers now, and after the campaign there are 900, you will barely notice on your daily drive but it would mean a significant reduction in incidents on a national basis

[Alex_225]

oldaudi said:

I was sat with my 79 year old father in law last Sunday watching the football. The advert came on. He declared that the slow lane was for wagons, that’s why it’s called the slow lane. Why would you keep moving to the slow lane, only to drive up to another wagon, over take and then move back. You could get stuck in the slow lane if cars in the middle lane do not let you join.

Much better to stay in the middle lane he declared.

This is exactly the mindset isn't it, it's the, 'slow lane' and if I don't want to go slowly then I don't need to use that lane. I did a late night run from Surrey to Gloucestershire on Tuesday. M25, M3, M4. Those roads from 9pm onwards are really clear, very few vehicles around and even on the M25 other than through the road works you can sale through at 70. Literally 4 empty lanes and passing people in lane 1 whilst they sit in lane 2 or 3!!

Even if these campaigns hit a small percentage of drivers it'd be a help. Policing it would be better as I'm sure if people start getting fined/points for hogging middle lanes, word would get round to move out the damn way!!

[geeks]

Had a SAC a few years back. There was more than one person in the room who genuinely believed that L1 was for Lorries and Caravans only. Couldn't get my head around that and I asked what they did to get on and off a motorway, the answer was "Go straight to/from the middle lane" the instructor stopped the course for 5 minutes to educate these people who still didn't believe him, he had to get the highway code stuff out to prove it, the whole thing was utterly farcical!

[Pica-Pica]

oldaudi said:

I was sat with my 79 year old father in law last Sunday watching the football. The advert came on. He declared that the slow lane was for wagons, that’s why it’s called the slow lane. Why would you keep moving to the slow lane, only to drive up to another wagon, over take and then move back. You could get stuck in the slow lane if cars in the middle lane do not let you join.

Much better to stay in the middle lane he declared.

That is driven by mindset, plus a lack of interest in keeping up driving skills. Cuts across all ages.

[mwstewart]

I heard this on the radio this morning. The delivery is a little namby-pamby, but it's a step in the right direction.

[Ian Geary]

I did a 100 mile motorway trip with the cruise set at 73mph (testing a fuel economy function of the car) the other day.

It was pretty frustrating - I spent nearly a third of that time caught up in the wake of various lane 3 morons driving at say 68 mph (so their cruise on 70) whilst totally ignoring the empty two lanes to their left.

Yes, i did come up to wagons, and if you're not paying attention there is a risk of getting caught behind them. Though they're generally easy to spot from quite some distance.

But this is the whole race to the bottom attitude that is causing standards to drop.

Proper lane discipline and courtesy would get all drivers where they want to be faster than the behaviour we currently have.

Worth mentioning the majority of L3 morons were Toyota Priuses (Prii??) or large people carriers (Merc Vito type). Basically private hire cars ( I was driving between the UK's two largest airports)

Genuinely, I don't think the drivers passed their test in the UK, and I suspect they just see L3 as "the easy option".


Which it sort of is, of you don't think about the consequences to others, or take pride in your driving.

I'm not making this about race specifically - it's about driving standards of adults not taught in the UK (I have no idea what sort of conversation courses are required, but perhaps national highways/dvds could focus some resources there?)

Though as has been said, some people have gone through the UK test and still don't understand the highway code, so maybe it's just personality based, or genetic?