Overtake - Make Own Gap

[vonhosen]

TartanPaint said:

StressedDave said:

Let me get this straight in my head...

If you'll forgive me, I don't feel that objective was met.

Why is everyone in your hypothetical scenario suddenly an aggressive alpha-male? Other than it supports your argument that forcing a gap is dangerous.

As others have said since, it's usually just a muggle who hasn't left a 2 second gap and is in a bit of a tractor-beam daze following the car in front. As soon as they see you along side, they'll lift off slightly and the job is done. Nobody is causing imaginary panic braking. Nobody is honking and closing gaps and flexing muscles and flashing headlights and getting upset and teaching lessons.

All we're talking about here is the real wold where a car length space (which should be 2 seconds, but never is) can be encouraged to become big enough for an overtaker to slot into. It happens every day, on every road in the land, without disastrous consequences. There is no need to embellish the scenario to explain that under extremely aggressive circumstances it could be dangerous. Of course it could. Every single driving moment you are dismissing potential risks because you've assessed their probability with reasonable confidence and experience. Advanced driving is about risk reduction, not risk elimination.

Keep our hypothetical scenario within the normal hypothetical parameters usually found on planet earth, and it can very often be absolutely safe to go for a gap that's not regulation length, providing it has the potential to become one, and providing there's a get-out plan.

If it wasn't a thing, this thread wouldn't exist. Arguing that the answer is always to not overtake doesn't advance the conversation at all.

I applaud any and all conversation starter that covers the grey areas, and I do confess to getting pretty cheesed off with dismissal of these discussions based on by-the-book responses. I've encountered that attitude at more than one local group, and it never, ever leads to learning. We, the slim section of the Venn diagram who are both motoring enthusiasts and advanced drivers should be the ones moving these conversations forwards instead of thumbing the book to the correct page and reciting, "Thou shalt not..."

If we could start with, "Yes, I can see that might be useful sometimes..." we might get somewhere.

Defensive not offensive driving is the goal.
'What if', is a consideration in defensive driving, particularly where if you don't consider it it can place you & others in a perilous position.
You are talking about 'relying' on meeting somebody who will acquiesce in the face of your aggressive move & thankfully still today that is more often than not what will happen. Luckily people are still more likely to cover for the poor judgement of others than not.

However the main differences today though is that
1) There are more aggressive drivers on the road than yester year & when aggressive move is countered with aggressive move it can go pear shaped quickly (ie simply praying you don't meet your aggressive self on the road when you overtake isn't a great strategy).
2) That although they may acquiesce in the moment they may still submit dash cam footage to the authorities where that wouldn't have happened in the past.
The rule book you have to worry about is not the IAM, you aren't bound by them unless you are on test with them.
It's the Road Traffic Act 1988 & the interpretation/application of Police/CPS/Courts. They aren't interested in you trying to move on (as you see it) the advanced driving rule book. If you are lucky & find somebody who is acquiescent, you may still be convicted for your choice to 'make your own gap'.

Of course the answer is not 'never' overtake where you can't take every vehicle ahead in one go. it's you can overtake where there is an appropriate gap & you can't where there isn't an appropriate gap.
That leads to 'how big is an appropriate gap?', but the answer to that lays above.
The Police/CPS/Courts decide & where they are in agreement you may get convicted.
If you want to avoid that then a cautionary approach that resides a good distance the safe side of what may be considered marginal is probably a good idea.

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 7th August 10:37

[bigdog3]

vonhosen said:

Defensive not offensive driving is the goal.
'What if', is a consideration in defensive driving, particularly where if you don't consider can place you & others in a perilous position.
You are talking about 'relying' on meeting somebody who will acquiesce in the face of your aggressive move & thankfully still today that is more often than not what will happen.

Agreed - it's foolhardy to leave your destiny in the hands of others

[SOL111]

TartanPaint said:

Agreed. Now, convince me that it's always a bad driving choice.

I think people here have already made it pretty clear.

If you don't get it fine, but it's already been explained well enough.

[TartanPaint]

Of course I do understand the opposing views. They're not hard to grasp. They're eminently sensible. They're the default position for all the reasons above. They just don't always apply to the real world, in my opinion. Or at least, there's room for discussion about how and why they might not.

I think I and others will continue to create bigger gaps from little gaps.

According to this thread, that's because we're just plain wrong, probably dangerous, and liable for prosecution. In my mind, I'm none of those things, which leads me to believe there's intricacies not yet fully explored.

Never mind, I think we're drawing to natural agreement to disagree. I thank OP for raising the question. It certainly resonated with me, and I am grateful at least that these discussion happen in AD much more constructively than they would in GG!

[vonhosen]

TartanPaint said:

Of course I do understand the opposing views. They're not hard to grasp. They're eminently sensible. They're the default position for all the reasons above. They just don't always apply to the real world, in my opinion. Or at least, there's room for discussion about how and why they might not.

I think I and others will continue to create bigger gaps from little gaps.

According to this thread, that's because we're just plain wrong, probably dangerous, and liable for prosecution. In my mind, I'm none of those things, which leads me to believe there's intricacies not yet fully explored.

Never mind, I think we're drawing to natural agreement to disagree. I thank OP for raising the question. It certainly resonated with me, and I am grateful at least that these discussion happen in AD much more constructively than they would in GG!

The only real intricacy is are we all visualising the same size gap when we talk about what we consider is or isn't appropriate.
Beyond that, like I say, it's the authorities that decide what actually is or isn't acceptable irrespective of what we individually think. That is as real world as it gets because there are potential penalties even if there is no dangerous outcome with that.

[nonsequitur]

Tycho said:

i agree in part with this but as an overtaker(and driving in general) you should never rely on others to help you out after you have started a maneuver. The overtaker should not have overtaken if he had to rely on one of the cars to make space for him. I personally would have dropped back to let him in but it isn't a requirement and should not be taken as granted.

I'm happy to be corrected though.

Agree. Never rely on other drivers for anything. PH is full of threads highlighting atrocious driving. In this example if you are going to O/T be sure there is a good gap to slot into and never assume anything.

[FiF]

If this forum had a 'like' button this is one where I would have clicked, particularly for the last sentence.

SOL111 said:

Personally, 2 seconds is what I'd be looking for. Causing a car to slow would count against you on a driving test so would apply the same logic.

If I couldn't cleanly overtake all cars at once then I wouldn't bother and just suck it up.

It's precisely people prioritising their own progress over everything else that causes problems IMO.

I'm in the von / Stressed Dave camp I think, if there is a clearly identified place to land without causing any issues to others then fill your boots, otherwise suck it up and apply some restraint.

As evidence for people prioritising progress over all else my own eyes tell me that's true. An anecdotal example, rural dual carriageway mostly 50 , some 40, odd bits NSL. Frequent reductions from two lanes to one near crossover junctions mainly due to collision history. Due to limit, willingness to obey limit plus risk of the frequent mobile enforcement means that if you're faced with a slower vehicle in front, say low 40s in a 50, the length of the two lane section before the next reduction to one lane is that you can legally get past 1 or 2 vehicles but no more. Often leaving a single lane section you can see the warning sign for the next one not that far up ahead.

So you can imagine, a slowish vehicle in pos1, pos2 and 3 unwilling to overtake for whatever reason, a camel train soon builds up. So if I find myself in say pos 6 or further back there is generally no possibility to get out and overtake 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and get back in legally, unless there is a big gap somewhere, if there is, do it, but usually not so restraint applied, suck it up, will be turning off into the back roads in a bit. By the way, it rankles a bit in these circumstances to have the entitled on here claiming everyone in the camel train is an unthinking sheep, but there you have their mindset, such as it is.

Clearly what one then sees is the folks who prioritise their own progress over everything else piling down lane 2. At this point we will be approaching the next single lane section, matey will have theoretically nowhere to land so I will ease off from my following position to give them an extra spot to land , bit of friendly encouragement if you like. It's amazing, or maybe not so surprising reading the comments on here, how many swoop straight past my increased space, then try and make it just one more only to find that they're now in the immediate vicinity of the one lane approach and having to enter an area of cross hatching bounded by solid white line. And we all know that's a

I think some of that crowd are on this thread, sorry if that observation offends.

[StressedDave]

TartanPaint said:

According to this thread, that's because we're just plain wrong, probably dangerous, and liable for prosecution. In my mind, I'm none of those things, which leads me to believe there's intricacies not yet fully explored.

Never mind, I think we're drawing to natural agreement to disagree. I thank OP for raising the question. It certainly resonated with me, and I am grateful at least that these discussion happen in AD much more constructively than they would in GG!

Actually, I'd say potentially dangerous, everything we do is liable for prosecution, and I don't trust any other driver on the road. When I was coaching mantra 0 was 'you've got to be able to stop before you hit anything', mantra 1 was 'everyone on the road is an idiot, including you'. As others have said, how big a gap is being discussed is perhaps something of an issue. The typed word is not the best environment for such subtleties.

Purely personally, I wouldn't overtake into any gap that didn't provide 1.5 seconds of space for the car behind and whatever space I consider appropriate (say at least 1s because anything less wouldn't guarantee giving me time to react if the vehicle in front suddenly locks up trying to avoid inhaling a pheasant) to the car in front. I'd certainly never consider an overtake that would require me to enlarge a gap to get back in. At 30mph that gap is 34m, so say 8 car lengths; at 60 mph it's double. Those are my numbers. And I may enlarge gaps, but only after I've established my car back on the left hand side of the road. I'd certainly have to do that if I was overtaking the motorhome on the Cat & Fiddle as an earlier poster was.

Your numbers clearly vary and we all have our own personal risk strategy. I've seen the aftermath of too many overtakes that went wrong, including head-on collisions where the offending vehicle swerved back onto the correct side of the road as the victim swerved in the same direction to avoid him and where the overtaking vehicle either misjudged or had the gap closed on him and spun himself and the victim off the road into the foliage.

[Graveworm]

TartanPaint said:

...They just don't always apply to the real world, in my opinion. Or at least, there's room for discussion about how and why they might not.

I think I ...

According to this thread, that's because we're just plain wrong, probably dangerous, and liable for prosecution. In my mind, I'm none of those things, ...

Never mind, I think we're drawing to natural agreement to disagree. ...!

If there are 2 schools of thought and you are the only one in one school - bravely sticking to your opinion in the face of the books, the teachers and everyone else is, very occasionally, bold and brilliant but only very occasionally.

[Dizeee]

Just above this thread is one about tailgating. On that thread, apparently overtaking is futile, pointless, and only a mugs game.

And I thought this was an AD forum.

[Countdown]

Dizeee said:

And I thought this was an AD forum.

To be fair that doesn't necessarily mean we have to agree about everything, and it's possible for different viewpoints to be equally valid.

[Dizeee]

Countdown said:

To be fair that doesn't necessarily mean we have to agree about everything, and it's possible for different viewpoints to be equally valid.

Absolutely, but to totally write off an act ( in this case overtaking ) as inappropriate, pointless, futile or whatever else, with no context whatsoever is amazing. Some of the comments in the other thread suggest that overtakes should not be considered full stop as they are not worth it. If that the assumption, then the levels of awareness and dynamic interpretation are very concerning for an AD community.

[bigdog3]

Dizeee said:

Just above this thread is one about tailgating. On that thread, apparently overtaking is futile, pointless, and only a mugs game.

They are not alone:
"Brake advises overtaking should be avoided unless absolutely essential, for instance to overtake an extremely slow moving vehicle on a long, open stretch, without speeding or traffic coming the other way. Otherwise just hang back, relax and enjoy the journey."

https://www.brake.org.uk/media-centre/1437-dl-over...

[Graveworm]

bigdog3 said:

They are not alone:
"Brake advises overtaking should be avoided unless absolutely essential, for instance to overtake an extremely slow moving vehicle on a long, open stretch, without speeding or traffic coming the other way. Otherwise just hang back, relax and enjoy the journey."

https://www.brake.org.uk/media-centre/1437-dl-over...

I love a good Brake survey. In 2015 there were about 189000 accidents involving cars. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...
2875 involved overtaking moving vehicles to the offside. https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-service...
So that is 1 and half percent of accidents. So either perception is not in line with reality or the survey wasn't that accurate.

Edited by Graveworm on Monday 19th August 17:35

[meatballs]

I think I did 6 cars on the way back tonight all chugging along at 20 behind a lorry and tractor. After about 4 mins of basically nothing coming the other way waiting for someone to make a move.

Wasnt the best planned/timed overtake though as the tractor decided to turn left at a junction I didn't see just after I started the move, the cars all concertinaed together.. I was planning on doing 1 or 2 in stages but they all started braking nose to tail and so nowhere to pull in.

Lucky someone wasn't at the junction and turning right lived and learnt (a bit)

[bigdog3]

meatballs said:

I think I did 6 cars on the way back tonight all chugging along at 20 behind a lorry and tractor. After about 4 mins of basically nothing coming the other way waiting for someone to make a move.

Wasnt the best planned/timed overtake though as the tractor decided to turn left at a junction I didn't see just after I started the move, the cars all concertinaed together.. I was planning on doing 1 or 2 in stages but they all started braking nose to tail and so nowhere to pull in.

Lucky someone wasn't at the junction and turning right lived and learnt (a bit)

Brake wouldn't be impressed

[PhilAsia]

TartanPaint said:

We know the rule book says don't overtake unless you've got a gap, but we'd never get anywhere if we stuck to that.

It's one of those rules I consciously break all the time.

Advanced Driving is about planning. In this case, planning which gap you're aiming for. But if there isn't a gap, and your plan includes forcing a gap, that's still planning!

If the overtakee refuses to yield, or closes a gap on you, planning to jump on the brakes and abort completely is STILL planning.

I am with Von et al on this. The thought process should start with the endeavor not to start a manoeuvre that would cause another road user to change speed or direction.

Furthermore, you have not done a psychological evaluation on who you are overtaking, so to perceive that one or more will conform/bend to your will is presumptive and, although it will work out in your favour a 1000 times, it might not every time.

I drive in the Philippines and (to generalise) if you ever overtook a Filipino in the UK thinking they would allow you back in, you would soon find yourself very much mistaken. Ok, so you have a contingency plan....very good, except that if there were two Filipinos in a row, your PLAN is now back on the drawing board.

Using restraint is a very valuable tool.

Edited by PhilAsia on Saturday 23 November 09:19