Aborted overtakes

[Solocle]

Just wondering opinion about aborting overtakes. I.e, a car pulls offside, begins an overtake, then oncoming vehicle appears from around a corner and they return to following position. Of course, if you've begun an overtake and it's clearly unsafe to continue you must abort, but should you initiate such an overtake in the first place? Bearing in mind that if a vehicle doesn't appear for a few seconds, the overtake can be safely completed, and if in those few seconds a vehicle appears it can be aborted.
Also, for this scenario, we have no additional hazard such as vehicle behind that may move up and close the abort gap, or a vehicle in front that may slow considerably for the corner and close the return gap.

Asking because I attempted such an overtake a few minutes ago, and did abort with no issues. Stretch of road I drive twice daily, vehicle ahead was doing 40 (did slow down for 30s though!). When you first get view of the full stretch, you could easily overtake, but two oncoming vehicles meant that the earliest point to overtake was somewhat delayed. Hence this scenario.

So, is this kind of overtake allowable, given that although it's safe, if you have to abort you can look a bit psycho?

[Solocle]

lucido grigio said:

These appear to be the most important part.

Don't overtake approaching a corner, especially as you drive it twice a day and should be familiar with this road.

It has to be said, the corner was a reasonable distance away. How far does a corner have to be away before you overtake?
I tend to judge by whether I can pull off an overtake (and normally, I don't do it unless I feel I can definitely pull it off, but if aan oncoming vehicle is faster than expected, you end up in this region).
For context, this is the stretch, roughly where I pulled offside. Because I drive a Citigo, braking back takes much less time than accelerating through, so that's a factor.

[Solocle]

TurboHatchback said:

I would regard any overtake where you cannot see that the whole distance required will remain clear (not the same as 'is clear now') as dangerous and highly irresponsible. This obviously has to be based on an assumed limit on the speed of cars appearing the other way, if someone is doing 200mph in the other direction you cannot reasonably forsee that but you should always assume that someone will appear travelling at least at the speed limit at the moment you commit and leave plenty of space for this. I have never aborted an overtake and you should never need to if they are correctly judged in the first place.

In this particular case, I probably could have pulled the overtake off, but it would have been too close for comfort (that or the oncoming vehicle slowing down). Needless when I was still pulling out and could just brake and slip back in. Also, if I'd judged that would be the case I wouldn't have pulled out, so minor misjudgement on my part. Nowhere near causing an accident, and I'm definitely intending on keeping this abort zone as an error margin. Just wondering the prevailing opinion. I can count the number of aborts I've done on one hand, and always treat them as learning experiences.

[Solocle]

dvenman said:

A useful way to work out how much space you need is to first of all work out how much time you need to overtake at, say, 60mph.

If it takes 4 seconds, then you need 8 seconds of clear road in which to overtake safely.

Every time you don't take an overtake because of an oncoming vehicle or a hazard which defines the clear distance available, count until the oncoming car passes the car in front, or until the hazard arrives.

That way you'll build up distance/time/speed judgement in a safe way.

The other way to do this safely is on a dual carriageway - "overtake" a vehicle in front and use a vehicle on the opposing carriageway as the oncomer.

I generally judge it fairly well now, and as mentioned, the aborts get considered. I was pushing my luck slightly today - an oncoming vehicle appeared as soon as I pulled out, so, knowing I was pushing the boundaries slightly, I wasn't going to follow through. It wouldn't have caused a collision ( the oncoming vehicle would have had to be psychotic), but the on-comer may have had to brake. Just wasn't worth it, and reinforces my previous policy of "don't overtake on that stretch unless you an see that it's clear as soon as you enter the zone of visibility (a sweeping bend just before the straight)". Then, when on unfamiliar roads, I'm less familiar, so I can observe potential hazards and compare to my experience with the local straights. E.g. there's a stretch that's well sighted (but I've never overtaken on) that I had considered earlier, but decided against. There was an oncomer, but the other hazard that was prohibitive was a vehicle on an offside farm entrance preparing to turn left.

Unfortunately, the dual carriageway approach is unlikely to work for me. The speed of the overtakee is a huge factor in my car, and it's rare to encounter a 40 dawdler (it does happen, but very rare). I'm normally anticipating coming up behind slow cars well in advance, so I don't tend to be speed matching them. I will see what I can get from doing so, but I doubt I'll get that much information. Incidents like today's are somewhat embarrassing, as I'm very aware of looking like a royal twunt. Furthermore, I didn't have my trademark overtaking manoeuvrer available, which is accelerating towards the overtakee before the straight. I'd already begun doing that and had to brake because of the oncoming vehicles. So when I could see that the straight was clear, I was in following position, rather than having dropped back an built up some speed already. That speed makes a huge difference with limited acceleration.

[Solocle]

So far: resoundingly don't begin such a manoeuvrer [intentionally].

Looking back at this particular case, a few reasons why it happened:

• Oncoming vehicle happened to appear as soon as the manoeuvrer began
• I didn't have the whole stretch available for overtaking
• I didn't have any speed relative to the overtakee when I began the manoeuvrer

Yep, not ideal manoeuvrer at all. Good experience of what not to do.
Still, pretty happy that, given the above, it was always going to be safe to either abort or complete. It shows that when I do consider the above factors, I should have time to complete the manoeuvrer with a margin of error.
New overtaking checklist:

• Before straight:

* Do I gain a potential advantage? How significant?
* Is it legal?

• Approaching straight:

* Drop back
* Begin building up speed
* Don't get too close to the other vehicle - consider that the relative speed needs to be killed as well as braking distance

• On straight:

* Analyse hazards - oncoming vehicle? Side turnings? Other?
* Pull out or brake

• Unfamiliar road:

* No previous acceleration due to the nature of unfamiliarity - consider
* Extra careful looking for unseen hazards from unfamiliar road layout

• If an overtake is not immediately possible:

* Consider the distance remaining
* Consider the lack of relative velocity
Fortunately, most of that is common sense.

[Solocle]

Rick101 said:

It's a difficult one.

Personally, I'd add a supercharger.

I tend to err on the side of caution. Patience and the opportunity will arise.

Alas, most of the overtakes I've done are on my daily school runs (well, former school runs). 2 straights where I can overtake (unless it's a tractor). Shaves a few minutes off my travel time if it's 60 vs 40, but mostly I overtake because a well executed overtake in a little car is a good feeling. There's also some lights later on, so it's a bit of a lottery of whether the advantage is amplified or mitigated. I'm certainly fairly risk adverse though.

Edited by Solocle on Friday 30th June 17:40

[Solocle]

Green1man said:

In 30 years of driving I've only been caught out like this twice when as you say someone appears at just the wrong moment and you realise you've misjudged slightly. What I have done somewhat more often though is abort the overtake in the acceleration phase before pulling alongside the car in front. Obviously the OP scenario is something to avoid as it will tend to spook the car you are overtaking and you can't really guarantee what action they might take (swerve, brake etc).

Yes, a fair few times I've aborted the acceleration phase, it's really insignificant unless you're doing that phase wrong. Needless to say, I'm going to be making the most mistakes like this early on, as when I do make a mistake I learn from it (I sincerely hope so, anyway!). This sort of mistake is really just a matter of getting a feel for the cars abilities. So, in the future when I have a more capable car, I'm probably going to be overtaking like I have 60 bhp!

[Solocle]

if you overtake considering the oncoming vehicle doing the limit, then you can abort safely if they're a bit over. Of course, it's not unreasonable to expect a speeder to slow down - while it's in the highway code not to make others brake, so is not speeding. Not that I'm against speeding, but if you do speed you need to be aware of it and prepared for people to make judgements based on the limit (of course, if they can see you, they have no excuse to pull out right infront of you).

[Solocle]

vonhosen said:

1) Of course it's not impossible to judge speed/distance well, it's a skill you can acquire. The danger is the time you are doing the activity whilst trying to acquire the skill.

2) To a degree BRAKE are correct that often there isn't much to be gained from overtaking time wise, if you are going to maintain a speed within speed limits throughout the overtake & the rest of your journey that is.

3) Are people who say they are good at overtaking actually good at overtaking? It rather depends on how you are measuring good. I've certainly sat beside a lot of people who'd claim to be good at (driving) overtaking but by my measurements I wouldn't consider them so & no doubt there must be people who have sat beside me who think the same about me.

BRAKE overlook the number of people who potter at 40 everywhere. Overtakers like us provide a valuable community service by slowing them down to the limit in 30 zones

[Solocle]

nonsequitur said:

MrMickS said:

This is BRAKE's advice on overtaking:

[quote]
Overtaking on single carriageway roads is one of the most dangerous manoeuvres drivers can perform – and is usually unnecessary. Overtaking is dangerous because is impossible to accurately judge the speed and distance of approaching traffic. This lack of judgement can easily be fatal when travelling at speed on the wrong side of the road. If two vehicles headed towards each other are both travelling at 60mph the gap between decreases by about 60 metres every second.

It is therefore incredibly dangerous to overtake on rural roads, where there will rarely be enough straight, visible road ahead to be certain that nothing is coming in the opposite direction. It is also simply not worth it: if you are travelling at 55mph, and you overtake someone doing 50mph, and you have ten miles left of your journey, you’ll only arrive one minute faster than if you’d stayed behind the slower vehicle. However, in reality you wouldn’t even save this much time, as you would still need to slow down for bends, junctions, other traffic, and if entering lower speed limits.

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.

Good advice from BRAKE, Which I invariably follow apart from, as they advise, passing very slow moving vehicles. Let's all (S)dab

I think BRAKE must live in London and imagine the countryside as this:

[Solocle]

IcedKiwi said:

nonsequitur said:

Orkney?

Too many trees!

Dorset, and one Wiltshire. So other corner of the country!