Cracking down on middle lane hoggers...

[Simon B]

will the OB be given the powers to fine themselves on the spot when they drive like idiots?

Sadly that's even less likely than anything bar token enforcement of this or mobile phone use.

I have a feeling you might also be in the lots of miles (30k-40k pa) clocked up all around the place principally for work bracket? It tends to lead to questions like yours. "Paragons of virtue" is just one phrase that frequently couldn't be used. Some of them seem to have been on a special "Advanced WTF Manoeuvres" course.

[teamsaint]

Agreed, vinrouge... I think we are only talking about situations where it makes no sense to stay in the central lane i.e. "hogging" ... as opposed to being there because it either arguably or clearly makes sense given the other traffic conditions.

Vinman, surely?

business looking up, anyway, Cal !! every cloud etc.....

[teamsaint]

Sadly that's even less likely than anything bar token enforcement of this or mobile phone use.

I have a feeling you might also be in the lots of miles (30k-40k pa) clocked up all around the place principally for work bracket? It tends to lead to questions like yours. "Paragons of virtue" is just one phrase that frequently couldn't be used. Some of them seem to have been on a special "Advanced WTF Manoeuvres" course.

I do drive about 40k a year.
Most of the idiotic police driving I see is round town, driving very fast in a way that i suspect is unlikely to stop anything nasty happening, and is likely to cause the same thing.
I also wonder how they manage to nick so few people for mobile phone use while driving. I reckon I see half a dozen at least every day, usually a lot more. They have cameras and things.

The propensity for the OB to sit in quiet locations apparently doing naff all is startling.

[Sir Velo]

Some folks seem to have gotten a tiny bit muddled as to when "undertaking" on a motorway is acceptable. Highway Code Para 268: "In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right."

Perhaps wider dissemination of this rule would stop the absurd situation whereby some motorists timidly stay just behind a car immediately to their right for fear of being seen to undertake, when there is a full gaping lane ahead of them.

[Bryn]

Hmm.

Some folks seem to have gotten a tiny bit muddled as to when "undertaking" on a motorway is acceptable. Highway Code Para 268: "In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right." [My change of emphasis]

[Beef Oven]

Some folks seem to have gotten a tiny bit muddled as to when "undertaking" on a motorway is acceptable. Highway Code Para 268: "In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right."

Perhaps wider dissemination of this rule would stop the absurd situation whereby some motorists timidly stay just behind a car immediately to their right for fear of being seen to undertake, when there is a full gaping lane ahead of them.

When I took my driving test circa 1978, I was asked this question at the end 'in which circumstances can you overtake on the inside?'.

I said something like 'when the traffic in the inner lane is moving faster than the other lanes'. This was the prepped answer, and I passed the test.

I have followed this principle in the last 35 years of driving, especially lately on motorways, as I was not aware of any changes or updates to it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Probably shouldn't be on motorways in the first place.

You may be missing the point. The media circus goes on and on about the lot of the motorist, but forget entirely that these metal monsters regard the bits of readway constructed for the use of pedestrians are now taken over as car parks, high-speed cycle tracks and speedways for grannymobiles. Many motorists think they have the perfect right to do this, as most pedestrians are too polite to climb over the metal obstructions. And the pavement-hogging cyclists equip themselves with helmets and other safety features in order to protect THEMSELVES, but don't care a jot for those they are intimidating.
If motorists can park on pavements, pedestrians should be able to wander on motorways (in the middle lane).

[Sir Velo]

When I took my driving test circa 1978, I was asked this question at the end 'in which circumstances can you overtake on the inside?'.

I said something like 'when the traffic in the inner lane is moving faster than the other lanes'. This was the prepped answer, and I passed the test.

I have followed this principle in the last 35 years of driving, especially lately on motorways, as I was not aware of any changes or updates to it.

[Sir Velo]

You may be missing the point.

No, I understood the point you were making. I just couldn't resist a little leg pull, in light of the way you phrased your point.

The media circus goes on and on about the lot of the motorist, but forget entirely that these metal monsters regard the bits of readway (sic) constructed for the use of pedestrians are now taken over as car parks, high-speed cycle tracks and speedways for grannymobiles. Many motorists think they have the perfect right to to (sic) protect THEMSELVES, but don't care a jot for those they are intimidating.

I don't disagree with the point you are making. Enforcement of the law, as ever, is the key.

If motorists can park on pavements, pedestrians should be able to wander on motorways (in the middle lane).

Well, the Highway Code advises that motorists should not park on pavements. However, it is not mandatory (except in London). The HC, however, makes it clear that pedestrians are not allowed on the motorway, along with cyclists, mopeds, learner motorists and equestrians. If you want to wander on the motorway that is your affair, but I'm afraid the law will not protect you in the probable instance of your being involved in an unpleasant looking accident.

[Sydney Grew]

There was a time when I drove fearlessly the length and breadth of Britain; and the only manœuvre of which I was not master was coming down the eastern side of Trafalgar Square, where everything turns Parisian for a few hundred yards. Then Thatcher drove me out of the country; and after a long absence I returned quite recently. Things had changed on the roads of England in a number of ways.

1) Every one now drives much faster than they used to - more like Germans.

2) The roads are very much busier; every little C road now has in both directions its lively stream, whereas before Thatcher such roads were mostly quiet.

3) On the above-mentioned minor and narrow roads - for instance around Silchester - motor-cars coming from the opposite direction now speed past with a clearance of less than a foot; most disconcerting. The drivers are not hooligans, but seemingly ordinary citizens of the Mr. Bucket mould. Again something quite startling to some one accustomed to the more courteous habits of former times.

4) But the very worst thing is the new way of behaving on roundabouts. Just south of Reading there is a very large and busy roundabout. I think this is the one:



Now the first disconcerting thing is that it has lane markings which don't go round and round. Instead the lanes veer off to the left in places. I have never seen such markings on a roundabout before and I was at a loss as to what to do. I approached from the little road in the background of the photograph, which now has red paving (or my entrance may have been slightly to the left in the photograph). In the afternoons there was a continuous stream of very fast-moving traffic coming round this roundabout, travelling past the place where I wanted to join, and veering off down those curiously marked lanes. That is to say, this massive stream came from the left of my photograph, and went off down to the right of my photograph. The curiously marked lanes are clearly visible and they do not follow the roundabout at all. And there were essentially no breaks in this traffic! So . . . it was my intention to join the enormous roundabout and then continue around it towards the northern exit. (Which would take me into the foreground of the photograph, and thus around to the left side of the foreground of the photograph.) But I did not dare to cross the lanes where the fast-moving stream was travelling. (As will be seen there are about four lanes in parallel all veering off to the left, and I had a hired Fiat made of tin or plastic.) As I used to understand roundabouts, once I had got onto the left lane, I had the right to continue around the circle, and any one who wished to turn off should first have waited for me and then turned off behind me. But this was not happening at all, and there was not even a left lane to follow around! I tried this terrifying roundabout a couple of times and "chickening out" each time was forced to go with with the monstrous stream. Eventually I found a different way to gain central Reading. If I remember rightly there were a few sets of traffic lights positioned here and there around this giant roundabout - just to complicate matters further - but they did nothing to stop the dense stream of traffic cutting across my intended path. They just encouraged one stream or other to accelerate faster away from the lights towards me. Is any one familiar with this British death-trap? And . . . what would have happened had I ventured to cross those deadly streams? Has the rule relating to roundabouts been changed?

[Bryn]

I have used the Basingstoke Road roundabout on many occasions, and never found it a problem. I think SG should try heading west from Reading to the 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon:

[Nick Armstrong]

I have used the Basingstoke Road roundabout on many occasions, and never found it a problem. I think SG should try heading west from Reading to the 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon:

Jesus wept. (He would have done if he'd tried to drive the disciples' mini-bus round that). Incredible.

[kernelbogey]

... .Situation C : quite a lot of cars moving relatively slowly in the left hand lane ("I would say at 67 mph, officer... "), with relatively large gaps between - but only so large that once one has overtaken one car and reverted to the left hand lane one fairly soon has to overtake the next, and so on. If there is little traffic in the middle lane ( looking in the mirror helps... ) it seems to me that endless weaving in and out from the left hand to the middle lane and back again may be ostentatiously virtuous but not really sensible....

I think this is an important point and VT's habit is also mine. However it seems that younger, i.e. more recently taught, drivers than I are meticulous (often self righteously so) about 'weaving in and out from the middle lane and back again'. It has always seemed to me that relatively slowly-conducted manoeuvres are safer in fast traffic than sudden moves.

There is a parallel with the use of indicators on motorways when changing lanes - often absent, or cursory and after the move has begun. I was taught to indicate before beginning a manoeuvre, a courtesy that is extended to others by relatively few drivers now.

It also seems to me that if drivers have been taught to think far ahead and anticipate a changing situation on the road, very few of them exhibit that learning, which was central to my intstruction as a driver.

[Bryn]

kernelbogey, I am reminded of a comment from my PCV driving instructor of many moons back. For drivers, MSM stands for Mirror, Signal, Maneuver. For the steering wheel jockey it's Maneuver, Signal, look in the Mirror to check the havoc caused, though the Mirror check is purely optional, as it the Signal really.

[kernelbogey]

... MSM stands for Mirror, Signal, Maneuver....

[oh, perhaps not...]