Cracking down on middle lane hoggers...

[Nick Armstrong]

There's one thing to like about Ferney - when expressing his opinions he's never backward in coming forward.

Oh come, come - there are many things to like about Ferney!

[eighthobstruction]

I drive a big Merc Sprinter van....I just love occupying the outside lane in grid lock motorway traffic jam situations , so stopping all those people who continually zoom up late and jump to front of queue (and make the jam worse and more lengthy)....I know it's not exactly Highway Code But.....

[Don Petter]

What were the other seven?

[eighthobstruction]

What were the other seven?

....it's a mistake actually, it should be seven....the first five are from Lars Von Triers film 'The Five Obstructions' (which I absolutely rec', to be watched when you have time to give it all your attention)....the sixth is Dyslexia....and the seventh is being just too damn sexy....

....and I suppose the eighth could indeed be blocking motorways....

[Resurrection Man]

.....

How often do we see that? Perhaps if we saw it more often, there would be fewer motorway pile ups.

You are absolutely correct. Distance travelled before coming to a stop depends on, road and weather conditions aside, reaction time and the time to actually come to a stop. Since motorways usually have a long line of cars all travelling at roughly the same speed for a lot of the time, that reaction time gradually gets eroded the further back you go in the queue when the guy at the front brakes.

I always try and drive a reasonable distance from the vehicle in front although all too often you find someone overtaking you and then slipping into your 'braking zone' and so like Ferney you end up going backwards. Mind you, I am somewhat comforted knowing that in my vehicle the crumple zones are other cars

[Resurrection Man]

The problem with chevrons is that their spacing doesn't vary with your speed. However, they do still encourage drivers to think.

Unlike the idiot whose letter was published in the Telegraph this morning extolling the virtue of driving at 70 mph in the middle lane in convoy with everyone else.....eyes glued to the front, brain in neutral........

[alycidon]

I've not read all the posts, so I hope that I'm not repeating anything, but my main concern is that there will be a lot of ducking in and out of the inside lane - which could lead to accidents. If I've just overtaken a slower vehicle, and can see that there is another one a couple of hundred yards ahead, I would tend to stay in the middle lane until I have passed him also. I have always thought that that is preferable to ducking in and out, but with the new law - I'm not so sure about this one.

On the subject of separation distances, I find that I am not able to visualise those given in the Highway Code, and I don't use the two second rule either. I have been driving for well over fifty years, some of that as a bus and coach driver, and I always rely on my innate judgment as to what constitutes a safe distance - and that is usually a long way behind the vehicle in front. Suffice to say, I have never collided with the rear of any other vehicle, in fact, I have never had an accident that could be ascribed to me.

'Pride cometh before a fall!'

[eighthobstruction]

I've not read all the posts, so I hope that I'm not repeating anything, but my main concern is that there will be a lot of ducking in and out of the inside lane - which could lead to accidents. If I've just overtaken a slower vehicle, and can see that there is another one a couple of hundred yards ahead, I would tend to stay in the middle lane until I have passed him also. I have always thought that that is preferable to ducking in and out, but with the new law - I'm not so sure about this one.

On the subject of separation distances, I find that I am not able to visualise those given in the Highway Code, and I don't use the two second rule either. I have been driving for well over fifty years, some of that as a bus and coach driver, and I always rely on my innate judgment as to what constitutes a safe distance - and that is usually a long way behind the vehicle in front. Suffice to say, I have never collided with the rear of any other vehicle, in fact, I have never had an accident that could be ascribed to me.

'Pride cometh before a fall!'

....I'm with you Alycidon....of course you should stay out in those circumstances, esp if you are doing 70mph, and it's going to take less than 30 secs to pass that next car....Me, one back ender, on slippery road after long dry period and then rain....I'm sure he indicated very late too....but I should have been further back + more attention....

[Quarky]

I've not read all the posts, so I hope that I'm not repeating anything, but my main concern is that there will be a lot of ducking in and out of the inside lane - which could lead to accidents. If I've just overtaken a slower vehicle, and can see that there is another one a couple of hundred yards ahead, I would tend to stay in the middle lane until I have passed him also. I have always thought that that is preferable to ducking in and out, but with the new law - I'm not so sure about this one.

'Pride cometh before a fall!'

Agree with the saying - but I think the example given needs a little analysis.

Firstly, I think very slow drivers can be a menace, because they often do the unexpected, and anticipating what they are or are not going to do, can lead to an accident situation, and the slow driver will not be at fault - his reaction times were just ten times as long as normal. So I try to steer well clear if possible.

But say the slow vehicle is a well driven lorry, or perhaps a convoy of widely spaced lorries. What is the risk of staying in the middle lane? If there is not much traffic in the middle lane, then unless one has a habit of losing concentration, then staying in the middle lane seems ok. Ducking in and out will have the advantage however that it keeps the driver on his toes.

One danger to my mind of ducking in and out where there are other vehicles in the middle lane, is that frequently someone in the middle lane moving slightly faster (a middle lane hogger?) will come up alongside, and cut down the options for moving out again. Braking might be necessary to get behind the middle lane hogger, and then move out.

Ducking in and out - if everyone does it - obviously increase vehicle manoeuvres, and makes it therefore more difficult for drivers to keep track of everything going on. It should however open the lanes more to vehicles moving at different speeds.

Staying in the middle lane, at the opposite extreme, certainly reduces the amount of information drivers have to cope with, but blocks significantly the middle lane to faster moving drivers - and can lead to accidents where the faster driver loses his temper.

[alycidon]

....I'm with you Alycidon....of course you should stay out in those circumstances, esp if you are doing 70mph, and it's going to take less than 30 secs to pass that next car....Me, one back ender, on slippery road after long dry period and then rain....I'm sure he indicated very late too....but I should have been further back + more attention....

Thanks, eighth. I'm sure that we all have to be sensible about this - until some over-zealous cop spoils it for somebody. Sorry about your knock, but rain after a long dry period is lethal, so don't do yourself down too much.

[alycidon]

I agree with what you say, oddball, and I will not, under any circumstances obstruct a following vehicle that wishes to pass. It is not for me, or anyone else driving at 70mph, to get in the way of someone who wishes to travel faster - even though that might be breaking the speed limit.

I very rarely find myself in these situations, as, living in the Highlands, the nearest motorway is 114 miles away, and there is very little dual-carriageway in these parts. A few weeks ago, however, we went to Bristol on the M80/M74/M6/M5, and I was agreeably surprised at the relatively small number that I would place in the idiotic category. But the bad ones are really bad - like those who join the M6 and straight into the outside lane irrespective of other traffic. I've had that several times, and consider it monumentally dangerous.

I think that your analysis is a very sensible one. Thank you.

[aeolium]

Ducking in and out - if everyone does it - obviously increase vehicle manoeuvres, and makes it therefore more difficult for drivers to keep track of everything going on. It should however open the lanes more to vehicles moving at different speeds.

Staying in the middle lane, at the opposite extreme, certainly reduces the amount of information drivers have to cope with, but blocks significantly the middle lane to faster moving drivers - and can lead to accidents where the faster driver loses his temper.

Yes, but surely it is the case that the one manoeuvre on the motorway which increases the risk of an accident (leaving aside very bad driving conditions such as fog, heavy rain, blizzard etc) is changing lanes. In that the new law seeks to increase the number of such manoeuvres, is there not a risk that it will also increase the risk of accidents? Of course in the perfect world of sensible, highway-code driving there is no additional risk, but that is not the world of the motorway.

If I can see that there is a slow-moving vehicle in the left-hand lane at some distance and that if I turn into that lane I will shortly have to come back into the middle lane, I may decide that it is better (less risky) not to make the two manoeuvres. Of course that doesn't excuse lane-hogging when there is plenty of room in the left-hand lane but only to suggest that there ought to be some flexibility about the law here.

[Resurrection Man]

.....
If I can see that there is a slow-moving vehicle in the left-hand lane at some distance and that if I turn into that lane I will shortly have to come back into the middle lane, I may decide that it is better (less risky) not to make the two manoeuvres. ....

I agree but it does depend on the presence or absence of other traffic. Also the speed at which they are going relative to oneself, the distance one has to go before either pulling out or braking, whether they will have overtaken you 'just in time' that you can pull out behind them albeit with little braking distance between you and them until they have increased the distance (because they are going faster than you).

It also depends on the available performance of ones car. In a higher performance car it is relatively easy to match speed, accelerate etc when required but in the car I tend to drive most, performance is 'adequate' rather than 'spritely'. So I do tend to find myself assessing the speed of someone approaching in the middle lane and whether or not I think that they will have overtaken me leaving me time to pull out from the inside lane rather than have to brake then pull out with fairly lethargic acceleration. I also take into account whether or not there is anyone in the outside overtaking lane. If there isn't then there is, in theory, no reason why the person coming up behind cannot move out into that lane thus allowing me to pull out safely. Unfortunately there are quite a few people who seem oblivious to others on the motorway and seem to drive - usually in the middle lane - with tunnel vision.

[Simon B]

If I've just overtaken a slower vehicle, and can see that there is another one a couple of hundred yards ahead, I would tend to stay in the middle lane until I have passed him also. I have always thought that that is preferable to ducking in and out, but with the new law - I'm not so sure about this one.

There is something about driving which makes it particularly difficult for a discussion to remain good natured and civilised, most particularly when there is a divergence of opinion. So I explicitly preface this with "any offence is unintentional"!

This lane discipline issue must always, ultimately, be a matter of "common sense", the problem being that no-one can ever agree what that actually is. However, roughly 40,000 miles a year of sufferance of British motorways would always compel me to disagree with the face value of the above.

It obviously depends on the specific numbers which may just be meant in a handy-wavy way, but "staying out" for 200 yards to catch up with a vehicle travelling, e.g. 10mph slower is far too long IMO, but a common practice. Even if proceeding at roughly 70mph, that still uses up 2/3 of the capacity of a 3 lane motorway, and it will take a far-too-long 41 seconds to close that gap.

In practice, the effect is worse due to the nonlinear mechanisms of traffic queuing, now fairly well understood after considerable research and mathematical modelling. All it takes is one vehicle stuck in the middle lane for any length of time to cause a disproportionate reduction in throughput - not to mention an exponentially increased risk of incidents.

This is intimately related to the motivation behind the appearance of the (partially successful) variable speed limit "managed motorway" sections in some of the worst congested areas of the network. The underlying cause there is sheer volume of traffic, but the trigger factor for the concertina collapse to zero-throughput that the variable limits attempt to militate against is again the disproportionate effect that perturbations in the flow (bad lane discipline, junctions, reductions in number of lanes etc) have.

Wisely worded guidance for the reality of current traffic levels would be something like to pull over whenever there is traffic behind that could pass and it will be possible to remain in the lane to the left long enough for them to do so before pulling back out behind them without having to brake to maintain a sensible reaction distance from the vehicle in front. This doesn't result in anything that could be rightly described as "ducking in and out", done properly it's just a smoothly flowing continuum. The opportunity to get in one lane and expect to be able to basically cruise along just doesn't exist any more most of the time - unless you're prepared to reduce the throughput of an entire motorway (which will usually be operating beyond the capacity it was designed for).

However, in terms of the enforcement regime changes under discussion, all of this is so much hot air anyway, since:

1) There is no new law in terms of the rules and guidance which remain the same as they were before - it is merely the legal enforcement process that's changed. The law is a bit impenetrable anyway - see MT(E&W)R regs 5, 9 & 16(1)(a), MT(S)R regs 4, 8 & 14(1)(a), and RTA 1988, sects 35 & 186, as amended by TMA 2004 sect 6!

2) There's next to no chance of much increase in enforcement of the rules as there are no resources to do it - PC plod is almost only ever seen on the motorway supervising the clearup of victims and wreckage or doing mass ANPR tax/insurance/MOT enforcement exercises with the DVLA from behind a computer screen. They're hopeless at enforcing any offence that can't be detected by a machine, so what prospect is there for this?

3) Only the most extreme offenders (i.e. those who really do just sit in the middle lane in an apparent trance for miles at a time) will ever be bothered in 99.9% of whatever cases there are.

[eighthobstruction]

40,000 miles you poor b