Russ77
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The key is "if it's safe to do so", there's no one size fits all where driving's concerned, think some people make it a little black & white......
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Motorway middle-lane hoggers to face on-the-spot fines
- Thread starter Ricardodaforce
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The key is "if it's safe to do so", there's no one size fits all where driving's concerned, think some people make it a little black & white......
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I'm amazed that so many people seem to have a problem with an initiative designed to deter poor driving. 10 pages and it's still being argued. I just don't get it.
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Its people who are guilty of the poor driving trying to justify to ridiculously tenous lengths why, in their circumstance, they shouldnt be classed as middle lane hoggers.
Whilst they've got 20 irate motorists stuck behind them waving their fist probably.
First person who gets done under this should come back and own up on here. That'd be interesting.
And Im by no means the perfect specimen of driving. Ive had more rear shunts than dale winton.
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SpikeK6
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Could it be its all the bad drivers that cannot see the benefit or that it is not just black and white and trying to justify their actions of bad driving and bad lane management :shrug::shrug:
I remember many years ago when top gear used to be about cars
they did a survey Chris quinten i think it was on why people drove in the middle lane and some of the excuses was amazingWell if I get a front wheel blow out It has to be safer
do not like driving next to the grass
saves wear on the tyres keep changing lanes
any many more poor and silly excuses:bang::bang:
Uneducated_Rick
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People don't have a problem with the concept - only with how it will be enforced.
There are too many scenarios where things are open to interpretation rather than definitive thresholds
ZoneV
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Ricky, sure, there'll be borderline cases but these can be argued in court if it comes to that.
My feeling is, though, that these will be a small minory and the vast majority of those caught and fined will be cut & dried cases of bad driving that even the most deluded drivers will struggle to defend when shown the video footage at the roadside.
I think it's a very good thing and I can't see any downsides.
My feeling is, though, that these will be a small minory and the vast majority of those caught and fined will be cut & dried cases of bad driving that even the most deluded drivers will struggle to defend when shown the video footage at the roadside.
I think it's a very good thing and I can't see any downsides.
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joescrivens
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Actually if you read the posts it's not 10 pages of people saying the idea is a bad one. It's discussions on driving in general and enforcing the law that's built up all the pages.
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Unless you are driving a panel van or a lorry there aren't any blind spots big enough to hide a car, you don't rely on just the mirrors you look over your shoulder too before moving over.
If you needed to move over to exit a motorway, you'd obviously been hogging the middle lane otherwise you'd have already been in the previously empty inside lane.
mortimerhill
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Unless you are driving a panel van or a lorry there aren't any blind spots big enough to hide a car, you don't rely on just the mirrors you look over your shoulder too before moving over.
If you needed to move over to exit a motorway, you'd obviously been hogging the middle lane otherwise you'd have already been in the previously empty inside lane.
Not true: the motorway could have changed from 2anes to 3 lanes
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No, they are both fixed penalties. There's no such thing as an "on the spot fine" in the UK, the media uses it to sensationalise.
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What has that to do with what Gremlin wrote?
zeugma
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Quite so. When they started handing out on the spot fines in France for road offences however, a cartoon appeared with a gendarme riding his motorcycle, in the attached sidecar was a three judge mobile bench.
I doubt it was ever digitised as Google can't find it.
Pity, it was most amusing.
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Not if you are trying to overtake the lane hogger in front of you but can't because of the traffic in the o/s lane, so are you saying people should just move to the inside lane and sit there at the same speed as the lane hogger :shrug:
Unless you are driving a panel van or a lorry there aren't any blind spots big enough to hide a car, you don't rely on just the mirrors you look over your shoulder too before moving over.
If you needed to move over to exit a motorway, you'd obviously been hogging the middle lane otherwise you'd have already been in the previously empty inside lane.
There are blind spots on every car but if you have an eye on what is going on around you, then you should know where other cars are but you can't allow for all the idiots on the road, and I would refer you to your post 252 here about the danger of taking your eyes off the road for too long :shrug:
As above and also if you were moving in from the outer lanes to get to the inside lane
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Well, technically there is for foreign vehicles/drivers where it's an on the spot fine or vehicle seizure
.mortimerhill
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Everything
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No legally operated,UK registered lorry ,over 3.5 MGW, should be able to do more than 56 mph.
However, if one is loaded to 44 tonne and is going down Shap fell on the M6, they can quicken up quite well..............
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Sorry I forgot about the blind spot above the roof or below window line.
It takes a small fraction of a second to look over your shoulder to negate the blind spot the mirrors can't show, rather scanning 3 mirrors to detect a car travelling directly behind the car following you which is what I was referring to.
I tried this for myself today, driving around a bend on a perfectly straight road I lost sight of the car following the car behind me. So on a longer straight road with the last car travelling at 120mph, it could easily be unsighted.
You can allow for all the idiots on the road, it's not a case of expect the unexpected, but expect the impossible.
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So if a line of half a dozen lorries are passing, chances are you'll be at the end of the slip road before they have passed or you have had to slow to such a slow speed, your going to have to sit and wait for a huge gap before you can attempt to join from a stand still or crawl.
Moving over to free the inside lane for such a short period, seldom inconveniences anyone else and it maintains traffic flow more easily.
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Nothing.
ZoneV
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No legally operated,UK registered lorry ,over 3.5 MGW, should be able to do more than 56 mph.
However, if one is loaded to 44 tonne and is going down Shap fell on the M6, they can quicken up quite well..............
On the M25 on Wednesday I was overtaking traffic in the 3rd of 4 lane section at 65mph according to my speedo, seeing a lorry ahead of the traffic in lane 2, I and no cars behind me in 3 or 4 I decided it would be ok to stay in 3 until I passed the lorry, it didn't take long to realise I wasn't even catching him up, so moved back into 2 (still overtaking slower traffic in 1) I only started to catch him and finally get passed him when we hit a small incline and he obviously could no longer maintain that speed.
On the topic of lorry maximum speeds, why do supermarket lorries travel below the 56mph limit, a lot of these are the cause of the slow overtake from other lorries which cause congestion.
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Dave *
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Not always, just yesterday Mr Eddie flipping Stobart's Tesco lorry decided to overtake another artic on the 2 lane section of the A1(M) outside Newcastle. He was doing 56.5 mph while the other lorry was doing 56mph and they trundled along for well over 2 miles like that while the traffic backed up behind.
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Sorry I forgot about the blind spot above the roof or below window line.
It takes a small fraction of a second to look over your shoulder to negate the blind spot the mirrors can't show, rather scanning 3 mirrors to detect a car travelling directly behind the car following you which is what I was referring to.
I tried this for myself today, driving around a bend on a perfectly straight road I lost sight of the car following the car behind me. So on a longer straight road with the last car travelling at 120mph, it could easily be unsighted.
No idea what type of car you drive but sadly mine does have a couple of blind spots and some are worse I've driven a fair few different ones
So what you are saying is that I should be hitting an awful lot of of cars, I was taught to check mirrors frequently so know what is behind and beside me, seems my instructor was wrong, but on a 5 lane motorway it's what I do
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Your instructor should have also told you to look over your shoulder to be able to see the cars your mirrors can't show you.
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Perceived fuel efficiency and promoting themselves as green.
Utter hogwash in reality.
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Well, technically there is for foreign vehicles/drivers where it's an on the spot fine or vehicle seizure
Yes, true!
boliston
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People can still "weave" between lanes if other people are following the 2 second rule.
2 seconds at 70mph is about 200 feet or over 60 metres or about 14 car lengths, easily enough distance to allow a dangerous or impatient driver to swerve from lane to lane in order to try and outpace the average flow of a busy motorway.
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No they can't, not legally.
boliston
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It might not be legal but I have often seen it done.
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Ok, but what are you trying to say here?
u8myufo
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No legally operated,UK registered lorry ,over 3.5 MGW, should be able to do more than 56 mph.
However, if one is loaded to 44 tonne and is going down Shap fell on the M6, they can quicken up quite well..............
I know that Ade as well as you but you will be surprised how many can do 65-70mph with ease. At the end of the day all this about middle lane driving should just be down to common sense. If you have overtaken something and are in the middle lane, then it is fine imo to stay there if there is another vehicle say 60 or so metres away on the inside lane and you are traveling at a speed fast enough to overtake it in a relatively short amount of time. If however the next vehicle you see in the inside lane is about 200 metres away then pulling back in to the inside lane should be the thing to do. The problem is with peoples attitudes on the roads, they all think they have a right to do the things they do, they all think they have a more important reason than anybody else to be in front of the next vehicle. Personally I would like to see busy motorway junctions monitored and on the spot fines for any driver who thinks it is a good idea to use the two outside lanes until the very last moment, and then cut in across other vehicles in order to get off at that junction.
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Agree completely, just reading this thread I realise that everybody thinks they are right when it comes to how they drive.Everybody is right,everybody is wrong, but someone must be right when somebody else is wrong.I know that Ade as well as you but you will be surprised how many can do 65-70mph with ease. At the end of the day all this about middle lane driving should just be down to common sense. If you have overtaken something and are in the middle lane, then it is fine imo to stay there if there is another vehicle say 60 or so metres away on the inside lane and you are traveling at a speed fast enough to overtake it in a relatively short amount of time. If however the next vehicle you see in the inside lane is about 200 metres away then pulling back in to the inside lane should be the thing to do. The problem is with peoples attitudes on the roads, they all think they have a right to do the things they do, they all think they have a more important reason than anybody else to be in front of the next vehicle. Personally I would like to see busy motorway junctions monitored and on the spot fines for any driver who thinks it is a good idea to use the two outside lanes until the very last moment, and then cut in across other vehicles in order to get off at that junction.
u8myufo
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Ain`t that about right or are you wrong
I know I posted that government information video up as a little bit of humour, but I think if they were introduced again they might go a long way to teach people how to drive a bit better. The problem is when someone does something stupid on the motorway or anywhere come to think of it, they do not see nor do they realise the knock on effect it has behind them.
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Personally I would like to see busy motorway junctions monitored and on the spot fines for any driver who thinks it is a good idea to use the two outside lanes until the very last moment, and then cut in across other vehicles in order to get off at that junction.
I can see why that happens sometimes, on the M25 near me, there is a 4 lane section where over a mile of the inside lane becomes an exit slip road. Chances are there will be a few lorries on that slip road, the motorway has a slight incline and lorries will be traveling at different speeds due to load, it's not unusual for there to be 3 lanes of lorries, interspersed with cars and it's not inconceivable for someone to get stuck in the outside lane a lot further than one mile away from the junction trying to get back across to the slip road. I use that road 5 days a week, it doesn't happen every day but I've seen that concentration of traffic often enough to know what to expect, someone using it seldom or for the first time will have no idea of what to expect.
joescrivens
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Personally I would like to see busy motorway junctions monitored and on the spot fines for any driver who thinks it is a good idea to use the two outside lanes until the very last moment, and then cut in across other vehicles in order to get off at that junction.
I don't see anything wrong with this unless the cutting across endagers other road users.
If however it is just someone using their common sense to get ahead of a hge queue then it's just time saving and fair play to someone who does it.
Whilst it's annoying when someone does it in front of you, unless they drove dangerously then it's only annoying because you waited and they didn't.
I'll do this on junctions that I know theres a huge queue but there will be plenty of space right at the end of the slip road.
Same with roundabouts. If I want to turn left but there is a massive queue and the right hand lane is free then I'll go up the right hand lane and go around the roundabout and cut in left before all the other cars. Nothing dangerous about it - it's just common sense to me to save time on my journey
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Personally I would like to see busy motorway junctions monitored and on the spot fines for any driver who thinks it is a good idea to use the two outside lanes until the very last moment, and then cut in across other vehicles in order to get off at that junction.
They are actually driving in accordance with the Highway Code, you are supposed to use all lanes and the merge in turn.
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I don't see anything wrong with that either. You're not really cutting in, you're just using a roundabout as intended.
I do it all the time when I am in an unfamiliar place - it's called being lost! Your method is no different than going past your exit and having to go round again.
Steve.
joescrivens
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exactly except i am doing it to purely save time. Theres a roundabout near me that I've probably saved myself 10 minutes once a week for 10 years. That works out at 86 hours of time I have had to do more useful things than wait in the left hand lane
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That usually happens when some idiot is in the left hand lane wanting the 3rd exit and forces you round. Something similar happened to a workmate except he got T-boned and resulted in his car being written off.
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