careless motorists

[scotty73]

Are we?

http://www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarks ... -2013-8-16

Read it all... Go on.

[Sonia406]

After being on the M3, M25 & M4 last night for the best part of 3 hours (if not more) you don't need to tell us about middle lane hoggers, what also gets my wound up is no indication, oh and the jerk in a Fiat Panda who swerved into the middle lane (in front of us) whilst driving on a motorway, on the phone - hand up to his ear.

And clearly THAT jerk doesn't know the REAL Peugeot drivers.........

[DaiRees]

OK, I'll wade in....

I usually travel on Motorways at around the speed limit, allowing for inaccuracies this means that the cruise is usually set to around 73.
If the left hand lane is clear I'm there.
When I approach a single slower moving vehicle I pass it and pull back in.
If the road is busy I usually stay in the middle lane.

During busy times, the inside lane is often full of lorries, the middle lane is often full of people driving right around the speed limit, and the outside lane is full of people going faster. There's a 50-60 lane, a 70ish lane and an 80+ lane. And that system works fine, everyone trundles along in a train and progress is good, if you want to change lanes, match the appropriate speed!

Even if there's a 1/4 mile gap in the lane 1 trucks I'm not going in there, firstly it's a waste of time because you'll be needing to pull back out in 20 seconds, 2nd, the car that was behind you will then be alongside and matching your speed so you're gonna get run up the back of the truck and will have to slow down, 3rd now that you've slowed down it's more difficult and dangerous to pull back out, the middle lane are all driving too close so there's no gaps and of course no one will let you out because that'll involve someone having to slow down or change lanes, which again upsets the status quo. So by the time you get back out you've braked and accelerated, it's cost you time and extra fuel and may have had a detrimental effect on your goal of a stress free journey It's much, much better for everyone to maintain a constant speed, and if that means staying in the middle that's fine.

The problems come when lorry 1 decides to pass lorry 2 at 1 mph relative speed, then lane 2 is reduced from 70 to 55, and they have to pull into half a gap in lane 3 while trying to accelerate as hard as possible but the 95 mph Audi cock still has to brake, then the repmobile knobhead who's texting doesn't notice and ends up slamming the brakes on nearly causing a pileup and everyone gets aggressive, the status quo is ruined!

The only solution is more lanes on our motorways

I've always said that if you ever have to use your brakes on a motorway then someone, somewhere is driving like a knob

IMO this "crackdown" is once again bollocks.

Oh and I know what he means about the Pug drivers, we've all experienced the odd old codger in a Pug, but all marques have some preconceptions, just look at Volvo

[scotty73]

but all marques have some preconceptions[/size]

That seemed to be the case with lorry drivers with me on Wednesday i happily sat in lane 2 on the M1 for 42 miles only ever moving into lane 3 when being forced out by truckies with no indicators or my right leg was numb with boredom... Never once needed lane 1.

My dads said it for years you have to be constantly thinking for other drivers and be two steps in front of them... This is indeed true.

[Doggy]

Real dilema here. I agree pretty much 100% with Dai, (which is irritatingly close to agreeing with the Doncaster Dipstick, something I'm not generally well disposed to).

I think we should try to use lane 1 when practical, but understand it's pretty much impossible when the road's busy.

I try to never hold anyone up, but make it bearable by engaging warp drive whenever there would otherwise be two of us competing for the same bit of tarmac.

For me, the secret of stress free m-way driving is in maintaining concentration, thinking even further ahead, and being courteous as far as possible. It's infinitely less frustrating to invite impatient trucker into lane 2, that to work yourself up trying to get past the him.

[waue1978]

The problems come when lorry 1 decides to pass lorry 2 at 1 mph relative speed, then lane 2 is reduced from 70 to 55, and they have to pull into half a gap in lane 3 while trying to accelerate as hard as possible but the 95 mph Audi cock still has to brake, then the repmobile knobhead who's texting doesn't notice and ends up slamming the brakes on nearly causing a pileup and everyone gets aggressive, the status quo is ruined!

The only solution is more lanes on our motorways

I disagree - the solution is educate the truck drivers into learning how to switch off the cruise control!

Speaking as someone with the licenses, experience & now having to manage them, there really is very little point in trucks overtaking each other unless:

a) you are limited to 56mph & you come up behind one that's limited to 52 (& even then they should remember that on dual carriageways they shouldn't really be doing more than 50 by law)

b) you are travelling up a hill significantly faster than the truck in front

Whenever I take one out I will very rarely overtake another truck. Most of the time if I'm closing up behind one, all I ever need to do is back off 1 or 2mph to let the other one pull forward a bit & the status quo is maintained without causing an embarrassing 1/2 mile tailback because once you've hit the crest of the hill & the overtake-ee has hit 56, you just end up side by side with neither truck getting past.
On the very rare occasion that I do overtake I make damn sure there isn't anything rapidly approaching from behind (or even within sight most of the time). Unfortunately most truck drivers are of the attitude that they are pulling out regardless & everything behind them can just slam on the anchors.

Rant over about the truckers now, I also agree with Dai over the Audi cock who sees somebody pull out half a mile in front, but rather than slow from 100 to 70 gradually, they race up behind in an attempt to scare you into moving over because you've dared to slow them down on the way to a critical appointment with an extremely important person that might want to buy a box of their paperclips!