Safe Speed Forums

Ahhh Gatsobait you are sooooo right, and here we get to the root of the problem - that wonderfully British 'territorial' disposition espoused by Ben Elton in his "Double Seat" sketch.
Assume the worst of everyone else.
Assume they are all out get ahead of you.
Assume that if you move left on the motorway someone else less considerate than you (coz everyone else is less considerate than us ) will simply move up and take our little bit of England...so defend it with the last stubborn neuron in our silly little British heads.

[quote="Rigpig]... and here we get to the root of the problem - that wonderfully British 'territorial' disposition espoused by Ben Elton in his "Double Seat" sketch. [/quote]

..which leads on to the related issue (and my pet hate) of attitudes of some drivers when traffic merges when a lane is closing.

There are the holier than thous who change lanes at the first suggestion of a closure, and self appointed trafpols who police a lane signed to close by straddling the white lines. I have even seen artics swerving into cars - squeezing them against the central reservation for daring to use a piece of open road.

We all have our opinion of the driver who drives past the line of queues right up to the closure, but good on them IMHO. Coming to a halt in order to attempt to leave a closing lane 1 mile or more from where it eventually closes effectively adds 1/3 of a mile to the queue on a three lane road going to two lanes.

I have noticed driving through France, Italy and Germany that they tend to give perhaps 5k's warning of impending roadworks and then only a few hundred meters of signage rather than our 1mile/800/600yds etc. before the lane actually closes to prevent the well intentioned (or holier than thous) attempting to change lanes too early.

And then of course there is the strict enforcement of 'merge-in-turn' which encourages the use of all the road and maintains traffic flow, but relies on courtesy and the exact opposite of the British territorial attitude so eloquently described by Mr Elton.

As an experiment, when a section of the M74 south of Glasgow was being resurfaced, merge-in-turn was implemented on the northbound approach to the lane closures while southbound was left as the usual free-for-all. It was obvious to anyone passing through which side had the best traffic flow, and it was here, after a relatively steady progress through the northbound works I witnessed on the soutbound queue the life-threatening antics of the artic driver thinking he was being noble protecting his front from what he considered a queue jumper.

FACT: The RAC know what they're talking about (and the HA agree apparently)!!

Bad lane discipline causes conjestion. it causes traffic spread across all 3 lanes, lower differentials in overtaking speed and longer overtaking times. It also causes frustration and anger on the roads and increases the likleyhood of accidents.

I note the RAC also point out that one of the causes of the increase in this practice is lack of traffic police on the motorways (because they're being replaced with cameras). Lets see more coppers in their motorway cars pulling bad drivers and an end to the "one policy" road safety strategy!

It's about time something was done about selfish driving on all Britains' roads!

Oops

Absolutely. Problem is, we are increasingly a nation of 'know it alls' or, if its convenient, disbelievers in anything we can't physically see for ourselves