Safe Speed Forums

I really can't remember but someone definitely said something to that effect.



I don't quite see what the difference between the two is in reality.



In what way does it cause unnecessary congestion? What is the point of variable of speed limits? And it is only socially unacceptable in your opinion, not in my mine.

Well you can't have read all my posts because I spelt out my position in one of the first ones. (Although to be fair, in an attempt to reply to as many posts as I could I have written quite a lot now.)


"Most people on here are moaning at middle-lane hoggers, without seeming to recognise that they are (at the very least, also) in the wrong. Let's be honest now, we're not talking about middle-lane hoggers doing significantly below the speed limit. We're talking about middle-lane hoggers, in some cases deliberately, blocking speeding drivers. At very best, the speeding drivers certainly don't have a (legitimate) reason to moan!

Yes, the speeding drivers find the hoggers annoying, but vice versa!"


To add something, if someone is driving at 50 on a motorway in the middle lane then I condemn that as much as anyone else. But if someone is doing about 70 then most people who moan at them are being hypocrites.

Posters on here will now suggest that speedos don't show the correct speed, but if people who overtook me only did about 5mph faster then I wouldn't have a problem. But as we all know, many drivers do much more than that.

You've completely missed the point of me coming on here, Cooperman. "All road regulations, Highway Code, etc, require and advise that drivers keep to the speed limit."

On here we have many people who do not accept that those publications should apply to them and choose to ignore them.

All I've been trying to do is get across to people on here that in most cases, if you are moaning about middle-lane hoggers you are being a hypocrite.




Isn't it amazing how many of those drivers aren't just doing 5mph faster though...





And if you can't obey the accepted rules, then I will feel free (and do feel free) to drive in the middle lane at about the speed limit.



(I wonder if this will sink in.) Your 'holier-than-thou' attitude deserves that response.



Eventually a police patrol will stop and caution the average speeding hypocrite, as I believe that most people who moan about middle-lane hoggers are.



Why do you say that I am "clearly trolling" when I am only coming out with my opinion? Do you call everyone who comes out with a different opinion from you a troll?

Well I’ve looked and didn’t see anything posted to that effect.


‘Why should I relinquish’ is not any form of justification, it is merely an indication of laziness, selfishness, antagonism or another negative attribute.
To equate the two is a form of logical fallacy, doing so undoes your argument.

For completeness: ‘justification’ is a SUBSET of the SET ‘why’. ‘Why’ also contains other SUBSETS other than the SUBSET ‘justification’, such as ‘laziness’ ‘selfishness’ and ‘antagonism’.


Lane-hogging results with under-utilisation of the leftmost lanes; the traffic that should have been in the left lanes will instead occupy the right lanes with overtaking traffic already in them, so causing bunching and necessitating a general slow down to maintain safe gaps, all needlessly so – a.k.a. congestion!

The usage of variable speed limits is irrelevant; the discussed issues of lane-hogging still apply.

Causing needless congestion is socially unacceptable; if you disagree then I would be curious to know why.


My original question remains:
There is no reason for it, it is socially unacceptable because it causes unnecessary congestion - so why do it?

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

One of these is deemed to be socially acceptable (if not necessary); the other is socially unacceptable (as well as not necessary).


This isn’t about rules, this is really about the desire to harmoniously integrate and interact safely and considerately within the road-using community.

Er, I've just looked at this link and it shows that it can be written in two ways, but they are "no one" and "no-one". Perhaps you misread your sat-nav too.


(Before you panic, I shall reply to the rest of that post at another time.)

In your opinion!



But I think that this is about rules. You have one bunch of people breaking the law moaning about another bunch of people who are not following a rule. At very best they have no legitimate reason to moan, in my opinion.

I think that anyone who derives such smug satisfaction from frustrating and impeding other drivers quite possibly has mental issues of some sort. I wonder what scope there is for removing their driving licences for this reason (I've seen it on Police Camera Action), and maybe even detaining them under the Mental Health Act? They're clearly not well.

They need to get help, so that they stop irrationally seeing everyone else as the enemy simply for going about their business, and foster a desire to help others rather than hinder them. They need to learn to integrate properly into society, to cooperate with people in the realisation that that way everyone wins. So much belligerence towards so many people who they don't know the first thing about. It can't be the product of a sound mind and there must be an underlying reason. Rather than just telling them "don't lane hog", we need to deal with the root cause by finding out why they have such a strong desire to interfere with and upset people, why they take such delight in the misfortune of others, and why they are so obsessed with controlling everyone else.

We should pity them. But they need to be denied the use of motor vehicles as their hateful and vengeful attitude is a danger to themselves and others.

(Oh, don't forget that of course "speeders"* have mental issues as well, just because they "speed", as "speeding" is in every way equivalent to deliberately obstructing traffic. It goes without saying that "speeders" can't accuse lane hoggers of anything without being hypocrites.)

--
* "Speeders" = those who choose to go faster than the neurotic lane hogger in question.

_________________
Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

End of.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Well nevermind.



I really don't think that there will be any justification which you will accept but let me say this:

I regularly drive on the A3 which is basically a triple carriageway. In other words there is no hard shoulder. The speed limit used to be 70 but was reduced to 50 because of the number of serious crashes. I simply find it more pleasant to drive in the middle lane. (Perhaps you will wish to explain the psychological reasoning for that.) And from my experience many other drivers like to do the same. As for the speedo point, there are many speed cameras on this road and when I go past them doing 50 I am doing the same speed as all the other cars around me.





But I'm not stopping other people from driving in the left lane at the speed limit.



Well I've answered the basic question above. But do you really believe that the average person who complains about middle-lane hoggers is doing so because they think they're causing congestion? I think they're complaining because they want to break the speed limit by a significant margin and so want them out of their way.

So why do you disagree?
Don't just say you don't without any form of supporting arguments.


I have already given an explanation as to why I disagree.
Again, see my response above.

There is no reason for it, it is socially unacceptable because it causes unnecessary congestion - so why do it?

That’s because you simply cannot justify it, except for reasons of selfishness (therein is your ‘psychological reasoning’).



Now that doesn’t really address my point does it? To remind you: I’m talking about minimising congestion by utilising all lanes.


Not nearly. Try again!

More magazine psychology. Anyway, how many drivers sticking to the speed limit but driving in the middle lane have you seen on Police Camera Action? And what's the number who you have seen driving at dangerous speeds?



Look who's talking! By the way, have you found out what the word "arrogant" means yet?



I suppose I shouldn't take it away from you that you like to practice your psychological analysing, even if you're wrong. I'm not obsessed with controlling everyone else at all. I simply don't see what's wrong in driving in the middle lane at the speed limit. And I don't take such delight in the misfortune of others either. Or have a strong desire to interfere with and upset people. See my reason in a different post for why I like to drive in the middle lane.

By the way, how does it feel to be wrong so often?



"hateful and vengeful attitude"! Again, look who's talking. And in reality, it's the speeders who need to be denied the use of motor vehicles and sometimes are.



Now you're beginning to understand! My goodness, how long did that take?! You really would win the award for "UK Slow Person of the Year"!



"Speeders" = those who choose to significantly break the speed limit.

Can anyone think of any type of person who inconveniences as many people as lane hoggers? Thinking purely in terms of the number of people inconvenienced a day, anyone who's not in authority would have a real job matching the amount of constant frustration caused by a lane hogger.

On a busy motorway, the lane hogger adversely affects literally hundreds of people a minute. So if they travel for 15 hours a week then hundreds of thousands of people a week are delayed and inconvenienced, completely unnecessarily, by the actions of this one crazed individual.

And yet they claim that they do it out of the goodness of their hearts. It would be funny if it wasn't real. I don't know why we bothered building 3-lane motorways when these dregs of society waltz in and deliberately reduce the capacity by well over a third.

Get them off the roads, and get them help. Give the economy, and possibly the lane hogger, a shot in the arm.

_________________
Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

But what reason is there for people to break the speed limit apart from their own selfishness?



But what's stopping other drivers from using the left-hand lane if the drivers in the middle lane are doing the speed limit?



Yes I have but you have dismissed it because you see it as being a selfish reason. Anyway, why have you ignored my question?

Because I believe that more people are killed and seriously injured by speeders than by people driving at the speed limit in the middle lane. But I suppose the next thing you will do is come out with crash statistics, which, as I'm sure you know, are strongly disputed by different groups.



I don't accept that it causes unnecessary congestion if the middle-lane hoggers are doing the speed limit because then other drivers can drive in the left-hand lane at the speed limit as well. Remember, I'm not defending someone doing 50 in the middle lane (on a motorway).

The only people who are affected are those who want to break the speed limit.



Only to those people who want to break the speed limit.



So people will be driving faster, there will be more crashes, and you think that that will help the economy?

What a dunce. You'd think that someone who was so obsessed with other people's speeds would at least have a basic understanding of traffic flow.

So, a moving bottleneck only slows down the fluid before it that's travelling above the speed of the bottleneck? Yeah right. Especially when there's fluid flowing into the system before the bottleneck (aka on-slips). You can just pack more and more stuff into the same volume before the bottleneck and nothing that's not "speeding" will ever be displaced further back as a direct result of the bottleneck.

This of course is because two or more water molecules or cars (excluding the bottleneck) can occupy the same space quite happily. That's why, when you're refilling your windscreen fluid, it just disappears from the initial chamber as fast as you can pour it. So it's not like the MLM is creating ever-growing tailbacks behind him by not allowing people to enter the space in front of him at an adequate rate. The MLM can be 100% sure that every single person he's delaying is only being delayed because they're a "speeder". If only I had understood how simple it was.

[/weary sarcasm]

Did he really think that infantile, ill thought out assertion would get past everyone on a site full of people with physics and engineering qualifications? Maybe it's genuinely never occurred to him that it's wrong. But now that I've shown him beyond reasonable doubt that lane hoggers also delay people who are going slower than them, I'm confident that he'll see the error of his ways and never be a MLM again. He needs to know that it's never too late to make amends. He needs to know that he can be more than a humble, lowest-of-the-low bottleneck. He needs to believe that it's possible.

In the unlikely event that he carries on being a MLM, it will show that far from wanting to impede "speeders", he just wants to impede everyone, and we've read about some possible reasons for that, none of them good.

Time to start driving correctly. Time to stop being a pain in the arse towards tens of millions of decent, hardworking people every year. Time to apologise profusely for the collective irritation and misery caused.

And BTW, I refuse to address him directly until he drops this pretence that he just "appeared", and tells us which forum he's from and what his username there is. If he is after genuine debate then I don't see why he can't do so. We're all open about our "net identities" so he can be the same. Coming on here with a spammer-like nick, adopting a provocative posting style and saying things like "speeders' club" casts doubt on his intentions.

_________________
Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

Reasons why hjeg1 is ignorant:

He believes that a valid justification for a course of action is that disagreeing with it would be hypocrisy. Clue: being a hypocrite is not the same as being wrong.

He believes that repeating random phrases from others posts constitutes a profound debating style, or any debating style at all.

He believes in triple carriageways. (They're lanes, not carriageways)

He believes that the spelling of noone has vital bearing on this subject, or any other for that matter.

He thinks that, having earlier said that he drives in the middle lane to force others in that lane to drive at his chosen speed, he is "not obsessed with controlling everyone else at all".

He doesn't understand that his actions also restrict the traffic in L1, since drivers there will also have to leave a safe gap behind him, since they cannot be sure of what actions this moron who cannot drive to normal conventions is capable of. Traffic wants to join the motorway at L1!

He believes that repeating to those who outwit him repeatedly that they are wrong, or have lost, adds to the legitimacy of his point of view.

He repeatedly changes his standpoint. Presumably since its much harder to hit a moving target. Case in point, moving from claiming to drive in the middle lane to force others to drive at his chosen speed, to claiming to find it more pleasant to do so.

He cannot accept scientific facts, such as accident statistics or the accuracy of GPS, either through lack of understanding, or simply because they don't sit with his paradigm. No effort to accept the fact and mould his argument around them, just derision. It is akin to flat-earth believers discounting the movement of celestial bodies.

Finally, he missed the Police, Camera, Action episode where they pulled over a MLM!

Everyone debating on the point that MLM is wrong, antisocial, dangerous etc etc has been wasting their time if we think our friend will ever change his opinion.

His point has nothing to to do with safety or motoring best practice.

His point is simply lane hogging is illegal* so is exceeding the posted limit.

I'm glad for that enlightenment.

I'm also sure we'd like to convey our thanks as I for one have found that this thread has proved to me that malicious lane hoggers do exist, that they have a warped moral compass and that there really are people in this world who think it is their duty to enforce petty rules even if its non of their business or the act of enforcement is more disruptive than the transgression of the rule.

*the legality is moot.