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Folks

Can anyone tell me who was in the wrong and who would have been prosectuted if and accident had occuured in the following scenario:

I was driving along a normal 2-lane A road at night behind two trucks and two cars, with a car and a van behind me, and come to a long straight with good visibility and no junctions - all of us are doing just over the truck's maximum (stupid) legal speed of 40mph - about 45ish mph. Typically the trucks have no more than 12 feet (guestimate) between them - no room for a car so anyone overtaking has got to do them both at once or not at all. There is an equally negligable gap between the first and second cars but there is a respectable gap between the second truck and the first car.

A short line of traffic coming the other way is just completing the straight with nothing visible behind them so I started to wind up to overtake the line of traffic. As the last approaching car passes I'm accelerating up behind the cars indicating to pull out but the second car, who's made no preparations, pulls out without indicating, and causes me to brake hard so that I don't run into the back of him. Naturally I curse him but I don't visibly react but assess that if he accelerates hard enough there's enough road for me to follow him through. However he doesn't accelerate very hard at all. After a few seconds we have both passed the first car, are level with the trucks, are about half way down the straight and then another truck appears around the corner at the end of the straight. Immediately the driver ahead of me accelerates hard, faster than I can in my people carrier and realising that there is no way I'm going to make it past both the trucks I give up my manouver. Checking my mirrors, I brake and start to indicate to pull into the gap behind the second truck. Instantly I do this I see the lights of the car behind the second truck brighten as he seems to accelerate and closes the gap between him and the second truck to prevent me getting in in front of him. As I was then timing by braking to pull into the gap behind the second truck I wasn't initially braking particularly hard but with the approaching traffic now bearing down there's no gap and no time to brake harder so I have little choice but to push my way in behind the second truck to avoid the head-on.

Using the size of my car I did make a gap but the driver of the car wasn't giving up without a fight and a lot of horn and caused the oncoming traffic to pull towards the curb to avoid me.

In the end thankfully no-one touches but if an accident had been caused by me either pushing into the side of the car on my left or clipping the oncoming traffic (or both) how would the authorities and insurance companies have viewed the situation?

Many thanks

JT

You enter into overtake. Car in front of you pull out in front - fail to make the right progress.

I would have aborted probably at that point knowing am in car which may not have the ooooomph require if muppet continue to behave like wooden top he be.

But in any case .. driver behind has duty of care to you by ensuring he keep distance if overtake end up being aborted for any reason.. und I think a decent copper would have given both of you a right old ear bashing based on what seen which determine his professional decision or witness statements.

Had accident occurred .. sadly.. I think the insurers likely to go with the overtaker getting into difficulty here. If dispute .. a court would decide.

Police may have done both of you.

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I would say the issue of prosecution is irrelevant, whether you survived or not is the key point.

As wildcat says above the best move would have been to abort your overtake when the other driver pulled out on you. Frustrating I admit but far safer. By following them you lost control of the situation and relied on them to drive properly, just ask yourself if you should trust your safety to someone who pulls out like that.

Welcome to the site BTW. Coming on here and asking the question, even if the wrong one, deserves a

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This whole idea of following through someone else's overtake is seriously fraught with risk.

- Your vision is usually compromised
- You cannot know how hard he will accelerate
- He may 'steal' your return gap in various ways (a smaller gap might be completely occupied; a larger gap may dramatically change in length as he adjusts his speed on return to the left; if he cuts in at the end of his overtake he might 'hang you out' and leave you needing to overtake him too

Being able to safely follow through is very much the exception rather than the rule.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
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There are a couple of potential problems here too.

Firstly an overtake target vehicle also pulling out to overtake is a common problem that needs to be considered. You can often/usually detect that this is likely by prior observation. How close is he to the vehicle ahead? Has he been moving about to gain vision past the vehicles ahead? Has he already tried to overtake?

Secondly 'lunging' overtakes from some distance back leave you especially exposed to the risk of 'target one' pulling out on you. It's better to start your overtake from closer (less acceleration needed; less ground to cover) This leaves you with less braking to do if target one does pull out on you.

Thirdly, advanced drivers mostly pull out to the right without accelerating at all and make the decision to actually go from the right hand side of the road. This gives excellent vision for assessment and indicates your intention to target one.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

That only works if you have a car with sufficient power. If you are in a seriously underpowered car (e.g. 954cc Citroen AX we ued to have) safe overtaking is still possible but you nearly always have to anticipate the gap and accelerate before you pull out. Even underpowered cars can brake quickly if you need to abort the manoeuvre.

Yes and no. Having some speed differential 'in the bag' is a real advantage in underpowered vehicles. But if you have too much speed differential at the decision-to-go-point you're seriously exposed to 'target one' swooping out on you.

Even in underpowered vehicles, pulling out before you accelerate is good for easy overtakes (i.e. where you have lots of space and vision). I do it quite often even in my campervan, which is the most underpowered vehicle I have ever known.

When you're trying to make a tighter overtake in an underpowered vehicle there are some advanced ways to 'rejig' the compromises. You wind it up - gaining differential speed - before you pull out. But you ensure:

- Your decision to go point is STILL on the right hand side of the road.
- The decision to go point is now further back, leaving good space for braking down to the speed of target one.

A bit of training in overtaking is a wonderful thing.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The chap who tried to stop you from pulling back in should be prosecuted for attempted murder. Sadly speed cameras can't detect this either.

Yeah. Although not much chance of that.

There are a lot of facets to this incident aren't there?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I've been thinking this through and come up with a couple of tips and observations.

- Assuming that you don't have time to brake and drop in behind the madman...

- If madman appears to be deliberately hanging you out into the path of oncoming traffic, the ONLY solution is to force your way in even if that means pushing madman out of the way. Head on crashes are just too big. And anyway madman is the cause. We have some sort of duty to protect innocents before causers.

- So let's say I'm on the right of the road, and madman on the left is slightly behind me trying to block my necessary move left. First of all, assuming things are urgent, I have to steer left in the hope that madman will drop back. If he doesn't drop back I can keep steering left pushing him left and off the road if necessary.

- If he's dropped back to be level with the rear of my car attempting to push him left will spin me and very likely make matters worse.

- If he's continuing to drop back I need to stop pushing during the time his front is alongside my rear or I risk spinning myself.

- So barge, wait for him to drop behind, and barge again is likely to be the best bet.

Scary stuff, but it might save innocent lives.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

JTHM

I can relate to this.

As a general rule, I never overtake more than one vehicle at a time but to be honest it's because I'm never in a car which can do it with ease so I tend to plod along at the going rate praying that the tortoise at the front will turn off sometime soon.

That said, having gobs of power doesn't necessarily make it safer in the situation you found yourself in. Probably more for the motorbike forum but: I remember being on my motorbike once ready to overtake a line of four cars: Same situation as yourself; straight road, bogged down for ages, no-one seeming to show an interest in getting a wriggle on. So there I was at last with an open straight road - just what I'd been waiting for.

I'd got past the first one at the back when suddenly the second from front pulled out without indicating and nearly side-swiped my front wheel!

I wasn't angry at him or anything because he wouldn't have been able to see me at the back and wouldn't have expected something to 'come out of nowhere'. He was probably more startled than me from the look on his face in his rear view mirror. In fact I think we would have both done well in a Gurning contest at that moment.

He should have indicated but most likely didn't because he was in a line of elephants, not knowing there was a cheetah at the back, and I think what saved me was the sixth sense you develop with experience, (and my cat-like reactions).

I was able to drop back and we both overtook the front vehicle at his pace. When I went past him he put his hand up to say sorry and I reciprocated to say no hard feelings.

I don't think you did anything a million other drivers wouldn't have done but it sounds like you had an arsehole in the queue which made a bad situation worse. If I were there I would have pulled back to let you in.

Glad it wasn't worse for you, or me.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

That's optimistic.

These days overtaking is so rare that it seems most people who still do it assume that no-one else is going to bother and don't bother to check behind them before pulling out. It's happened to me quite a few times.

I feel that this is a legitimate use of the horn or full beams to make them aware of the fact that they've just pulled into my stopping distance. Reactions vary from getting out of the way quickly to giving me the middle finger and flooring it, but it's better than nothing.

Oh no it isn't.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'm sorry, but assuming that someone will actually bother to look and notice what you're doing is a very optimistic assumption these days.

I'm not saying you're wrong to do so. Indeed, you should give them every chance to see you and know what's going on...

...but they'll still pull out in front of you.

Yeah, yeah, but I said "Advanced drivers mostly...".

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Unfortunately so many people these days are (a) bloody-minded, and (b) drive torquey diesels that mean they can accelerate to close a gap, that this 'pull-out-then-decide' approach just loses the element of surprise, which is sadly a necessary component of a lot of overtakes, as a lot of people seem to interpret overtaking as somehow hostile.

I'd rather be past before they know I'm going to pass. I know this flies in the face of the common-sense approach of keeping other road-users infomed, but that assumes they possess common sense too.

Sorry, I'm coming late to this and a lot of good stuff has developed in this thread. Just my extra 2d:

Choosing the differential speed of an overtake on a single carriageway road is always a compromise when you are doing more than one vehicle at a time for fear of, using Paul's ohraseology, any vehicle between Target 1 and Target N-1 pulling out in front of you or into your side, offselt by running out of road.

Taking that on board, it is possible.. likely even, that numpty who pulled out into your path was not gunning it (driving for you as well) until he saw the oncoming traffic, as he was in turn fearful of one or other of the interim vehicles coming out on him, combined with realising he had ample horse in the bag if something appeared (which it did and he woke his horses up). It is probable he never even noticed you.

If it happens again - ever - immediately have the gap on the left where he came from and accept he has stolen your opportuninty to make it to the front. NEVER follow through on an overtake. There is ALWAYS a gap where he came from and it actually provides you with additional deceleration space (possibly paradoxically temporarily appearing up his inside for a short time, but being prepared to brake much harder if he then aborts to let him back in).

I've had this bloody minded closing up behind in the past when I've had to abort an overtake (not through following through I hasten to add, but through pulling out and then - before the point of commitment - not liking it. In my case it was a transit who closed up the gap - and may actually have thought I was turning right (I signalled, pulled out, then braked as I signaled left (he may not have seen the latter)). I had plenty of time to do so and just braked harder and nestled in behind the transit, the car behind him having seen the score and dropped back). That was about three decades ago - I was drinig one of the wedge-shaped Austin Princesses at the trime!

With the increases in traffic, changes to our roads and better performance of all vehicles the A road overtake is it seems a dying art (Oh, I'll add the increase in selfish behaviour as well). In some 25+ years I've experienced most of the 'Oh Sh*t' overtaking moments.

I also witnessed a serious RTA in similar circumstances, though on that occasion there was no oncoming traffic and the overtaker - who had got a fair head of steam up - lost it trying to avoid rear ending the car behind the slow wagon, which did as above and just dawdled out with no indication. He just drove on oblivious as the overtaker spun off into a field, he'd emergency braked on the one bit of the road covered in mud and gravel. Otherwise it was dry and clear. Very unlucky. Rolled several times, not pretty

In JTMH's case it's probably best he aborted the overtake. Driver's who show that degree of inattention are the ones that cut straight back in on the slow mover and come off the gas, oblivious to you needing them to make a gap. I've copped for that with an Impretza WRC of all things who jumped out in front of me with his foot buried and then having got back in demonstrated the brakes were as good. I had to make like the artics hood ornament

Overtaking is an art. And one that is pretty much self taught. I'm not sold on Paul's notion of making the overtake decision from the RH lane. But that very much depends on the road, if you know it, what you are driving and the traffic you are dealing with.

Barkstar

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Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your replies and advice - rest assured I've read what everyone has said and taken it all on board.

I don't make a habit of following other drivers through on the overtake but I neglected to add that I'd played catch up to the guy who pulled out on me in previous overtaking opportunities and at no time previously did he take his time about any manouver. I really wasn't expecting him to proceed differently in this instance and given he was driving a 330D I fully expected him to hoof it and clear off up the road again.

I'll never simply assume that again!

Thanks again

JT

My tuppence worth:

Just to say I fully understand the frustration of the situation described and how tempting it is to follow the car in front overtaking through, despite the possible dangers. I have experienced a very similar situation myself on an A-road where I was 3rd in a line of traffic behind a lorry (1st and going 45 ish), and a car (2nd). I went to overtake the car and lorry on a decent straight when the car pulled out as described in the OP. Judging there to be enough space for the overtake I followed behind, with the car going frustratingly slowly. This is where the unexpected problem arose:

Traffic was now approaching from the opposite direction, albeit a fair distance away. However, the car in front pulled in front of the lorry and then proceeded to slow to the lorry's pace without leaving enough gap to fit into. This left me with an additional car length to overtake, or drop back a whole lorry length - involving some hard braking and the hope that there was still the space we had both vacated. Luckily, I made a quick decision gunned it to overtake the car as well. Thankfully he didn't begin racing me and I managed to make it with relatively little panic. It was something I'd never thought of before when planning an overtake, but I do now! Could have been nasty.