Safe Speed Forums

I'd probably think you'd been drinking and were overcompensating.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

I do not split between L2 & 3, otherwise pretty much what I do.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I said nothing of the sort.

He was observed, therefore presumably not alone.

QED.

I'm the same as Roger too but it varies depending whether I'm using the car or motorbike. When I'm on my bike, wherever the road bends I visualize what I would skid into if I hit some crud on a wet day. I'd prefer not to slide into a tree or the swords they use for the uprights on barriers.

So with this in mind I ride such that if the worst happens I will at least slide to a halt, which means my road position may be somewhat questionable at times but it maximises my safety. (Whether the driver behind me knocks me into the middle of next week is another matter).

So, like most bikers, I try to make the bends as big as possible by positioning myself accordingly. Other drivers will see it as strange but this comes back to my argument about the best drivers are more likely to be those who have had experience on two wheels.

PS. I've just seen an accident today An 84 year old lady crashed into a bus stop. She had a plant on her passenger seat which fell over and as she tried to put it back upright she veered off the road. She was okay apart from a bloody nose, from the air bag. Micra will definitely be written off. Good job there wasn't anyone at the bus stop

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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.

Robin,

Quite correct and noted. The quote above is from 'safedriver'.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

BT,

I've seen an advanced riding instructor doing just this on a training video.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

I’m sorry chaps and chapesses, but this is getting very boring. The whole thing is extremely simple - KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING. Obviously that has to be modified to suit the prevailing circumstances and conditions - e.g. if you have the misfortune to be driving along the M1 and L1 is chocker with nose-to-tail HGVs. But the principle remains the same - keep as far left as is reasonably practicable, unless you are actually overtaking someone.

If you’re piddling along in L2 because you’re “afraid to get boxed in” or because you think that “changing lanes is dangerous” or because "L1 is the slug lane" then you shouldn’t be on a motorway at all. If you deliberately drive in L2 to slow other people down you shouldn’t be driving anywhere.

This is my first and last post on this thread.

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Save a cow - eat a vegetarian

Yokel,

You have summed up the debate very clearly and concisely. The question under discussion does indeed turn on 'prevailing circumstances and conditions'.

The 'prevailing circumstances and conditions' will influence drivers to either remain in L2 or hop back into L1. I think this is primarily to do with the distances between slower moving vehicles in L1 and also the average speed of this traffic in L1. As our motorways become more congested, L1 becomes less attractive for faster moving traffic for the above reasons.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Stop trying to prolong the argument. As yokel (and others) have said if there’s room in L1 you should pull over, not only because it’s part of the highway code, but it’s also good manners. Simple!

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Dixie,

I'm a bit disappointed in the progress of this thread to be honest. We established early on that there are grounds for a debate on the disparity between the HC and what drivers actually do on motorways.

I was hoping that we would have an interesting psychological inquiry into this disparity, but so many posters have just reiterated claims of rules and manners without delving deeper into driver behaviour on our changing motorways.

Maybe that debate will never happen and this thread has indeed been a waste of time and effort.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

What's the story with your new sig at the bottom of your posts, Cooler?

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Simon

Cooler, I genuinely can't work you out. You have the posting style of an affable, clever old gent, and some of your opinions seem to match that, but then you seem to contradict yourself in other places. For example, sometimes you seem to (rightly) say that speed cameras are a pointless distraction which have made you drive in a less safe manner, then in threads like these you make out that anyone wishing to exceed 70mph on the motorway can have no complaints if they're unnecessarily held up by someone in the middle lane doing 70mph. So is speeding dangerous or not? And now, as SigmaMotion implies, your signature has added further confusion. Where else have you called for more rules and regulations, and why would someone who was haunted by speed cameras want such a thing? Which rules and regulations would you like to see?

I'm not trying to be nasty, I'm just at a loss. Usually new posters on here are either broadly with us or against us. I can't fault your originality, but I just thought you might want to clarify your position for us.

(I know I said I'd stop reading this topic, but after goodness knows how many hedgehog-free posts, I guessed (rightly) that his influence would be long-gone.... Till next time (hopefully never), my prickly "friend"....)

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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)

How can you delve deeper when we don't have a cross section of drivers who will honestly state why they behave the way they do? This site is largely self-selcting; people are here because they have an interest in driving and driving properly whereas the majority of drivers do not. And its the behavior of that majority that needs examining.

That said, some have made an attempt to rationalise or hypothesise why drivers do demonstrate poor lane discipline, but by-and-large you haven't liked what you have read and have dismissed it. But, in a nutshell:

1. No motorway training. Drivers learn from each others bad habits and, as I previously stated, lane indiscipline is the worst facet of UK motorway driving as identified by one of our advanced driving institutions.
2. No government campaigns (other than speed kills) to improve driver behaviour and skills. Most drivers have probably never read the HC relating to motorways and don't actually know the rules. Nobody has ever bothered to try and tell them.
3. There is a myth that the three standard motorway lanes are the slow, middle and fast lanes. If you are just cruising along you should be in the middle lane; the slow lane is for trucks.
4. Some drivers try to enforce the rules of the road on others. They believe that if nobody should travel at more than 70mph then they should be able to travel in the middle lane at 70 mph.
5. Drivers don't trust each other. They believe that if they move into lane 1 they will get boxed in by faster moving vehicles that won't let them back out again when they need to pass a slower vehicle.
6. Drivers don't care about each other. A middle lane hog's prime excuse is to point to the coping strategies that other drivers should use to ameliorate their own bad habit. Weird!
7. Drivers are lazy and behave like sheep. Their experiences at getting boxed in are a result of this, they haven't thought far enough ahead and planned their next move. This is common on UK roads, many drivers don't plan for anything that isn't right in front of their own bonnet.
8. Most drivers don't care about their driving and simply want to get from A to B with as little effort as possible. Middle lane cruising offers a lazymans way of negotioating our motorways. There is no real incentive to improve, besides a modest insurance reduction by some companies for passing an advanced driving test, therefore few drivers bother trying to improve.
9. The rules are too loose, lazy drivers will use the looseness of the rules to validate their behaviour.

There you go.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Spot on, yet again

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Spot on, yet again

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

I can't really add to what Rigpig said. The disparity is because in the absence of any lane discipline enforcement or education (apart from the odd matrix sign) only some people care about driving in a way that maximises road space, whereas a lot of people are MLMs because either:

a. they just don't care about anyone else and can't be bothered to use the lanes properly
b. they are scared of changing lane (that's quite scary)
c. They think that if they are going at what they believe is the speed limit, there is no reason to use the lanes properly as noone should be passing them, some even using this as a crude attempt to 'teach other drivers a lesson' (which is deeply scary)

The fact that some drivers don't use lanes properly, while an interesting observation, does not somehow endorse that behaviour, and to imply that this thread is going nowhere just because while we all agree that it happens all but one of us think it's wrong is utterly mistaken.

Cooler, your last few posts have a had a somewhat conciliatory tone, so summarise your viewpoint for me:

We all agree that middle-lane-moronism happens. You've observed that it happens. Do you think that it is therfore legitimate just because others do it?

Rigpig, Johnneytheboy,

Spot on, now why couldn’t someone have said all that earlier?..

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

bombus,

There is some irony in my postings which doesn't seem to travel well on the net. 'Affable, clever old gent'? - Yes, maybe, but in my experience these are just the people who contradict themselves whilst wearing odd socks and a jumper on back to front. I know I do.




Agreed



Not quite. However I do think that road rage is misdirected at someone driving at 70mph in L2 of a motorway. A gentle reminder maybe, but not the fingers. It's a question of which is most dangerous.




Safespeed is not dangerous, but if you want to do it, don't take both hands off the wheel to abuse the car in front - just overtake.



irony!! Good grief, we are drowning in rules and regulations in this country, and not just on the roads.



I was hoping to flush out a real ding -dong debate on this one, but most people are on the same side - not all though.



You may be referring to another poster? A troublesome one?

Cheers, C.

PS - Ok, I might have teased some of folks a bit, but I didn't mean any real harm. For example, a survey reported in the Sunday papers recently said that 78% of drivers interviewed supported the current speed camera policy. I nearly choked on my weetabix! Then I noticed who had conducted the survey - the IAM. More rules and regulations please?

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Johnny,

Not as scary as having some twerp behind you at the legal speed limit with his hands off the steering wheel. Now that's scary (for his passengers).

An angry driver is a bad driver. Anyone care to disagree?



Someone did agree with me. In fact, if you read this thread you may find more than one.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Indeed. The one I PMed you about before as a matter of fact. Smeggy coined the nickname "hedgehog".

Thanks for the rest of your reply. You're right that irony is often hard to get across when you only have text at your disposal.

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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)