Safe Speed Forums

Alternative solution: Prosecute tailgaters. Then there will be plenty of gaps in lane 1 so long as traffic is flowing above around 10/20mph. Problem solved.

I don't know about Inverness, but I do know about Truro and points West. From the centre of Truro to the start of the nearest motorway is a ninety mile/2hr trip each way in winter and takes considerably longer in summer. Also there are parts of the UK a lot more remote than that (e.g. the Scilly Isles) and inhabitants wouldn't see a motorway in years. It is completely absurd to withhold someone's license just because they've no experience of a road type they are unlikely to use, to which they have no realistic access, and about which they'll probably have forgotten by the time they get to use it for real. Compulsory motorway training for such folks is (IMO) entirely inappropriate.

Now motorways are statistically the safest roads in the country. Given that many pass their tests with only 12 hours tuition, I can't see any justification for adding a further 5 hours - an increase of 40% - to impart what can be imparted in less than half an hour on a single run to a place three junctions up the motorway from where you joined it.

If we are to not allow drivers to use motorways until they've had motorway isntruction, then why not issue a restricted license that can be upgraded on production of a certificate of additional training - just like the difference between restricted and unrestricted microlight licenses.

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Will

Everyone wants better driving standards, but early training probably isn't the right way to achieve it. Without motorway training our motorways are already literally the safest roads in the world - and we need to ask how that works. This IS a question I've asked - and I've found that self-learning and cultural influences are absolutely fundamental. If we want to improve we need to work on things like information, beliefs, sense of responsibility, observation skills and risk management - rather than rules or early training.

The BIG problem with early training is that we're so busy trying to figure out how to operate the vehicle and comply with the rules that we simply cannot really start to learn things like observation and anticipation skills until later.

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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 only had 6 hours of tuition total so would have been quite miffed to be have been forced to have another 5 of motorways. Especially given that the nearest for me is the M90 at Perth which is 1hr 20 mins away.

That would be a collection of seriously expensive lessons!

I would not consider getting a driving license if I lived in the remoter places mentioned above. The chances of being caught are negligable anyway so the risk would be far outweighed by the cost and time savings in gaining a license.

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Simple, given all the possible permutations of junction layout, main carriageway traffic densities/speeds, slip-road traffic densities/speeds, and performance of your vehicle???



You've got L1 full of cars, stretching as far back along L1 as you can see, all doing a steady 70 in close proximity to one another, such that it'd be unsafe to try squeezing your car inbetween.



You've got L1 full of HGVs on the limiter, as far as the eye can see, in close proximity to one another, such that you couldn't even get just your cab unit into one of the gaps let alone the trailer you're also hauling.


For both scenarios, explain how you'd safely and legally join L1. Any answer which involves stopping at the end of the slip road or on the hard shoulder will earn you serious -ve points, given the increased danger involved in then trying to merge with L1 from a standing start.




I don't see how a desire to sit in L2 at all times has any relevance to someone's ability to join the motorway in the first place-you can have good lane discipline yet still be utter pants at judging the merge, and vice versa.

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Chris

From my all too brief but yet very interesting foray on the Peripherique, giving way to joining traffic didn't feel all that different to what goes on in practice on Britains motorways and seemed to work pretty well, the traffic was very heavy but still flowed freely.

In all time I have used motorways, and that was an awful lot in my previous job I can't think of a time where I have had a problem in joining. All it takes is a practical common sense approach by both parties. If you are the ONLY car on the slip road and there is ONE car on the carriageway, dont be arrogant and drive alongside the only car because it just happens to be at the exact point in the road you wish to join.... ease of a bit a join behind. Its good manners. However, if there is a stream of vehicles coming down the slip road then it makes damn good sense to get into Lane 2 as early as possible. I would even go as far as to indicate my intentions to L2 and most people will have spotted why. I have never had someone complaing becuase I have got into L2 early. Its far safer then all the cars trying to merge from the sliproad.

The only problem I can see is if the vehicle in L1 cant get into L2, but this is comparitavely rare. Even so, providing a good gap has been left in L1 between you and the vehicle in front, merging should still be able to be done safely, even if this means some speed ajustment from those already on the motorway.

However, in extreme cases, and this has never happend to me so far, if there is absolutely no options available to the vehicle in L1 then the onus should be on the slip road vehicle to brake. This is so rare though that if its happening to you as both either a slip road vehicle or a L1 vehicle then perhaps you need to to look to see if there is anything you maybe able to improve on. (Thats not being directed at anyone personally)

Whats all the above about? if you read my post I said that I never have any problems joining a motorway. It's alright making up a fake scenario but even when traffic in the left lane is nose to tail, I have no problem merging.
I live on the motorways averaging 500km per night. I start my shift during the tea time rush hour and finish normally around the start of the morning rush hour so I think I have enough knowledge on the subject unlike a few part time experts on here. I get to work by travelling on the motorway in my high powered car and once there I rejoin the motorways in my sluggish heavily laden truck.

Please carry on arguing the toss over who should and shouldn't do what because this is getting boring now. You will come back saying that it is a forum where people have their opinions and a right to express them ..... true....but you would think after reading all the posts by the boys/girls who use our motorways the most, and realizing that they all say roughly the same thing, that others would take the point and start paying attention.

The system is fine as it is and the sooner people stop making excuses for those who don't know how to drive on the motorways the better. It's ok quoting defensive driving and wearing your hi vis vest whilst driving but if everyone drove according to the highway code then we wouldn't have a problem. Train or prosecute the ones getting it wrong.
In the meantime I will continue to operate the way I always have done and keep an eye open for the coffin dodger doing 30 when joining the carriageway.
You can continue to tell me the I am in the wrong but it does not change my clean driving record or the amount of miles I cover accident free. As the saying goes...the proof is in the pudding.
Happy driving.

a similar example of the above is the slightly bizarre coventry ring road.. which has short & often blind combined on/off slips to a 2 lane ring road, with a 40limit.

its surprisingly uncommon but not that unusual to find yourself level with someone either contnuing round in L1 or worse still, coming off as you try to join.

more often than not its the combination of who had the nose ahead and differential speed that decides who dips the throttle and who dabs the brakes (although the worst case is that you both dab... then dip ).

anyway... often its not position but timing & relative speeds that is the deciding factor in who does the braking.

(like mway slips i find the best way to handle it is be in a gear a little below the expected speed of the traffic you're joining so you have a good engine brakign response if you need to slow and a good accel response if you need to nip ahead a little..... i have a few other techniques for the blinder slips but its not terribly OT)

Absolutely. If its a question of of the L1 vehicle braking a little or the slip-road vehicle braking a hell of a lot then its so much more sensible for the L1 vehicle to brake a little. In that case it still fits with my post because braking "a little" is a perfectly valid option for L1.

I couldn't have put it better myself!

And here endeth the lesson!

Paul, i try not to get involved in elephant races at all. i will hold back and try to judge the best place to go for it and get past ASAP. i dont like being left out in L2

if people cant be trained on motorways due to rural location, restricted licence would be a possible answer. i do wonder about dual carriageways though. same speed limit as a motorway yet far more dangerous with regards to shorter onslips (if at all) added hazards and less room. shouldnt we look at this area before motorways anyway?

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

Yes. Motorways are by far the safest roads and as such should be well down the priority list. Only about 200 of our 3,200 road deaths each year take place on motorways.

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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

Good example, but the unfortunate thing about the Coventry ring road is it's not driven upon in the way it was designed.. The intetion in its design was for traffic to stay in the right hand lane unless entering or exiting, which is of course contrary to the keep to the left hand lane rule..




Good advice, always nice to be ready to get out of harms way..

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Dave

indeed but as such it runs as a DC these days... with all the inherent merge issues (and more)!

that said its very VERY rare to see an accident or any signs of one.
maybe the sheer confusion of most means more caution than normal!

Yes it is a tad frightening on there if your new to it
Maybe thats our answer, design everything along the same lines as Coventrys ring road and scare everyone into paying more attention..

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Dave

Although I am told by locals that a lot of regular users do keep to the right hand lane unless entering or exiting - a good example of how common sense can take priority over a strict application of "the rules".

FWIW I find in practice the vast majority of the time traffic on the mainline of motorways does make some effort to help people joining from slip roads - you only become aware of the issue on the odd occasions when people don't.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

...with heavies being the most helpful.

I notice this especially in my wheezy (the opposite of 'whizzy'?) old campervan which REALLY struggles to get up to motorway speeds on uphill sliproads.

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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

With respect, Paul. I think you've missed my point. What I was trying to get at was:
If I pull out to overtake a truck doing 54 to my 56 at, say, J10 of the Southbound M6, I'm potentially in the middle lane and alongside that truck while going past 3 or 4 on slips. You can either acknowledge that there will be a huge queue of HGVs in lane 1 (creating havoc at the off slip with motorists trying to exit the motorway at the last minute), all suspending overtaking until a stretch of motorway with no junctions comes along, or live with the fact that an overtake in an HGV potentially takes a loooooong time.
I don't especially like having another truck on one side of me and a long line of cars trying to get on the motorway on the other. I don't like being that truck in L2 either. But it happens sometimes, and when it does, it's for the joining traffic to sort a gap out for itself. I'll back off and help if I can, but if there's another truck on my back bumper (something else I don't like), this too can be difficult. And, finally, I have no sympathy at all for people who creep along my inside level with the front of my trailer and are clearly expecting me to move over.

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the kerb.

Shaky / Boss, I agree with the idea of m-way testing for car drivers, IMO the current car drivingtest is inadequate, I passed my test friday, drove to Cornwall saturday.

I feel we should have a multi stage test where stage 2 is m-way/dc/fast road driving.


A pet hate I'm finding is that a lot of car drivers around my way are pootling up the slip roads at 30-40mph, and just don't seem to be looking for a space to go into. When I join m-ways, I look for a safe space and adjust my speed to 'meet' that space, normally is means speeding up, but in rush hour can often mean slowing down, I'm happy to use my throttle to control my spacing, a lot of car drivers I see seem to pick a 'joining speed' irrespective of conditions and drive at that.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

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Congrats on passing your test and from what you've written, it sounds like you'll become an excellent driver!