Safe Speed Forums

I tend to class single carriageway overtakes as one of the most risky parts of driving. If done incorrectly it can result in a head on collision with a three figure closing speed. You can obviously control this risk by only commiting to an overtake if the road conditions, visibility, and capability of vehicle is appropriate. This is a skill generally not taught in lessons and must be fathomed out using road experience as your driving career advances

As you can imagine i tend to err on the side of caution before undertaking an overtake (oh dear! )

I found myself in a strange situation lately where i was on a very long straight (must be at least 1/2 mile) with good visibility, no dips or anything. I was making good progress as i entered the straight and noticed a car infront was traveling less than the NSL. I made the decision to overtake and as I closed it became apparent that i had possibly overestimated his speed and that he was in fact in the sub 40mph bracket. While it would have seemed natural to simply pull onto the other side and zoom past i decided that the speed diffirential was too high and actually slowed to show a presence behind first and then a standard overtake at a lower speed differential.

Up until that point i have always considered the higher the speed differential the better since there will be less time in danger but that was only from the vantage point of starting at the same speed and accelerating to overtake.

Apart from possibly startling someone that hasn't looked in their mirror that month, I was also concerned that, at too high a diferential speed I would be too commited to pass - if something went badly wrong I could have been unable to scrub off speed and slot in behind my overtakee.

I came to thinking there must be a "sweet spot" of speed diferential for an overtake and wondered if this was something taught on advanced courses?

If you can see an overtake is on and safe to do, then I would say go for it. Unless you're doing highly illegal speeds, I see no point in slowing down and increasing the time on the "wrong" side of the road.

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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

Untill then i would have agreed with you.

However!

With a closing speed around 30 mph it didnt really give a lot of time for him to see me approaching from behind if he was not doing regular mirror checks or distracted by passenger, kids, talking on mobile etc. All it takes is for him to see a pothole and swerve around it to sideswipe me into a field at a fairly high speed.

Headlight flash to attract his attention before starting the overtake

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I have to concur, I would much rather the overtakee is aware that I intend to overtake him. If the driver is a good competent driver, he will then assist the manoeuvre (although bad drivers will try to block, discussed in another thread). Also, starting from the same speed gives you time to properly assess all hazzards prior to commiting. The IAM teach the 'overtaking triangle' which is the method I always employ, the link on the IAM site seems to be down at the minute, however it is described in this article: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/601572?UserKey=

Paul discussed this on here a few years ago. The consensus was a differential speed of 15mph is optimum to avoid surprising the overtakee but minimising the time on the other side of the road.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

it sounds more to me as though the unexpected lower speed of the other vehicle meant you didn't have as much time to prepare for the manouvre and satisfy yourself the road was good & clear etc.... so probably best to back off until you're happy.

i.e. one of the last things i (think) i do is double check my mirrors in case someone has already taken me by surprise and started an overtake (bike perhaps ?).. however unlikely it seems i'd feel a little blind if i found i suddenly didn't have time to do it.

I think this is risky, but zealots vehemently insist that no competent driver should experience any risk at all.



Fair enough, but I said at the time that you can't control all risk from other drivers, or the environment. There was some
grumbling about that, but eventually they seemed to concede that overtaking has inherent dangers that can't be
completely controlled. A residual risk remains.



You are a wise.



As he is entitled to do.



Perhaps he was looking for a house or a turning, or maybe his big ends had gone, or perhaps he was carrying eggs balanced on the back seat, or maybe he was on one of those "mini" spare wheels, after a puncture, or maybe there was a car sick kid in the back, or maybe he was an old geezer ...



Hm... one does not necessarily cease to use the mirror when one's looking for a turning, or when one is delivering eggs that are balanced on the back seat, etc. However, it does no harm to prepare for the worst, so I can't knock that. As I said, there is a residual risk of being "pulled out on", no matter what. The question becomes "is it worth it"?

A few interesting points raised so far.

Abercrombie:- Firstly i want to clarify that my post was not meant as a discouragement of overtakes. I probobaly overtake more than most but just wanted to point out that it is not a decision that should be taken lightly.



Well - considering it would be unwise to overtake if there were houses/turnings off of the road I thought everyone would have the sense to realise that this almost poker straight section was devoid of turnings and houses.
Your other arguments fall into the "pretty unlikely" bracket and would also discount them from the risk since you are assuming that they are good observant but slow drivers. More likely IME that the driver is a 40 everywhere muppet that has poor observation skills and no pride in good driving. I will always base my risk assessment on this basis to allow for the worst possible situation.

If the driver is an "old geezer" then why would that cause him to be driving slowly for the conditions? Are you implying that he may have below par reactions? Scared of speed? poor car control? poor eyesight? All of these points would cause him to be a poor driver and IMO should not be on the roads.

Being "an old geezer" getting grouped with poor drivers is possibly the most nonsensical and offensive things I have heard for a while.

Enough troll feeding



I think i made a poor job of describing my run up to the events.

I turned left onto the road from a t junction. I accelerated briskly up to (maybe a touch more but not EXCESSIVE) and seen a car in front maybe 200/300 yds in front and that i was closing on him. Due to the road being clear it was an almost immidiate decision that an overtake was feasable and that unless circumstances changed i would carry out the overtake. I continued the observation (back and front) as i closed further then I suddenly thought that if his observation was as poor as some I have witnessed recently his first observation of me may well be through his drivers side window!

As I stated above the fact i was carrying quite a bit of speed relative to the overtakee I felt too committed to complete the manoevre rather than abort and slot in behind if something did go wrong.

The light flash before the maneovre is something i did contemplate at the time but decided that it may look too agressive and settled for slowing down to give time to observe me followed by a right indicator signal and accelerate past.

Thanks for your kind words.



Yes, hope for the best and plan for the worst. As long as drivers realize that most slower drivers are not muppets (or trolls!), then the world is in balance.

No, I think most of us understood the scenario.


The first rule of safe sriving IMO, is that you always have an escape route should it all go pear shaped. So by slowing down observing and then commiting to a manouevre you have planned your actions, and by implication performed a risk assesment.


Agreed, however, some motorists find the very act of being overtaken agressive. It is sensible to satisfy yourself that the overtakee knows you are there and your intentions are clear.

I consider passing a side road with vehicles waiting to pull out as a much higher risk than an overtake, particularly on an NSL road where the speed differential would usually be much higher than that to a vehicle you are overtaking.

That aside and focussing on your main question, I think the 15mph suggestion sounds about right, shall we say 10-20mph dependant on the conditions and your assessment of the situation? I tend to start with a low differential and accelerate through the pass so by the time I am clear to pull over I may be doing 30 - 40 mph more than the passee, I have usually driven bikes or fairly high performance cars though so accelerating briskly has been an option. I very seldom get flashed so would assume this is usually seen as being safe and non-aggressive by the drivers I pass.

To counter that, on a drive out with an advanced driver I was asked why I slowed before committing to an overtake, my response was pretty close to your thoughts. It may be possible to see some behaviour from the vehicle in front to indicate they are aware of you, however as that could be a misinterpretation I still feel more comfortable dropping to a moderate closing speed before starting the pass. The way I see it is that though it may be less efficient it is safer, while the TED argument may appear to contradict this I would say this is not the case. A high closing differential speed means the TED begins earlier, i.e further back from the vehicle you want to pass, of course this will depend on the performance of your car, i.e. how quickly you can accelerate to pass. So rather unhelpfully I am going to say the sweet spot depends on your car and the situation.

If I may ramble on a little longer? Being on the right hand side of the road does not necessarily expose you to danger, in fact if doing a flying pass it gives you more space to react to a manoeuvre by the vehicle in front and, should they use their mirrors, make your intent clear.

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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

The only collision which I have been involved in for many years concerned my overtaking someone on a SC "A" road.

I came up behind a new Mini going at about 30mph in a 50mph limit approaching NSL signs. I signalled, pulled out and ... the 17year old girl driver who wasn't signalling and who had passed her test just one week earlier turned right into a field entrance and into me. I was almost past her when she turned and she hit my rear nearside wing spinning me off the road.

While I don't think this was entirely my fault, I could have flashed my lights, held back wondering why she was going so slowly or whatever. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I agree entirely about side roads and I am scrupulous not to overtake if there is a road on the right even if no cars are waiting. In the case above, how far do you go with this? Is a field entrance a junction?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Malcolm,

What was the legal/insurance outcome of that? Were you found partially to blame etc?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

1000 posts graball. Congrats.

I got a letter from my insurers saying that the other party held me responsible and they had a witness. I wrote back an extensive explanation of the circumstances including drawings etc. and I heard no more.

My guess is they split the liability.

Apart from having to declare an incident to future insurers, I retained NCB and was not charged significantly more on renewal.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I had a similar thing happen to me many years ago when driving for Parcelforce. About 7pm on a dark winters night on a main road in mid Wales I was going along a long straight at about 50MPH when in the distance I saw two cars, both stationary and the rear one had hazards flashing. I slowed as I approached them in case I had to stop behind them if anything approached from other direction. It was a wide road so wasn't too worried about anyone stepping out from behind what I assumed was a broken down car and someone helping them, as I could clear the cars by a good 4-6 feet.. as I got near the rear car I could see that the road ahead was still clear so started to overtake both stationary cars. As i got level with the rear car, the lead car turned straight acroos the road in front of me into what turned out to be a track leading to her house. I hit her broadside. Nothing I could have done to stop.

I never did find out why they were both stopped, I assume that she must have stopped to open a gate as the next time I drove past there was a closed gate across the track, but what the guy behind her, with the hazards flashing, was doing I haven't a clue.

If he hadn't have been there the crash probably wouldn't have happened because;

a) she would have, hopefully, seen me and indicated her intentions and waited for me to let her go or stayed at the side of the road until I had passed.... and

b) had he not been there I would have seen her indicators, if she had used them, and known she wanted to turn right from a standstill and judged the situation for what it was.

The police told me that she too had only passed her test that week and taxed the car that day.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Who are these "zealots" and what exactly did they say?
For my future reference because I suspect this will come up:
Are you referring to my post #206321 where I clearly said:"It is true one may not be safe because of the bad driving of others, but that doesn't detract from the fact that one can drive safely (not badly), even at speed."

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

Well I don't like to name names, but it was RobinXe! He said:



There you are: they are not risky at all, according to him. No note whatsoever of the risk that 4by4 has mentioned. I am relieved that most of us can see that we can't always isolate ourselves safely from the acts of others when we change lanes and overtake. It's just the way it is, so why argue about the obvious?

I think that's grossly unfair as well as being misrepresentative. Overtaking on SCs bring a new set of risks over what mere lane changing gives (entrances, being within a lane of oncoming traffic, risk of head-on...).
I'm going to bite my lip and not further derail this thread about overtaking, please do the same.

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

50mph in a Parcelforce van? I think you missed a zero off there!