First ever motorist convicted for 'lane hogging'

I've not been driving long but it does wind me up when people are quite obviously and quite obliviously just sitting in the middle lane regardless of the inside lane being clear. I think there are a few fundamental driving attitudes that are key to this. The use of the terms "slow lane" and "fast lane" by stupid people (which turns out to be a large portion of the population!) instils a sense of "well i'm in an AUDI, i shouldn't be in the SLOW lane because my car isn't slow!". The people who think "well my speedo says i'm doing 70mph so if people are going faster than me they're breaking the speed limit so there's no point me moving over". Sorry but no, most car speedo's over read by a fair few mph, sometimes up to as much as 7mph. You might THINK you're doing 70mph, but you're actually doing 63mph. Pulling into, and driving in the SLOW lane at 63mph for the 30-40 seconds while it's obviously clear for that length of time clear is what you should actually do. Even if the person behind is speeding, two wrongs (read as illegal driving) do not make a right!

It's not to say this is the only problem there are plenty of others:

*people who pull into the outside lane in front of me because they see a "space" when it's actually my safe braking distance to the car in front that they're moving into.
*people who drive right up behind me at 80+mph and continuously flash me to move out of the way, even though it's not safe or clear to do so.
*people who overtake me and then pull back into my lane ahead of me, only to settle down and travel slower than me, forcing me to need to overtake when i catch back up.... only to do the same thing again because they don't like being overtaken.
*all the people drive dangerously in order to prove how much better they are because they're driving a "fast" car and i choose to drive a landrover. It's insane how many drivers of Mercedes, BMW's and other similar cars feel like they have to prove something when they see an old landrover legally overtake them and get selfish/snobby/dangerous about it.
 
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The other issue is idiots pulling into your braking space. That always annoys me. That's why cars end up bumper to bumper in Lane 3 because people can't be trusted to wait until there is a proper space before pulling out.
 
bitslice said:
If you want to use the motorway efficiently, then we need to stop lorry drivers from either doing less than 59 or stop them pulling out so they can slowly overtake at 60.

I can't see why they couldn't be allowed a quick burst of speed just to complete the manoeuvre.
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Or we do what we are already doing and reduce everyones speed to around 50MPH and make stetches of motorway 4 lanes.

To fight congestion we need to limit speed and enforce it. The throughput of traffic in a speed restricted zone is surprisingly high. You also reduce incident rates because people are going slower - have more time to react and it forces people to slow down, thus making rash moves between lanes less likely (unless your being a tool).
 
BuffetSlayer said:
Or we do what we are already doing and reduce everyones speed to around 50MPH and make stetches of motorway 4 lanes.

To fight congestion we need to limit speed and enforce it. The throughput of traffic in a speed restricted zone is surprisingly high. You also reduce incident rates because people are going slower - have more time to react and it forces people to slow down, thus making rash moves between lanes less likely (unless your being a tool).
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This is the stupidest idea I have ever read. Ever.

The speed limit needs to be increased (or removed as per the autobahn), not reduced.

To fight congestion just stop poor people driving. They should be spending their money on better things any way.
 
George Hincapie said:
This is the stupidest idea I have ever read. Ever.

The speed limit needs to be increased (or removed as per the autobahn), not reduced.

To fight congestion just stop poor people driving. They should be spending their money on better things any way.
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Not an idea, it is a reality. The evidence shows it works, hence why it is being rolled out nationally, and has been applied to many areas since around 2005.


Or have you not been on the M4, M6, M1, M25 recently?

Edit - I think optimal throughput in congested zones is for car to travel at something like 41-52MPH.
 
We need to move to a mad max type situation where if they're in the way you can just blow them up, win win lol
 
George Hincapie said:
Yes, I have driven on all of those roads recently at 80 MPH.

I hate variable speed limits and don't accept they work.
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I see. Good for you.

Meanwhile the clever science people have done a lot of work on it and decided that it does work and all of the evidence supports that, both in this country and in tests abroad.

Do you drive an Audi by any chance? ;)
 
Haggisman said:
While this is the safe and correct response to tailgaters, I've found that doing so just means they get even further up your **** because they can see a space in front of you and in their minds you should fill it.

That's also ignoring the fact that any gap bigger than a car will most likely be quickly filled by someone else who also has no concept of physics.
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Exactly this.
 
While this is a good thing, there are bigger problems on the road. Namely everyone speeding. Speed limit is 70mph, not 80mph.

Recently drove to York from Norwich, on the motorway I had to move to the middle then right hand lane to go round about 3 cars who would just not use the left hand lane. But doing 70mph on cruise I was still pretty much the slowest thing on the road.

There is never a good reason to speed, period.

Should be more average speed camera's I say.
 
BuffetSlayer said:
I see. Good for you.

Meanwhile the clever science people have done a lot of work on it and decided that it does work and all of the evidence supports that, both in this country and in tests abroad.

Do you drive an Audi by any chance? ;)
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Volvo XC90.

So you're saying that my practical experience of driving in such conditions is irrelevant because 'clever science people' say otherwise? OK...
 
BuffetSlayer said:
Not at all.

I am saying, usually without fail, that scientific peer reviewed evidence is more credible than the anecdotal kind.

Nice motor by the way. The new model is lovely.
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It seems counter-intuitive to me. For example on the M25 I am often in 'stop start' type traffic in the variable limit, so in heavy traffic it doesn't seem to have an effect (or at least one that is obvious to the lay person).
 
jas72 said:
Can you explain that to a court if you get a speeding fine by a camera?

If the car in front is doing 67-70mph and you want to overtake quickly you'll have to floor it to 80+ putting you in danger of a fine.

Is it acceptable to use overtaking as an excuse for speeding ?

Honest question.
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No. Speed camera is there to capture the speed of a car in a 100m-ish section. It's a speed trap to deter drivers from speeding in that section, and that section only. Miles before and miles after is of no concern to that camera. Many inner city ones are to stop speeders in hot spot due to racers, on Motorways, it's either a cash cow or a fix that local authority dump to say they've done something about a hot zone due to traffic incident numbers.

I personally believe in average speed cameras. Zoned in hot spots does wonders. I can speed up and overtake someone 10mph faster and then pull back in safely and drop to cruise the rest at a round 5mph slower than limit for twice the overtaking distance I just did before going back up to around the limit. (A maths a few road drivers don't seem to use in average speed zones, only dropping to speed limit when they see the gates :rolleyes: )

I get to overtake safely, as long as I am not hindering the inner lane cars by going slower when I return to cruising speed e.g. 65mph in a 70mph zone.

That said, we still get d-bags doing 65mph in the middle lane in average speed zones. So the idea doesn't fix the issue raised here, but I'm digressing.
 
Participant said:
Look, aside from the fact you've completely missed the point, which was that there are always people in these sorts of threads telling you that something else is far more worthy of complaint and therefore the original complaint is redundant, are you really telling us that Nazis aren't a job for the police?
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Unless our police are capable of time travel, I fail to see why Nazi's are a job for the police.
 
George Hincapie said:
It seems counter-intuitive to me. For example on the M25 I am often in 'stop start' type traffic in the variable limit, so in heavy traffic it doesn't seem to have an effect (or at least one that is obvious to the lay person).
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I have read some of the information about the speed restrictions.

Effectively 50MPH is the sweet spot between too fast and too slow in relation to throughput of traffic and road capacity.

If it is dropped too low, the flow of traffic slows too much and causes congestion in outlying roads that merge with the motorway. When it is sped up, the increase in braking distances and the heavy volume of traffic basically means that you get less throughput and the efficiency of the capacity is reduced.

At 50MPH the throughput and capacity is maximised (I think they use calculations similar to fluid dynamics). You also get less start stop traffic from brake waves (IE someone brakes hard due to being cut up and the traffic a mile back stops. Really interesting dynamic if you care to look it up).

You are correct in that in off peak periods, an increase in speed limit could prove beneficial though because the the volume of traffic is nowhere near the roads capacity.

Think of it like a T junction. If you are sat at the give way lines with 100 cars behind you and every car is coming past you at 70MPH their onward journey will likely be OK, but for you and the 100 cars behind you - you will be seriously delayed because you will be unable to pull out safely. Extrapolate that to 50,000 similar junctions and you start to see a problem. Great news if you are on the main carriageway already, not so much iof you are at a junction.

Now in the same situation, if you reduce the speed of the main artery to, as an example, 30MPH - everyone sat at those T junctions can pull out easier and join the carriageway and ALL traffic carries on moving, not just the 50% of it on the main artery.

Stop-start traffic even with variable speed limits is an indication that capacity is being exceeded (apparently)
 
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