Joining/Leaving the Motorway

BYTEr

BYTEr

BYTEr

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2 Oct 2004
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Bit of a rant.

I drive on the M5 Monday-Friday for work and drive a low powered car, so for me to merge safely I need to pretty much have my foot down on the slip road (it's quite short), but I'm increasingly finding people in the right hand lane doing speeds of 35-40mph, meaning I'm often joining the motorway at these speeds which I find quite dangerous, especially when I don't have the ability to get to 60mph+ in less than 5 seconds.

If people want to do these speeds, that's up to them, but at least stay in the left hand lane and if they are in the right hand lane, at least attempt to overtake or build up speed, what's more annoying, it's often drivers in cars that are more than capable of getting to 70mph quickly, most of the time they stick in the right hand lane at 40mph, then as soon as they join they then put there foot down, why don't they do this before they join, which also allows me to get up to speed to join safely.

Also, another thing, although less annoying, is people who quickly dash to the left hand lane the moment they see the sign for an exit, even though it's 1.5 miles from the actual exit, which results in a long, slow moving first lane, then all the lorries move to the middle lane and then all the middle lane hoggers doing 65mph move over to the third lane and slowing everybody down, all because of these people thinking they have to be in the first lane the moment they see the exit sign.

I just don't understand some people.
 
I notice this more and more, had some idiot brake to a halt rather than accelerate into a gap, that almost caused chaos.

Best guess is that the hypermiling MPG obsessed idiots refuse to accelerate as it kills the MPGs!!!!
 
russell664 said:
I have the same issue, I think it is down to lack of planning on their side.
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Maybe, but seriously? It's like they only realise there on a motorway once they've joined, surely your focus/concentration is at a high point joining a road with lorries doing close to 60mph and cars doing 70+mph!

Or maybe it's the fact they aren't in a low powered car so aren't bothered about getting up to speed on the slip road.
 
I see it a lot of well. Very occasionally people almost stopping at the end of the slip road which is scary. I don't think instructors are teaching it well enough or something.

Sometimes I just have to blast past them on the slip road, because it's less dangerous. You just can't safely enter a motorway at 40mph when everyone else is doing 70+ :/
 
Nasher said:
I see it a lot of well. Very occasionally people almost stopping at the end of the slip road which is scary. I don't think instructors are teaching it well enough or something.

Sometimes I just have to blast past them on the slip road, because it's less dangerous :/
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The change in rules to allow learners on the motorway should definitely help, or cause many more fiery deaths as they crap themselves...
 
All well and good having it as part of a new drivers test/learning but what about those who have already passed?

The more I drive the more I think there should be mandatory retesting in some form every 5 years.
 
quite often see people (more often than not leaving services) driving along the slip road only to stop at the end and then start looking for a space... it's crazy... the slip road is to match the speed of the flowing traffic, not to dawdle when the motorway is flowing at 65-75mph, or the opposite of roaring down the slip at 60 only to anchor on and merge into busy stop-start traffic. It's all about looking further than 10 foot ahead of the bonnet, which seems a struggle for a lot of drivers.
 
Had the person in front of me doing 20-25mph tops the other day when they joined the M4. No traffic (jam) on the motorway either so they must have concluded that joining the motorway at that speed was acceptable.

Also had someone brake to a stop at the end of the slip road once and join the motorsway in a kind of non motorway give way junction kind of way. How do these people get and keep their licences is beyond me.
 
When I was in my hideously underpowered Corsa B last year I had very scary moment where I was joining a busy dual carriageway along with several other cars. One or two of them carried on right to the end of the slip road, presumably because they weren't comfortable slotting into a small gap. I joined asap into a fairly small gap then as I checked my blind spot to move into a faster moving lane 2 the car in front of me slammed on his brakes to let one of the other cars join who had come to a complete stop at the end of the slip road :eek: Cue a non ABS assisted emergency stop for me (strong 11 marks on the road :D) and everyone behind. The car directly behind me must have ended up less than 6 inches from my rear bumper, god knows what happened further back!

Now I enjoy the freedom of being able to do whatever speed is required by the end of the slip road and adjust easily to fit in. I join and move to lane 2 asap to avoid any shenanigans at the end of the slip roads.

Motorways are in general a hideous place to be when they are busy. I don't do much motorway mileage but any time I do and its even remotely busy the lack of discipline and common sense drives me up the wall. How anyone doing 30k a year stays sane is beyond me.
 
johnny6 said:
Had the person in front of me doing 20-25mph tops the other day when they joined the M4. No traffic (jam) on the motorway either so they must have concluded that joining the motorway at that speed was acceptable.

Also had someone brake to a stop at the end of the slip road once and join the motorsway in a kind of non motorway give way junction kind of way. How do these people get and keep their licences is beyond me.
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Yea they have CCTV at pretty much every junction. They should be watching out for this, the same way they catch people turning round and going the wrong way up slip roads.

Most accidents on motorways happen at the end of slip roads, it's not speed that is the biggest danger. It's just people who don't know how to drive properly.
 
If you're using a 2 lane slip road, aren't you better off keeping left anyway? As generally that's the longest lane.
Couple of examples of what I mean here:
https://goo.gl/maps/e4xddi6issz
https://goo.gl/maps/p1as6jFS4zC2

In both these cases, keeping left is better if you need more time to accelerate. Is it not the same on the sliproad you're using?

But yes, I agree, and I witness it often. It shows an alarming lack of anticipation and confidence. I've been behind people who have attempted to merge onto the dual carriageway near my home at as little as 40MPH. It's inconsiderate at best, and dangerous at worst.
 
Problem is not everyone has a powerful enough car to get to 60+mph quick enough, I think part of the problem is also the length of the slip road.

I like in America for example how you just merge into one of the lanes.
 
The best ones are people who turn onto fast moving NSL A roads from minor roads and then almost come to a complete stop once they've pulled out or at least that's how it feels.

If your vehicle doesn't have the grunt to get up to speed before I die of old age then don't pull out in front of me!
 
tom_e said:
The best ones are people who turn onto fast moving NSL A roads from minor roads and then almost come to a complete stop once they've pulled out or at least that's how it feels.
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As a rule, I find that these people invariably turn off at the next opportunity. It's almost as if, because they're only 'crossing' the major road they feel that they don't need to worry about getting up to speed for the short time they are on it.
 
dacads said:
Problem is not everyone has a powerful enough car to get to 60+mph quick enough, I think part of the problem is also the length of the slip road.
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I contest this. The vast majority of modern cars should be more than capable of achieving at least 60MPH by the end of a slip road with proper planning and anticipation. The problem is between the steering wheel and the seat.

I'm currently driving a Toyota Aygo courtesy car, which is something like 70BHP, and I am a fatso, yet I still have no trouble rowing it up to 70MPH on the short slip road I use every morning to join the dual carriageway near me. It's the driver that's unwilling, not the car. I think we should just have signs on slip roads reminding people to put their bloody foot down :D
 
Just to go to the other side of the argument, we have some very short slip roads on a dual carriageway here and the amount of cars that just join blindly at speed is scary, seen it loads of times where lorries have had to dive in to lane 2.

So yes get up to speed but remember you need to give priority to traffic already on the motorway (though anyone with a brain in lane 1 should give you space if they can).
 
Conscript said:
If you're using a 2 lane slip road, aren't you better off keeping left anyway? As generally that's the longest lane.
Couple of examples of what I mean here:
https://goo.gl/maps/e4xddi6issz
https://goo.gl/maps/p1as6jFS4zC2

In both these cases, keeping left is better if you need more time to accelerate. Is it not the same on the sliproad you're using?

But yes, I agree, and I witness it often. It shows an alarming lack of anticipation and confidence. I've been behind people who have attempted to merge onto the dual carriageway near my home at as little as 40MPH. It's inconsiderate at best, and dangerous at worst.
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The problem is, when for example a car/lorry is doing 40mph in the left lane but then some idiot is also doing the same speed in the right hand lane refusing to overtake, meaning I have no choice but to join at 40mph, the slip road I use is also quite short and merges into one lane, it's long enough for me to get to 70mph but I need to be accelerating for most of it which I can't if someone's stuck doing 40mph in both lanes, the person in the right lane needs to either move over or speed up, but for some reason they proceed to drive at 40mph in the right lane, letting the car in the left lane merge in front of them, then joining at 40mph where they then immediately speed up!
 
MonkeyMan said:
So yes get up to speed but remember you need to give priority to traffic already on the motorway (though anyone with a brain in lane 1 should give you space if they can).
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Those without a brain will still give you space. They'll just do it without any consideration for the person in the next lane that they just pulled out on.
 
Conscript said:
I contest this. The vast majority of modern cars should be more than capable of achieving at least 60MPH by the end of a slip road with proper planning and anticipation. The problem is between the steering wheel and the seat.
Click to expand...
I agree, we used to have a 1litre Yarris and that was ok with planning. I kinda think it's some people's inability to check blind spots and be able to look around their car while driving. There's nothing wrong or hard with checking over your shoulder, or moving your head while looking in the wing-mirror to get a better view of the carriageway while getting up to speed. You sometimes see the same inability to check blind spots when changing lanes, which results in anchoring on, swearing and potentially road rage. It's almost as if some people seem to think you drive to the end of the slip road, stop and then look left and right a couple times, and then set off.
 
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