Joining/Leaving the Motorway

[BYTEr]

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.

 

[BYTEr]

I have the same issue, I think it is down to lack of planning on their side.

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.

 

[BYTEr]

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.

 

[BYTEr]

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.

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!