Motorways

Apart from regularising a common occurrence, an uplift to 80mph will have little effect on average motorist's speed. It will not be any more or less enforced. It is not general policy to have speed cameras on motorways due to the potential for incidents if someone brakes hard to avoid the camera, Exceptions are road works and maybe some managed sections of road. Somerset and Avon used to do it and I was caught on camera in Scotland on the M74 about 10 years ago (on a near empty motorway and a clear sunny summer morning).

Having driven since 1970 and a large number of motorway miles, I have two basic modes of motorway driving. One is driving to the left staying in lane one and overtaking only as necessary aiming for steady progress between 60-70mph. Two is generally in the late / early hours on a quiet motorway where 80-90mph sometimes a bit more will be typical.

Mixing highish speeds with a busy motorway and less experienced drivers (try saturday morning on the M6 in Cheshire) is usually a recipe for disaster.
 
Danger Phoenix said:
  • Full beams and fog lights on during the day and night
  • Partially working lights (one car had one dim front light, and another a dim rear brake light)
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More people should be using lights during the day time imo I don't have a problem during daylight hours with full beams/fogs.

Faulty lights are my bug-bear and its getting to that time of the year where people are using them more. The frequency of cars with faulty lights seems seems to be about 1 in 4. Why are these people not being pulled? Nope doing 35 in a 30 zone on a properly maintained vehicle is far more dangerous. :rolleyes:

And dont get me started on chav'd up HIDs :mad:
 
Edinho said:
More people should be using lights during the day time imo I don't have a problem during daylight hours with full beams/fogs.

Faulty lights are my bug-bear and its getting to that time of the year where people are using them more. The frequency of cars with faulty lights seems seems to be about 1 in 4. Why are these people not being pulled? Nope doing 35 in a 30 zone on a properly maintained vehicle is far more dangerous. :rolleyes:

And dont get me started on chav'd up HIDs :mad:
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Headlights on during the day I'd be fine with, but certainly not full beam. Even in daylight hours, they can be quite dazzling and distracting, especially with bi-xenons.
 
Edinho said:
More people should be using lights during the day time imo I don't have a problem during daylight hours with full beams/fogs.

Faulty lights are my bug-bear and its getting to that time of the year where people are using them more. The frequency of cars with faulty lights seems seems to be about 1 in 4. Why are these people not being pulled? Nope doing 35 in a 30 zone on a properly maintained vehicle is far more dangerous. :rolleyes:

And dont get me started on chav'd up HIDs :mad:
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If you think faulty lights are bad in England, never ever go to France/Italy. There's loads of mopeds and motorbikes around here who drive around at night with either the front or rear light broken, or in some cases both. Not such a problem in town when you can at least hear them coming, but terrifying on a (usually unlit) motorway. I was in a friend's car last night and she very nearly took one of them out whist changing lanes - he had rear lights but no front lights at all, and was riding a dark coloured moped at about 1am. :rolleyes:
 
I almost got took out in lane 3 on the way home from Scotland because someone decided that coming around a blind bend in traffic at 100+ MPH was a good idea, he didn't even attempt to stop when he noticed me overtaking a truck.
 
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Antony101 said:
I almost got took out in lane 3 on the way home from Scotland because someone decided that coming around a blind corner in traffic at 100+ MPH was a good idea, he didn't even attempt to stop when he noticed me overtaking a truck.
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Can you elaborate on this? It sounds like you're on a 3 lane road (motorway?) that has a blind bend (blind bend motorway??) and you were overtaking on this blind bend? Cannot comprehend what is going on here :p
 
I was in the middle lane, coming up behind a HGV that was travelling at 60MPH. I was doing 70MPH so checked my mirrors, nothing was coming so I signalled and moved over, the road then went around a hillside corner.

Some idiot in a mondeo came around the corner as I was about to finish overtaking the HGV doing at least 100/110MPH, made no attempt to slow down and almost smashed into the back of me.
 
Another funny situation to add to your list.

Was driving west of the M4 towards Bristol, just passed the Bath junction and the volume of traffic had increased. But rather than everyone dropping their speeds, loads of people start to jump in the outside lane. Which then moves slower than the inside 2 lanes because of the amount of traffic.

The common sense of some people really amazes me.
 
Semple said:
Another funny situation to add to your list.

Was driving west of the M4 towards Bristol, just passed the Bath junction and the volume of traffic had increased. But rather than everyone dropping their speeds, loads of people start to jump in the outside lane. Which then moves slower than the inside 2 lanes because of the amount of traffic.

The common sense of some people really amazes me.
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I think that is partly the lanes are no longer known as overtaking lanes... they are the "faster lanes". Naturally being in the third/fourth lane means that you will go faster :rolleyes:
 
ubersonic said:
Maybe they should consider making it so you need more than 58% correct to pass a theory test...
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They need to take out arbitrary stuff like braking distances out and put in questions like:

You are in the second lane of a motorway and wish to overtake. Do you:
1) Pull out into the third lane in front of other cars, brake suddenly, swear at the driver behind you and then cruise along at 50mph.
2) Check your mirrors, and move over to the third lane when it is safe to do so. Maintain an appropriate speed to pass the vehicle, before safely moving back into the second lane.
3) If there are cars in the third lane, then pull out into the first lane and undertake traffic. If a lorry or slow driver gets in your way then feel free to use the hard shoulder as an extra lane or swerve in and out lanes in order to get to your destination faster.
 
Danger Phoenix said:
They need to take out arbitrary stuff like braking distances out and put in questions like:

You are in the second lane of a motorway and wish to overtake. Do you:
1) Pull out into the third lane in front of other cars, brake suddenly, swear at the driver behind you and then cruise along at 50mph.
2) Check your mirrors, and move over to the third lane when it is safe to do so. Maintain an appropriate speed to pass the vehicle, before safely moving back into the second lane.
3) If there are cars in the third lane, then pull out into the first lane and undertake traffic. If a lorry or slow driver gets in your way then feel free to use the hard shoulder as an extra lane or swerve in and out lanes in order to get to your destination faster.
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Answer 3 implies lane one is empty for the most part, so the driver shouldn't be in lane two anyway. ;)
 
I was driving up to Leicester on the M1 last night and there was an old man driving in the middle line with the first lane clear for quite some distance. I flashed at him before moving over into the third lane to overtake. I pulled back into the second lane and as I was about to move over to the first he started honking and flashing his lights at me.

I think he accidentally turned off his headlights in the process, and this was on an unlit part of the motorway. I stayed in the second lane because moving over and letting him be would have been dangerous as we weren't too far away from the traffic ahead. I tried to flash my rear fogs at him but I am guessing he thought I was just being aggressive and he just honked and flashed back.

Other vehicles behind him started flashing at him but he didn't seem to pay any attention. This continued on for a mile or so before I think he finally realised why people were flashing at him and turned his lights back on, albeit on dim. It could have been quite bad and I think all the other drivers reacted quite well because they slowed down in all lane and didn't pass him, almost creating a shield behind him. You would have to be blind not to notice your lights are off on an unlit motorway.


Not motorway related, but in Leicester there was a young lady driving around without headlights. Initially I though both her brake lights might be out, but I noticed that there was no reflection of her headlights on parked cars. Tried flashing at her from behind to indicate her lights were not on, to which I think she panicked and pulled over. I stopped as well and got out to tell her. She was really apologetic about it and probably genuinely forgot.
 
I was under the impression that IF the motorway speed limit was raised to 80mph it would be a hard limit ie. No +10%+2mph any more.

As for everything else... I do over 60,000 miles per year and I see it all. Daily. You just have to drive defensively and get out of their way.
 
On my newer cars (Audi A6, Mercedes CLS350 Shooting Brake) you do leave the main beams on all the time and the LEDs shape themselves around the existing traffic conditions. They work very, very, well.
 
It doesn't surprise me anymore that people do this. I think there need to be tighter controls on people who have no clue how to drive. If people were forced to redo their test for driving like an idiot things would improve or a lot less people would be on the roads.

On Friday I had to do 3 emergency stops driving round town because people had no clue what they were doing.

1st woman pulled out from my left to turn into the opposite lane but there was no gap for her to move into so she just blocked my lane off, this was in a 40mph limit - slammed on the brakes, lucky there was no one behind me. Second one was someone doing more or less the same thing except then immediately stopping to let people cross the road where there was no crossing and no reason to do so. 3rd one was a taxi parked at the side of the road on my side and pulled out to go into the opposite lane but seemed to think that the way over there involved going through me. At no point was a speeding/driving aggressively.

Just to add insult to injury on my drive down to London that evening people repeatedly cut me up without indicating. My fiancée was raging in the passenger seat at people.

Never had a day with so many idiots on the road.
 
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