Stressful incident on motorway, scared

Yes I think you can generally tell in plenty of time whether there’s going to be a gap

Don't worry, OP. You just need a bit more practice gauging your speed and merging. Practise when it's quiet at first as you'll be able to build up your confidence before tackling busy motorways.
It's a good idea to give the car in front plenty of room so that essentially what they do doesn't affect you - or you have time to react if they do something unexpected.
And always always be prepared to stop if you absolutely must. Don't take the advice of posters on here who drive along the hard shoulder if they run out of slip road. That way disaster lies...
The fact that you've thought about this incident so carefully suggests that you'll learn from mistakes (there will be many!) and will end up a great driver.

Don’t find yourself going too fast to stop them!

jesus. It’s clear. If you can’t merge then slow or stop!

Sadly some people don't accommodate drivers merging onto the motorway, my DH is one of them and I've given up telling him that while it isn't mandatory it is common courtesy.

However he isn't the only one so you'll need to remember that it's up to you speed up or slow down to get in front of or behind a vehicle in the left lane.

If an idiot ahead of you is slower than you, you should anticipate that and leave more distance to give you time to find a space

It's quite scary really, and I'm sorry you ended up in that position but it's a great learning experience as no one was hurt.

Have you never had to join a motorway where traffic is at a standstill or crawling? I regularly face this where I live!

It didn't help at all that the car in front of OP stopped on the slip road. There's nothing worse trying to merge from a slip road when the car in front is going 20mph or stops. It then makes it really difficult for the car behind to merge smoothly.

Please don't worry OP. Yes it was a scary incident but there was no accident and noone will be reporting you.

No, it's good practice / good defensive driving to try and create more space around yourself.
It doesn't mean you can expect to be able to force other road users to give way to you.

You should have been trying to match the speed of the car in lane 1 and either speed up a little to go in front or slow down and merge in behind.
If course if you've got an idiot inexperienced driver in front of you who slows down when they should have speeded up, then that narrows your options.

I think you would benefit from one lesson with an instructor to practice merging - as others have said it is a skill and can be learned.

I have had to stop at the end of a slip road if the main road is busy

Are you talking about motorways though? Motorways are designed so no one has to do this, it is dangerous to do this to be honest, as most the time you will never find a gap big enough to join from a standing start safely and you will be causing chaos for everyone coming down the slip road behind you.

There are lots of dual carriageways near me that have short sliproads though, in fact one is so short that you have to treat it almost like a t junction and stop anyway to see whether you can go or not.

If it has happened to you a few times on the motorway I'd be looking at why, as there is something going wrong there, maybe not going fast enough? Whenever I've seen other people do this it's because they aren't going fast enough to merge into a suitable gap.

Ideally yes - but what if you find yourself going too fast to stop.
What if the car in lane one has been doing weird accelerating/slowing shit.

You are "allowed" to make use of the hard shoulder if the other option would be a collision into lane 1

Chill. It happens all the time. I've been driving since the flood and still get beeped when the person behind me gets ticked off. Don't engage, at the end of the day you're responsible for your own actions and you make what you consider to be the right decision at the time. Always, always better safe than sorry.

YABU to yourself. This is the type of situation that driving involves unfortunately. It gives you quite a wobble and always will to an extent. However, you will get used to it over time. No natter how well you do or don’t dtive, there’s always a need for everyone to be considerate and safe. Some people are rude and arrogant drivers. Some are never quite safe. Some people are too hesitant (from trying to be safe)…..
Once you pass your test, the first 1000 miles teach you a lot more when you’re driving solo.

The phrase “chalk it down to experience” is apt and ongoing. You did your best which is all you can do. Sometimes you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t- so you make the best decision possible in the time you have to make. Then you need your just move on with your life 💐

He should have slowed down to a safe speed or moved lane. Just put it down to experience. The first year after passing your test is when you really learn to drive.

I have had to stop at the end of a slip road if the main road is busy, quite a few times so I’m surprised there are posted who have never had to?

Anyway, it sounds like you did the right thing and as a new driver it’s not weird for you to question yourself or feel shaken up
about it.

I would agree with your instructor, that if you are the one on the motorway/A road in the left lane, it is considerate to try to create room one way or another. Speeding up, slowing down or changing lanes if possible. But sometimes, traffic is so heavy it isn’t possible and therefore, if you are the one on the slip road you have to wait until there is a safe gap.

No need to worry. Sometimes people beep because they’re impatient arseholes, not because you have done anything wrong.

Now that sounds dangerous as fuck and certainly illegal. If you can't merge and the slip road is running out, you stop. End of.

It's not incorrect advice as such, he was teaching you to be considerate to other road users and slightly adjust your speed to allow others to safely merge, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.. only slightly though, you shouldn't be affecting other road uses on the motorway.

In fairness though, the responsibility is 100% on the person joining to merge into a suitable gap by either slowing down or speeding up, ideally the people in the left lane should be able to carry on as they are and you to merge into an available space.

It sounds like the person in the left lane saw you hesitating so slowed down for you to merge in front, BUT instead of joining, you carried on slowing down too, it's a tricky situation, you should have put your foot down and gone in front, motorway slip roads are huge, so for you to reach the end and have to stop and still not merged you need to really think about what went wrong and how you would do it again, but to be honest it was as much his fault as yours, he should have just kept on going and let you do your thing, he essentially blocked you from joining.

It was 100% an inexperience thing, please don't let it put you off motorways, but for future reference, rather than a set speed, you should be aiming to do the same speed as the traffic on there to join, don't follow too close to the vehicle in front (less chance of a gap), get over to ride the white line as early as possible while indicating, spend a few seconds checking your mirrors and blind spot while adjusting your speed and you WILL get in, don't be afraid to put your foot down. It will become second nature after a while.

He's right, in that practically it's what everyone does to leave a gap big enough to merge if the motorway is busy. Technically the drivers on the motorway don't have to do that and if you can't merge in you would have to stop, but that puts you and everyone else on the slip road in a dangerous position. Most drivers aren't arseholes and will let you on. There's a lot of driving that is courteous rather than mandatory, it's also safer for the drivers already on the motorway to create a safe stopping distance from you before you merge on.

I'm not sure what went wrong for you when you tried to merge in. It might be worth booking a motorway driving lesson and let them know you want to practice merging in.

Something you’ll learn with experience is that you need to assume everyone else on the road doesn’t know what they’re doing and effectively drive for them as well. You should assume the car in front of you on that on slip might brake suddenly - they might have a sudden tyre blowout for example! - and then you need to be ready to adapt. If that means going around them on the hard shoulder to avoid a collision and use that as an extension to the slip road, then that’s what you’d have to do, but hopefully you’d have kept enough room between you and them to give yourself enough time to react.

You’re also better off assuming no-one is going to just let you on to the motorway, and you just pull out into a safe space in lane one - or continue in the same lane if the slip road becomes lane one (lots of people seem to be confused by this and move over unnecessarily). If someone behind you then chooses to move out to the next lane, that’s on them, as long as you’ve not pulled out straight into the side of them because you didn’t check your blind spot, for example!

However, you do need to make sure you’re better at judging the speed of other vehicles, as the Highway Code also states that you shouldn’t do anything to cause another vehicle to need to take evasive action. So if you are going down a slip road, no-one in front, you panic, slow right down, pull onto the motorway and cause someone to brake sharply, you would be at fault if there was a resultant collision.

Ultimately you need to improve your own confidence and experience, know that you cannot control other drivers and only yourself, not take other people’s poor driving personally, and drive defensively and assuming others are not going to be doing the best driving of their lives all the time! I passed my test nearly 30 years ago now and one of the best things I did shortly afterwards was an intensive day course with an IAM instructor which covered additional things not covered in standard lessons like experience on a skid pad. I don’t know if anything like Pass Plus still exists? You can see if something like this, a local course like the one I was able to do, or even just a few instructor-supported motorway lessons, are available local to you as this may be something you find beneficial.

You do most of your learning after you’ve passed your test! Welcome to real-world driving!!!

So many people join the motorway so slowly as if they are in 4th gear from 30mph and gently increasing speed..

Which bit? If you found yourself forced onto the hard shoulder what would you do next?

I mean, ideally this never happens - but it's preferable to forcing yourself out into the carriageway?

This has happened to me once in 35 years of driving.

He may have beeped because he couldn't pull out and the op was looking like she might drive into him by pulling out. The op is a fairly new driver and still learning and this is one of the trickier manoeuvres, it takes practice and sometimes it is difficult however experienced driver you are.

That’s wring

its up to the merging lane to get to speed and merge correctly and clearly. If you cause the left
oanr to slow then you did it wrong you should never ever make someone brake if you pull out or merge into them.

I love the inbred you get in stone countries (only where there are a lot of exits), where the slip lane for getting on turns into the slip road for getting off the next junction. So if you don't make it on, you just continue in the slip lane and try again after a roundabout, a junction on. No one ever has to stop it force their way on. Obviously not always practical here though.

the left lane had priority. So you’re the one who needs to make sure the merge is clear.

but shit happens. People beep and all sorts. So make sure you’re aware of the merge always.

Sliproads are long enough to easily get up to 60/70 which is what Id anticipate the motorway to be doing. You can usually see the traffic well in advance so you've got plenty of time to adjust. You should be eyeing up your gap essentially as early as possible

Of course its the decent thing to allow someone to merge, especially as I dont trust the merging car isn't just going to barrel into me. But equally I also wouldn't trust the motorway traffic is going to let me in and should never be expecting them to adjust their speed

"moto748e · Today 17:06
The OP did nothing wrong. Those who are saying, it's your responsibility to merge, that's all well and good, but slip lanes are only so long. if there's a constant stream of traffic in the nearside lane, and no-one pulls over or slows down, there may quite simply not be a gap. In the worst-case, you end up on the chevrons and stationary.When I'm on a motorway and approaching a slip-road, I always pull over into the middle lane if I safely can, that's just courteous driving."

@Nooooope - I agree with this and please do not worry about it. Driving into a stream of traffic is difficult and much better to pause at the end of a slip road than risk a crash. The driver behind you doesn't have the same view of the road as you do so you have to make your own judgment, which you did. It would have been much more dangerous to pull out in uncertain circumstances so you took the safer course. Do not give it a second thought.