Stressful incident on motorway, scared

It is not up to the driver in the main carriageway to do anything, the merging car is responsible for gauging speed and safety and adjusting so they merge safely into the main flow of traffic. It’s dangerous to think that cars have to speed up or slow down to accommodate merging cars, they don’t.

If you can't go faster, you should drop your speed slightly and merge in behind him.

The responsibility to merge is that of the car doing the merging, not the responsibility of those already on the motorway.

Having said that, we all make mistakes, especially when new to driving! Use it as a learning opportunity, but definitely don't dwell on it 🙂

You did fine, OP, given the person in front had slowed down and the guy in the near side lane clearly wasn’t a good driver. Yes, the onus is on the person merging to do so safely (which you did your best with under the circumstances), but good drivers pay attention and slack off or speed up a bit (or change lanes if safe) as necessary to facilitate people joining. And by and large if they’ve left a safe distance between themselves and the car in front, there should be room for one car to merge into, after which they should slack off to reopen the appropriate gap.

Weve all been there when new to driving, perhaps misjudged a situation and learned from it. Usually people slow to let you on a slip road but not always so you need to be prepared for them not to. This sounds like a situation that wasn’t easy to predict given the braking in front, but I guess you should always be leaving enough room that someone breaking isn’t an issue. Someone beeping doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done something terrible though, it often is just a reflection of how irritable and impatient the beeper is!

I was just about to say this.

@Badbadbunny your summary is not what the article says 😬

Why was he beeping when you were slowing down, presumably prepared to stop at the end of the sliproad? Maybe he was expecting you to still merge but he should have slowed and flashed his lights or moved over if this was the case. There are real dicks on the motorway, eg I once overtook this guy who then started to speed up as I was overtaking. I finally managed to get in in front of him, and could see him in my rearview mirror (so wasn't too close, although he was gassing it and speeding up) and was met with a barrage of beeping as I pulled back in. Then, about 10 miles later on, he overtook me and leaned on the horn as he passed me, apparently in 'revenge' for the previous event. Bizarre.

It's because you expected the driver already on the motorway to make way for you rather than you join safely.

Your link goes to a confused.com page that doesn't say anything like your post. Is that an AI summary of a Google search?

Her driving wasn't extremely crap, the car in front of her braked which made it much more difficult for her to merge

Oh yes loads, but I recognise that I have. My concern is your belief and that of other posters that safe merging is the responsibility of those already on the motorway.

That's why I suggested that a motorway lesson might be helpful to you.

To be fair you started a thread about extremely crap and dangerous driving in AIBU 🤷‍♀️

I'm not sure it's goody and rude to point out that a PP's advice was totally incorrect and the opposite of what people should actually do.

I didn’t say the man was required to do so (I’m aware the Highway Code says it’s not mandatory) BUT the majority of people are considerate and will move over or adjust their speed to allow people to merge. The selfishness is one of the biggest issues with British motorways these days.

Did no one read that the driver in front of her slowed down, was she supposed to keep up her speed and barrel into him? It sounds like 2 slightly nervous, inexperienced drivers and as they did both join the motorway safely, there is no reason to call people shit drivers. It sounds like there are some impatient drivers who need a bit of retraining in keeping their mind on the situation in front of them, and not on how much cleverer they are than others.

Don't worry op no one will report you. The person in front of you shouldn't have braked and the person in the left lane really should have recognised that you had nowhere else to go. Don't dwell on it, some people love an excuse for a good honk.

Literally the opposite of how it should work. Does anyone bother to know how to drive correctly?

Really don't worry. I'm on the motorway a great deal. I once was in the fast lane merging, which has a short run up. I was running out of road and I couldn't just stop, so snuck into a little gap. A lorry driver beeped at me. It really put me off a bit for a while, but as others have said, the lorry driver could have let me on, by flashing. It's very hard to judge the speed.

I personally move over at every junction as there's usually multiple cars joining or flash people when they want to overtake.
I do find if driving on a motorway at the weekend, there are less experienced people and today, loads of little incidences happen. Just ensure you look around constantly and lookout for the bad drivers. Get back to driving and perhaps use the long lane that let's you merge further along the motorway. You'll be fine 🙂

Yeah it's your job to join safely op not those on the motorway to get out your way. Learn how to use motorways please