Stressful incident on motorway, scared

If you are unable to merge onto a motorway without everyone moving out of the way you shouldn’t be driving, simple as.

Not on motorways, A roads can be more difficult.

Interestingly I was listening to some psychologist talking about driving behaviour. He talked about men (specifically) not giving way - in many situations. And how it's a sort of sign of their lack of confidence / beta style personality. They'd be the sort of person to bring people down, not raise them up etc. Makes sense. For women too but it's usually men.

Who is going to report you, for what and to whom? If everyone who beeped someone when they were driving reported the (to the police?) there'd be hundreds of thousands of reports a day and the police would not care less. So don't worry. Unfortunately driving's like this now, where there used to be courtesy (or pulling over from the left lane when people are merging) there is now just entitlement and aggressiveness. You'll need a thick skin, sadly.

We don't mean M-way traffic at a standstill or crawling. That's just slightly tedious and not scary at all. We mean motorway traffic trapping along at 60 or 70 ridiculously tight together and drivers either oblivious to the plight of the would-be merger, or realising that there are slipway mergers but so stubborn that they will not slacken an inch, or have someone so far up their arse that they literally cannot slacken enough quickly enough to create any gap, or worst of all the arsehole men adding to their wank bank by cat and mousing the merging woman.

All off a short slip road that is perhaps round a curve and up a bit of an incline for most of the way so the sight lines are not great, with the next cars coming up it doing and least 50 and accelerating. I know you are meant to stop on the slip road but that's dangerous and you have zero chance of getting a gap from a standing start to 70 so you are going to foul up a motorway roundabout in rush hour till the traffic cops come to sort it out.

My plan B, which I never had to enact, was to continue onto the start of the hard shoulder then if nobody realised really quickly "oh shit that poor girl is stuffed" and made it really obvious that they were creating a gap for me to edge into (whilst checking that nobody in the other M-way lane thinks oh goodie , a gap for to slot into to get off at the next junction!), hazards on, slow down smoothly, get clear of the junction so that of the same happened to another slip road car they weren't into the back of me, come to a halt with the wheels turned into the side a bit so a shunt wouldn't push the car into 70mph traffic, climb out the passenger grabbing coat and phone on the way, get up the bank and look up the number to call for when you are stuck on the hard shoulder. Came close a couple of times though.

European motorways I've been on have arrows/markings to direct/suggest to those people already on the motorway more from the 'slow' lane to the middle lane - thus making it easier and safer for those to join.

Good idea - something we should adopt here.

If the hard shoulder is clear you can carry on on that and merge as soon as you can behind the person whose car is blocking you from getting on. I was told it's much better/safer to carry on at a decent speed on the hard shoulder than completely stop at the end of the slip road.

We've all done it. Even those of us driving for decades. Sometimes things don't align. Sometimes people on the motorway aren't helpful in allowing people onto the motorway (we have a super short gap between junctions in a place I go regularly and people don't want to move over and get stuck in the middle lane when they want the immediate next junction).

But importantly don't panic and don't think you're the only one it's ever happened to. Making a mistake and learning from it makes you a better driver. Ignore the sanctimonious pricks who hyperventilate at the idea a stranger made a mistake and asked for advice to prevent it happening again.

There’s no such thing as a slow lane, just two overtaking lanes.

It sounds like you did the right thing and you avoided an accident so try not to worry about it.

Agreed especially as it seems an alarming number of people replying here clearly have no idea of the Highway Code themselves.

I’ve been driving for many years now I was I think 18 when I passed so I’ll let you do the maths! Merging onto motorways is all about confidence - you know you can get lessons for motorways driving ?

Basic motorway common sense requires drivers already on the road to be aware at sliproads and adjust to merging traffic, if you can move/speed up or slow down, do so.
Most of us presume that other drivers will have enough awareness/skill to make room.
Is that not how you drive?

I had similar situation and also ended up having to stop at end of slip rd - really spooked me. Never happened to me before in many years of driving and hopefully won’t again.
I know how you feel. Ignore any unhelpful comments

Congratulations on passing your test, have you done the Pass Plus post-test course that includes motorway lessons?
Or asking your driving instructor for a single lesson solely on motorway driving?

this driving instructors video is good for merging onto slip roads,

I would just take this as a life lesson OP. I've been driving more than 20 years and was merging on to the motorway last week while a car was blocking me getting onto the motorway despite the lane next to them being empty and I ended up having to slow down until they passed. Luckily the car behind me was aware and let me into the lane. You think because you're new you're the one making a mistake but there are plenty of shit drivers out there.
I chased up to that car and saw they were of course distracted with a phone or changing music.

This is definitely something you should be aware of since you passed recently. Your instructor would (should) have taught you that those on the motorway/dual carriageway have right of way. You have to match the speed of the traffic. The people in the left lane absolutely don't have to move over for you despite what half the population seems to think. Yes people could move over if it's safe to do so but you absolutely should not be reliant on that happening.

They do the same when coming off motorways where they split into another one (M6/M42 in this case). Boils my piss when people drop down all of a sudden to 40mph - you’re still on a motorway, what are you doing.

Ex instructor here - it sounds as if you did exactly what you needed to do.

@Nooooope I got to the end of the slip road and the car in the left lane didn't slow down enough, I felt there would have been a collision if I'd merged or I would've severely cut him up.
I panicked so I just braked at the end of the slip road which was becoming the hatching, he gave me a long beep and I then quickly merged as he'd slowed down, nothing happened but I don't know what else I could've done.

If he had enough space to brake hard to let you merge in front, that means that actually, you had plenty of space to merge in the first place.

So I don't think your assessment that you didn't have space to merge in is correct. You could have easily maintained a constant speed and merged in.

Unfortunately, the roads are full of dopes who think solely in terms of "my right of way."

They don't react to hazards or potential hazards in any way, and then they pretend to act surprised whenever they have a collision.

Common sense dictates that if a car is in front and has its right indicator on, then it's going to try to merge... and that it's best to decelerate slightly to mitigate the risk of collision. But most drivers don't have common sense.

Sounds like you got ‘boxed in’ and ran out of space. Don’t worry. Everyone gets stuff like this.

Don’t let it put you off.

The important thing is you managed the situation.

Don't worry about some blokes in particular are horn happy. It's unnerving first time it happens but you'll learn to ignore as you get better at judging speed.

I had a guy blast me on the m66 and he'd committed 4 offences just before and after the blast.

My local a road is notorious for speeders someone's just been jailed for doing 155mph. The countdown for the junction I exit at starts before the previous slip road joins the road so it impossible to move out and back in without mission the junction.

My youngster is still having motorway lessons etc even though she has passed her test. We don't have a car.

Honking is the punctuation of driving. You were merging, got beeped at, and you're taking it way too seriously.

I got stressed out when my horn was broken.