Stressful incident on motorway, scared

No it’s not, the onus is on the person merging not the person already established.

If the person slows down then it could cause issues behind them on the motorway

Oh I feel for you, I think everyone has their rare moments with this even years into driving you can see someone is slowing or speeding up and then they change tack and its scary! Dont be too hard on yourself, Everyone is OK, nothing bad happened. Thats all that matters xx

No he shouldn’t - slowing down could have caused problems behind him and been dangerous. Onus is on the OP to merge safely - priority is to the person already established

Sadly, you are correct. Some people are somewhat lacking 😕

Well if your being tailgated at 90mph, then your also doing at least this speed ... on a slip road???

You said "you'd stopped lots of times on sliproads", I asked if you meant motorways, you didn't answer and then you asked if I'd ever experienced motorways that are crawling or at a standstill.. which is completely irrelevant to the discussion.. you aren't being clear about what you meant

If you are frequently coming to a stop at the end of a motorway sliproad while it is flowing normally after failing to merge then you are absolutely doing something wrong, surely you know that?

Motorway slip roads are designed for exactly that purpose, they have minimum length design standards. Some are shorter now than before, but all are designed for even a clapped out old car to reach 70mph before joining.

Unfortunately a lot of people drive way too close on the motorway, so they don't leave a decent gap for joining traffic to merge into. I don't think they deserve the moral high ground for having 'priority'.

OP with practice you get better at judging the traffic and adjusting your speed to merge in. Most of the time it just works. Don't worry about being beeped at, just move on. Maybe practice on some dual carriageways.

My very next response after you asked used the word motorway, so I didn’t “not answer” that point. My original comment wasn’t being made to you and I don’t really understand why you’re trying to argue with me.

Sometimes the motorway is too busy with traffic too close together to get into a gap (especially if nobody makes one in any of the ways they potentially could). Sometimes it’s moving slowly and there are no gaps at all. I don’t routinely not manage to join motorways that are moving smoothly with adequate gaps. I don’t know why you’re implying there is anything wrong with me for simply saying I was surprised that there are posters who have never had to stop on a slip road.

Anyway, seeing as you simply seem to want to argue for no reason and make statements that are not at all true, I won’t be responding to you again.

Now I know why those merging are seemingly intent on crashing into the side of me.

Or you could move over and let them in?

What if you can't? Vehicles behind, vehicles in lane 2.

We drive a slow vehicle, we're usually found pootling along with the trucks in lane 1 - they of course are limited to 56mph. We had someone drive at us in exactly this way very recently. We could do nothing, we can't physically speed up, we had a truck close behind us and traffic outside of us in lane 2, yet presumably the same as many posters on this thread, the joining vehicle expected us to magic ourselves out of the way. There was a gap in front of us, we always sit back from the vehicle ahead - the joining vehicle needed to speed up and join safely ahead of us rather than driving at us.

There isn't really anything for debate. As has been said in many posts - it is for the joining vehicle to join safely into a gap. Vehicles on the major road (MWay or dual carriageway) may be able to move over or adjust their speed safely to assist the joining vehicle but it isn't their responsibility.

I didn’t reply to you.

A slip road is basically a junction. You should be matching your speed to slip into the stream of traffic but if you can't, then you may have to brake or stop altogether when in rush hour.
Do you have P plates on? May make others more forgiving or give you a wider berth?
I did pass plus after I'd passed my driving test and that helped a lot. Also having a black box fitted still counts on my Admiral insurance more than a decade later.

Edited to say the black box was only in the car for the first year. (while you are still driving more carefully)

"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"

Basic common sense would be to follow the highway code and realise that merging safely is the responsibility of the merging driver.

As evidenced by the thread too many people are unaware of basic driving rules.

If the motorway is quiet or traffic is busy and slow then yes people adjust speed or move over but this is a courtesy not an entitlement, and moving over a lane is not always possible. so many people failing to accelerate properly to match the speed of established traffic because they seem to expect established traffic to facilitate their merging.

If you are trying to merge drivers on the motorway changing speed can make it harder to do so. The joining driver may decide to slow slightly to merge into a gap behind a car in lane 1 who then also decides to slow as a courtesy so the gap disappears.

I've been behind cars on a slip road who slowed to a near stop in this situation.

This is not always possible if the motorway is busy.

There is no “slow lane” and 70 in lane 1 is perfectly acceptable.

@Nooooope well done, and you'll keep getting better at handling challenging or less than ideal situations.

Yep, because that is a safe speed for them to avoid sudden braking and potential snaking because of it. Again, you need to adapt to what's around you.

I've often thought I'd hate to actually stop on the slip lane after not being able to merge on properly, as I'd hate to have to accelerate from 0 to 70mph in the space of a few seconds..!😫😬😳 Thankfully in all my years driving, I have never had to do this!

Middle lane hogging is generally due to the 'slow lane' thickos

OP I just wanted to say try not to worry yourself too much - slip roads can take a bit of getting used to but they almost always work out fine.

I think you just had bad luck with the car in front slowing down (and the trailer today!).

Although it was scary, you dealt with the situation (as did the driver already on the motorway even if he was grumpy about it) and you managed to merge safely.

Ignore the posters on here who are like "OMG so dangerous, everyone should be able to drive perfectly in all situations from day 1 of driving". You clearly weren't being reckless, you're just a relatively new driver dealing with a tricky situation. I think motorway driving is a lot less stressful than city driving once you've had a bit of practice. So don't let it put you off. Good luck

One more piece of advice, both for the motorway and the slip road - try and always keep a decent gap in front of you. This just gives more time for dealing with things and makes everything a bit safer. If someone moves into the space, just gradually drop back at little.

What do you mean? When I come across middle lane hoggers, (normally when I have to go around them then back to lane one after passing them), there is absolutely nothing in lane one.