If you drive in the middle lane, hogging it, when there is absolutely no need to - why?

[hell091727]

Please stop driving on the motorway and go re-read the Highway Code.

It is dangerous, lazy, and completely disrupts the flow of the traffic.

I have just driven 200 miles and the amount of drivers who just don’t know how to drive is astonishing. And the motorway wasn’t even busy!

Ah Margot

Sorry won't interact with you again, having accidentally stumbled on your name on some other threads now

No. I just drive outside of my local stretch of motorway so have experienced a wide variety of driving conditions.

clearly you haven’t

There are no 'slow' or 'fast' lanes. Undertaking is a deliberate manoeuvre using an inside lane to accelerate past other vehicles. If you are in the inside lane at legal speed and the traffic in your lane is moving faster then lanes to the right, that is not undertaking and is perfectly legal.

Oh, are you a teacher by any chance?

An eternal question! Wish people would stop it.

It's not just the motorway though. What about the 40mph roads you get with 2 lanes, and the right lane is being hogged by someone intent on doing 33, while the buses and lorries do about the same in the left, so everyone ends up bunched up around 30mph in a 2-lane 40 zone 🙄

Well there's no point continuing this exchange because we will soon be in, "I know you are, you said you are, so what am I then?" territory.

This thread is really interesting as I never realised how many people do not know the rules of motorway driving or think they know better. For those saying that the first lane is busy with slow moving lorries, if that is true, then you are actually overtaking them, so are using middle lane correctly, but only if you then pull in if there is a space.
Where this goes wrong is where you then decide that the middle lane is your preferred lane, so you continue to drive there even when the first lane is empty. Often on three lane motorways, the first lane is practically empty but to get back to it, you have to over or undertake the middle lane hoggers.
For all those of you who think you know better than the highway code, you are actual breaking the law, and the law was made by people who understand more about the dangers of driving than you do.
If your driving skills are so poor that you struggle to pull in and out of lanes using your mirrors and indicators, I would suggest you stay off motorways for a while. With regards pulling into middle lane when a sliproad is joining the motorway, that is okay once you are close to sliproad if it is very busy, but you can also stay in lane and adjust your speed to let a car join. It is their job to find a space and there is a way of managing your speed to facilitate this safely. There will always be slip roads but they are not a reason to sit in middle lane.

*than

It sounds like you’ve been there for 20 years already.

after all - you know better than everyone 🤥

Actually slip roads are a very good reason why this rule is stupid.

The rule should be:

Left hand lane: lorries, slow vehicles, people entering and joining.

Middle lane: most people driving at normal speed.

Right hand lane: overtaking.

Margot is a troll or a kid. Not somebody who understands how to drive.

I am a safe and experienced driver. I can anticipate and mitigate most risks using my common sense. One risk I can't mitigate is the risk that I run out of slip road before there is space to join the road, which is a real problem where I live. That's one of the things which leads me to believe that this rule is actually nonsensical.

I can assure you @MargotBamborough, you are not a safe driver.

What other rules will these numpties decide not to follow or don’t apply to them? Red traffic lights? Zebra crossing? “Not for me” they cry as the career of leaving the baffled and angry in their wake “I’ve not had an accident in 20 years”…

They career off

You can assure me of nothing of the kind, having never seen me drive.

I really can't believe that people think they know better than the Highway Code ..... I didn't think I could still be shocked by people's stupidity having worked with the general public for 25 years but this tread is shocking.
Even if you think you know better, the majority of drivers aren't following what you thinks best, they are following the actual rules so you are causing issues, if not accidents.
This thread makes me want to hang my head against the wall ......some people are just dicks

There are people who manage to be incredibly dangerous drivers despite never breaking a single rule. Such as the ones who drive slightly below the speed limit on single carriageway roads and then tut at the people who overtake them in exasperation. I bet we've got a few of those on here.

@margotbamborough you may not have been in an accident but I'm absolutely sure you've nearly caused a few. You are one of the drivers who is oblivious to other drivers passing you shaking their heads thinking you are a twat.
You really believe you know a better way to drive?!

Then you’re applying your own local situation too widely. Most slip roads do not have this problem most of the time.
In the last big thread on this topic someone complained about drivers indiscriminately switching to the middle when a slip road comes up rather than taking account of the actual situation on it. I realised I was guilty of this so since then I have been making a big effort to actually look at what is on the slip road and respond more intelligently instead of automatically and have been amazed to discover how often there is absolutely no need to move over.

I can tell you really want this to be true, but it's not.

I think there will ve a difference in experience between those who primarily use motorways passing through / close to urban areas, and those who primarily use motorways going long distances cross country.

Where junctions, motorway splits etc happen very frequently on an urban stretch of motorway - M6 round Birmingham, the motorway through Glasgow, the section of the M4/M5 near Bristol, sone sections of the M25 for example - then the frequency of slip roads, lanes going to different places and the heaviness and lorry density of the traffic means that driving in a middle lane through these sections is a reasonable response to the driving conditions at many times of day, as you are almost always overtaking something and the inside lane is very full.

Continuing this behaviour on cross-country sections with junctions and traffic much more widely spaced - for example the M6 from Birmingham across to the M1, or much of the M5 or M40 - is obviously wrong, because slip roads are much rarer, there are usually gaps on the inside lane, the overall speed of the motorway is much faster and thus there is no excuse for anyone to lurk in the middle lane with their cruise control set at 68.

Almost as if changing lanes more often than necessary is dangerous, huh.

Whilst on certain roads, at certain times, this might seem a sensible approach, the problem is that if you make it the rule of how you drive, or I sit in the middle lane because I like lots of space around me and don't want to pull in and out all the time, this becomes dangerous in other conditions.
I do a fair bit of driving on motorways and literally every time, even when I am a passenger, I end up enraged at the people sitting in middle lane. If the first lane was busy, and they were driving faster than those vehicles( or overtaking) , I would not be enraged at all as that would be correct. This is seldom the car with middle lane drivers. Usually the lane to their left is empty for long stretches. The reason I rant, out loud, is to ensure that my 3 teen-agers, (one of whom is already driving and the other 2 will start soon,) understand the rules of motorway driving and can clearly see the idiots who ignore the rules and create danger for the rest of us, and not just danger but delays and false traffic jams and everything else that can happen as a result of not properly using all the lanes at all times.
Just try and think of all but the first lane being there for overtaking. Just try it once and see how you get on.

The exit for junction 7 (clockwise) is the first one that springs to mind.... but there are plenty.