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!

@OnSusansFloor welcome to the dark side! Although I think zoning out and staying by mistake is different (and I’m going to say worse 😜) than making a conscious decision.
either way - good to have you on side. I’m otherwise not very popular on this thread!

Surely if you're driving faster than the 1st lane you're overtaking - and not mindlessly driving in the middle lane which was the point of the thread?
I'm afraid I still think you sound moronic though

@OnSusansFloor you should not be behind the wheel of a killing machine, you are not a fit driver. Send us your license plate and I will report you to the DVLA. Fucking hell, I don’t know if you’re all doing the funny ‘me and my shit driving routine’ but if not, you should not be allowed on the roads.

@Oneborneverydecade I’m generally in the middle lane and staying there, as a conscious decision, because it’s faster. Does that not count? Maybe I’m not the hooligan I’ve described myself to be?

why am I still moronic though?

My FIL does it, because “he doesn’t need to change lanes to let someone in who’s merging” 🤦🏼‍♀️ He’s very slow driver, so he’s one of those who hog middle lane.

Okay .... I'll bite.... if I am driving at 70 (ie speed limit), and there is a lot of traffic in the left hand lane, so jumping in and out doesn't really work, I will stay in the middle lane until the left lane opens out.

It is true that I believe no one should be driving above the speed limit, so this makes sense to me ie no one should be driving faster than me. This is a much more important rule I think.

And yes, lots of people do still overtake me, and that does make me despair.

A zoned out driver in the middle lane driving at 75 to 80mph - bloody hell what could possibly go wrong - you cannot be serious.

Yes, but if I do that another lorry comes into view and when I want to get back into the middle lane it's full of cars who don't pull into the left lane! Catch 22

I just don't understand it, there the junctions are miles apart, there is signage mile before any lane feeding into the motorway takes place. There is ample time for drivers to move over a lane to ensure any traffic joining can join.

Exception being if its incredibly busy on the motorway and no room to move over.

Even when its dead quiet I always move over to the second lane when I see those signs to give those drivers joining a safe way to join.

There is nothing dangerous about moving lanes, unless your a shit driver in that case surrender your licence please.

No, because you are an arse, and a deliberate arse, who is putting our children at risk. Kill your own children through your stupid driving, just not ours.

I used to for the first couple of months when I first started driving, because I didn't have the confidence to overtake, particularly lorries, particularly in my woefully underpowered first car. So I would either sit behind the slowest lorry at 45mph sweating as I saw lorries behind me approaching in my rear view mirror, or sit in the middle lane going past all the lorries but not pulling into the inside lane between each one. It didn't take too long before I gained the confidence to stop doing it but I remember persuading myself that if I could see a lorry in front of me, I was intending to overtake and that was what really counted.

You know what really helped me though? It was the beneficence of the Good Drivers who would kindly drive right up my exhaust pipe, lean on their horn and flash their lights. Immense confidence booster right there.

The other thing you can do if you're a more experienced driver is to drive up the inside of the offending lane hogger until you're almost bumper to bumper, then swerve out aggressively behind them, overtake by a clear half inch and then yank your vehicle violently across two lanes into the inside lane to show them where they should be. A demonstration of such skills will never fail to set a good example.

i had it today-this was 5 in the morning one car sitting there and refused to move had to cross over then back into lane one

drives me nuts

Unfortunately an extremely common experience (probably universal) for healthcare workers. And people wonder why they want better working conditions!

Why? If you are in the 'slow' lane doing 70 why would you need to overtake someone in the middle lane, presumably also doing 70?

You shouldn’t be on the roads either.

can all you middle lane drivers tell me where you live so i can avoid the area

Depends how quickly you want them to,pull back in.

The left lane is rarely free for very long before you approach another lorry.
Some of the desperation to get back in the left to the point of nearly causing accidents just so you don't get called names is ridiculous.
If you are overtaking a vehicle every min or 2 then you are best staying put.

You are assuming that all those middle lane hoggers are driving at 70 - in many cases they are not

Amen. It’s terrifying. All I will say is that if you (meaning the terrible drivers here) killed my kids through your shitty motorway driving, I would haunt you and yours down the generations. There would be no peace of mind for you.

I am proudly a middle lane hogger.

I'm not a bad driver or thoughtless or ignorant. It is a deliberate choice because it makes the most sense.

You're all saying middle lane hogging is bad because it causes undertaking. This is missing an important step - sitting in the middle lane while driving under the speed limit causes undertaking but that isn't implied!

It's ridiculous to expect everyone to stay in the inside lane on a 3-lane highway. I agree that keeping the rightmost lane relatively free is sensible but not all crowding up in one lane and popping in and out on principle.

The way highways actually generally work with 3 lanes is
Lane 1: generally cars going slower than speed limit for whatever reason. Lorries, older cars, less confident drivers, people merging in and out of slip lanes.
Lane 2: people driving more or less at the speed limit. You have a responsibility IMO to drive pretty much on the speed limit in this lane or at least as fast as general traffic if there are bad conditions forcing traffic speed slower.
Lane 3: overtaking lane for the occasional person going a bit slower, and/or containment zone for idiots going way over the limit

No undertaking results in this scenario...

If you want to avoid constantly crossing two lanes to overtake people and this is a real problem for you I have a wild idea... try driving in the middle lane ;)

None of this makes sense. If it's so dangerous to overtake someone in the middle lane then, um, don't?
Are you operating on the assumption that someone in the middle lane is doing 50, you (the perfect MN driver) is in the left lane doing 70? Why do you need to overtake them?
Also the reality is, the slow lane is used by lorries and caravans, and people exiting at the next slip road. The 'fast' lane is used by fucking lunatics doing well over the speed limit. This may not be per the Highway Code but It's what happens. I have done thousand of miles on the M3, M4, M25 by the way. I stick to the rules but I'm not getting stuck behind 14 fucking lorries and a horse box to prove a point.

I live in a country where it's compulsory to have a lesson on the motorway and a lesson on night driving even before sitting on the test.
It does not stop the middle lane hoggers.
I think one of the problems where I live is that there are so many lorries on the roads that people end up in the middle lane for ages as they are overtaking lorries all the time and then they just don't bother going back into the right hand lane. And possibly concerned about not being able to get back out again into the middle lane because of middle lane hoggers.... in other words people hog the middle lane because other people do because they don't want to get stuck behind lorries and not able to get out cos of middle lane hoggers. It's a never ending cycle of hogging.
I have a friend who told me she and her husband drove to Vienna (3 hours away) and it was a really nice drive because they just drove in the middle lane all the time so didn't have any stress with lorries!!! I can just imagine them pootling along on their nice trip out to Vienna, merrily ignoring lorries in the right hand lane and oblivious to people behind them in the middle lane needing to overtake in the outside lane.

These are the drivers who get in the middle lane, set cruise control [you can tell because they’re often 1-5mph under the speed limit and never brake for miles on end], turn their radios up and settle in.

They’re too timid to overtake. They panic when their exit approaches. I’ve seen people eating, texting, wildly gesticulating and looking at their passenger for far too long, applying make up - the works.

They have no idea of the impact of their actions on other people. Few do.

Drives me bonkers!!!! Theres a special place in hell for such people, right next to those that don't indicate!

Listened to a debate on the radio about this a while ago and one bloke phoned in insisting he was in the right to stick to the middle lane.
He said if he were to have a blow out or an issue in his lane, he wanted to be sure he could move in to another lane and not go down a ditch at the side or in to the central reservation.
Seemed to completely pass him by that instead of moving on to the hardhoulder, he could potentially be moving in to another fast moving lane of traffic!