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!

Sometimes I do think we should have to retake our driving test periodically. I mean it would be expensive but round here we have some terrible drivers. Lane hogging, not knowing how to merge, driving far under the speed limit (and before anyone comes out with the "it's a limit not a target" BS, you fail your test for not getting up to the speed limit if it's safe to do so).

So many ignorant dangerous drivers on here.

Stay left unless overtaking.

The rules are very, very clear. If you are a middle lane hogger you cause danger to those having to manoeuvre around you. You slow up the two outside lanes as other cars have to go around you.

Book some motorway driving lessons, learn to drive properly, by trying to anticipate what others will do, and using your god dammed brain.

Your laziness (and that's exactly what it is) makes motorways more dangerous for other users. Grow up and sort yourself out.

Even more annoying on A road and everyone trundling along at 30mph for bloody miles and absolutely nowhere to overtake…these drivers cause accidents!

It's the people who drive at 40mph through a 50mph limit and then continue at 40mph through a 30mph limit. I suppose these are our middle lane drivers...it is all becoming a lot clearer this evening!

I think there’s a difference between middle lane hogging and spending much of your journey in lane 2. I often drive on the M6, between Stafford and Birmingham at different times. The junctions are mainly close together, it’s unlikely I will get over into the inside lane at rush hour except on entering and exiting. However at midnight it’s usually quite empty (except the roadworks and lane closures), so I will keep left but often come across someone pootling along at 50 in the middle lane so it’s a choice of either cross two lanes or undertake. That stretch is mainly lit as well.

Ah 40/40 drivers. Absolutely guaranteed to be middle lane hoggers too

Totally unaware of anything outside themselves.

This is why I love US freeways as you can happily undertake but I think some Brits would find them a bit lawless!

I wonder if lots of people don't actually realise its the law/rules. Like the way people older than me seem to join roundabouts in a different way to how I was taught.

and before anyone comes out with the "it's a limit not a target" BS, you fail your test for not getting up to the speed limit if it's safe to do so
I hate that limit not a target bollocks. It's both, and it is by no means contradictory to call it so.

And yes the always 40 people are just shit drivers. Is it laziness, or incompetence or both?

No @carpool - courteous driving would have been to already have been in a left hand lane as you clearly didn't need to be in the far right as you weren't overtaking, before the faster driver came up behind you. Now you have caused that car to brake whilst he waited to see if the hogger in front would move over, causing the person behind him to break a little harder, and so on all the way back until 50 cars back the traffic is at a standstill because some morons were in overtaking lanes whilst not overtaking.
Do you know whenever the traffic has been at a standstill for ages, and you suddenly move again and you think - but what, there was no accident, why were we at a standstill - that is, pretty must entirely, caused by the hoggers of the middle and right lanes.

If I'm going to speed limit in the middle lane why is anyone overtaking me? They should be going the speed limit too.

Are you going at exactly the speed limit the whole time though? Cos that's not what hoggers do. They go exactly the same speed as the car in front, whatever that may be.
So, 3 cars in a row, in the middle, going at 65. Driver in the left coming up at 70. Has to cross all 3 lanes to overtake, and back again. Whereas if the 3 cars doing 65 were all in the left where they should be, the 70 car only needs to cross 1 lane to overtake.

Same. I do move back over but probably spend most of my time in the middle lane just because of the amount of traffic (M6)

I also move over at slip roads to let people join after an incident where I was joining and some dick towing a caravan deliberately blocked me from joining with the flow of traffic) I had tried to match speed and time etc but he thought it was funny)
It's the only time I've ever had to stop on a slip road when driving because it wasn't safe to merge

Vehicles approaching a slip road should move over to the middle lane to let you in.

@Burnamer @OnSusansFloor you're both the very reason fatal accidents happen regularly.

I think not everyone in this thread has the same definition of middle lane hogger.

Motorway driving standards have massively deteriorated in the last 10 - 15 years - it's really noticeable if you live abroad and come back to the UK annually and seems to get worse every year. The left hand lane of a motorway is the default lane for everyone unless it becomes the exit. Driving should be active not passive but many try and make it as passive as possible. Cruise control and all the technology in cars won't help. We were shopping for a new car at least 10 years ago and were told you could set everything and then basically read a book. No, you should actually pay attention to what's going on around you.

Burnamer · Today 21:43
But that only makes sense if the slow lane is actually faster than the middle lane - which it generally isn’t. If it was, I’d be in it”

How many times do you need to be told that it’s not the “slow lane”?

Accept what you’re being told by lots of people. You are a dangerous driver and should probably take some motorway driving lessons.

Now I need to know what the different ways to join a roundabout are!

What annoys me though, is when you're going along in the left lane, quite happily, and an extra lane is created to your left. So you move over, and carry on driving. A couple of miles down the road that suddenly becomes a peal off lane for an exit – so you have to pull back out again. A little bit further along the road and a new left hand lane appears, so you pull back into it… And repeat.

Why can't they just make up their minds how many lanes there is going to be on any given stretch of the road?

But that's just what driving is. The driver needs to watch the road and react to the changes in road layout - whether that's lanes disappearing, extra lanes being added, lanes closed owing to accidents or roadworks, slip roads to junctions coming up etc.

A car is not like a tram where you just press a button to go and another to stop - this is why you have to pass a driving test, to make sure that you can cope with standard driving! You wouldn't just drive through town and get to a T-junction, and then just plough on ahead into a hedge or a house instead of turning left or right, complaining that, instead of a complex infrastructure taking account of many, many factors, we should just have one long continuous straight road!

If I'm going to speed limit in the middle lane why is anyone overtaking me? They should be going the speed limit too.

That's as maybe, but it is your job to drive safely, legally and courteously - in a way that isn't likely to foster road rage - and it is the police's job to deal with other drivers who are driving illegally.

In fact, if you act as the self-appointed traffic police and mutter "Well, they shouldn't be going over the speed limit anyway", you may well find that it is the police on an emergency call whom you hold up - and if you do that, be prepared for them to charge you with dangerous driving and give you points on your licence.

Except it IS a slow lane. Even if it is not a Highway Code definition, it is de facto a slow lane. Pretending it isn't is disingenuous.

Only more sensible to you. Otherwise your way is completely ridiculous & reduces the motorway to 2 or even 1 lane as undertaking is illegal.

Please drive on the left.

Coming from an overseas perspective, the rule seems very odd, and not very practical.

If you say you don't want to drive in "the slow lane", you are being stupid. There is no such lane.

Maybe we're talking about different kinds of motorway. I drive almost entirely on busy roads at peak times- the left two lanes are all full and the left lane generally has a steady flow at well under the limit. It's rarely possible to cross back into it. There's way too much traffic for one lane.

It's the knob heads that sit in lane 2 and are not overtaking lane 1 traffic though. If they aren't overtaxing, they shouldn't be out there.