How to overtake when you’re all going the same speed!

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

I’m going a lot of motorway driving this week. Three/four lane motorway. Average speed cameras the length of it. Don’t want to be a middle lane wanker so trying to move lanes as one should. However the left hand lane is lorries and anxious people. The middle lane is a convoy of cars cruise controlled at 70. Over taking lane is either empty or another car doing 70, nose to nose with the middle lane wanker or occasionally used by someone flying down at 80 with, I assume, false plates.

what’s the etiquette here? Do I try and sit in the left lane and go out into the middle lane every 30 secs to overtake and go back in? Do I join the convoy in the middle or do I accelerate over 70 in the overtaking lane to get in front of the dude doing 67?

When it's like that I tend to stay in the left lane and match the speed of the traffic in my lane.

So you stay in the far left and drive at 50?

67/70 is probably down to the slight inaccuracies in speedometers (the other car's might be more accurate than yours) so just cruise along in the middle lane

It'll make no material distance to your journey time, even if yours was the accurate speedo - I hour at 3mph (the difference you cite) is an extra 3 miles to cover at the end of the hour ie 2.7 minutes.

I’m happy to do exactly that, but the expectation is that you shouldn’t sit in the middle lane doing 70. Even watched a recent police video where they were suggesting the correct etiquette was constantly lane changing.

Stay left unless overtaking. So if you have to come in and out then do it, don't just sit in the middle because it's more "convenient"

I do a lot of motorway driving and generally stay in the inside lane. Mainly to save petrol and drive about 60, I’m not remotely nervous, ideally I’d be overtaking at 75, but can’t afford to go through my petrol too quickly, makes a massive difference to tootle along at 60. And it makes for a much less stressful journey and not much slower, taking into account parts that are speed restricted to 60 or below a lot of the time anyway.

So you also think sit in the lane with the lorries and zig zag in and out of the middle lane?

Interesting about the sitting in the left lane in the slip stream of HGVs. You could probably stick the car in neutral and have them pull you along 🤔

I just stay behind the lorries, much easier and not as stressful!

Well, that's what road traffic law/the Highway Code specifies, so yes.

Or just slow down if you get bored of driving legally?

If you are overtaking, then you are obviously not in the inside lane. But when you are no longer overtaking anyone (because there is a gap in the traffic in the lane to the left of you) you indicate and pull back into the left lane. When you then catch up with drivers ahead of you (because they're going slower and you have therefore driven to the front of the gap you pulled into) then you overtake again by moving into the middle lane. And so on. You only need to move into the right lane if, while overtaking cars in the inside lane, you catch up with the cars in the middle lane. Then you move into the far right lane until you are no longer overtaking anyone in the middle lane, and you pull back into the gap there. If you aren't overtaking anyone in the inside lane either, then you pull left again to continue in the left lane.

It's really not that hard. Move left unless you are overtaking. Move right to overtake. Repeat ad infinitum.

It depends entirely how often you’re going to need to move in and out. It’s not either/or, it depends on the gaps and the relative speed of the lanes. Sometimes it makes sense to stay in the middle lane to overtake the next bunch of slow movers, sometimes it makes sense to move into the left hand lane as you can drive along there at 70 for a while before overtaking again.

You have to use judgement.

If the road is busy I’m not sure it does make sense to change lane constantly. It feel bloody dangerous. My gut instinct is to just stay in the middle lane with my cruise control on.

I'm definitely a "left lane with the lorries" kind of girl

But motorways scare me 😵‍💫

If the lorries in the left lane are doing 50 and you're doing 70 in the middle then you ARE overtaking. You only need to pull into the left lane if it's empty or the cars/lorries there are doing the same speed as you.

Now that makes sense.

If you're over taking vehicles in the left lane while you're in the middle lane stay in the middle lane.

I don't understand why you're still questioning this.

You are not a middle lane wanker if you are overtaking! That's the point of the extra lanes. Use them to overtake and move back when there is a sensible gap. I don't pull in and out at every gap.

Not sure what is the difficult decision?
Stay in the left lane unless you need to overtake; stay in the middle lane for as long as you are in fact overtaking.
If the left lane is as slow as you imply, then the cars staying at 70mph in the middle are all overtaking, so no problem with joining them there.
If the left lane is only intermittently slow then keep on moving in and out of lanes when you need to overtake. And don't be afraid to move right over the the outside lane if you need to in order to get past a vehicle in the middle lane.
Yes, it is unrelaxing and hard work (and slightly dangerous) to be changing lanes a lot, so the alternative is just to bite the bullet and settle for significantly less than 70 some of the time

Well there's your answer then. That's what the highway code expects.

Just because everyone else doesn't do it.....

Overtaking isn't an extreme, time-limited action. It's the process of moving past a vehicle that is slower than you. If the left lane is travelling at 50mph and you can travel at 67, then you can keep in the middle lane. If the middle lane is travelling at 64 and you can travel at 69, then move into the third lane, etc.

Revert back to a nearside lane when you are not able to pass traffic without either breaking a speed limit or driving unsafely for the conditions of the road.

I usually end up mostly in the middle lane as I'm either in the middle lane to overtake the lorries and can't get back into the left lane or I'm in the outside lane speeding to overtake the 70mph middle lane wankers who aren't even trying to move over. But ideally yes, pull out, overtake and then move back as far left as possible.

So what were you doing? Because from what you said about overtaking, this is what I thought you were doing, but it's obviously not?

I'm confused about when you were pulling back in to the left lane?

Did you think you could only use one lane to overtake?

I'm guessing she was thinking you have to overtake each car individually (returning back to the inside lane in-between each one) rather than the fact you can overtake a whole stream of cars before moving left again.