If you are someone who drives down a slip road towards a busy dual carriageway with no intention of stopping ….

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

Where do you think the cars are going to go if they is no space to go into the outside lane?

There is a really bad junction I’m currently dealing with every day. He cars come down the slip road in convoy. No ability for me to slot inbetween and they show absolutely no sign of slowing down to wait to join the trunk road. If I have a car on my right, where do these people think I’m going to avoid a collision?

I was explaining how some drivers are twattish and inconsiderate and have no idea about the highway code.

What exactly is your problem?

Of course as you are leaving the correct safe stopping distance in front of you for your speed 95m at 70mph), theres room for a slip road car to join safely and you can adjust your speed to regain the gap. I don't see the problem.

One car. Not four, each tailgating the one in front. I can’t believe you’ve never experienced this.

I understand it, and I don't drive like that. But I don't get the dramatics over having to spend a few moments in the outside lane.

It shows a lack of gratitude (and awareness) and pisses people off and makes them less likely to help others get onto the carriageway.

Ditto. If I know there's a slip, out I go. If I can't go out, I'm watching the slip and adjusting for whatever's on it.

I always pull out of the nearside lane if I know a slip road is coming up because I can't rely on anyone barrelling down a slip road to adjust their speed. I drive a lot for work and frankly the roads are full of lunatics. It's got much worse over about the last five years. Driving too close to the car in front, weaving in and out of traffic, driving far too fast. I could go on and on.

One car. Not four, each tailgating the one in front. I can’t believe you’ve never experienced this.

Irl they don't actually crash into the main flow of traffic, so they do generally slow down and spread out. Of course that may then mean they're going slower than ideal for merging but that really is their problem.

Tailgating on either part of the road is unacceptable but it's beyond stupid to do it on a slip road at speed.

Traffic on the carriageway having priority doesn't mean that they can't be courteous or exercise common sense. You'd never be able to join some roads if everyone just ploughed on past the slip roads. It's not the law to drive like a selfish twat.

No, they should, motorway traffic has priority, the person on the slip if they cannot time it must wait

I think this must be people who drive on quite quiet roads, not realising how much it matters on busier roads.

Where I drive, there isn’t always the capacity to ‘just move over and just move back’. The cars inside may well speed up and be hard to pull back in to the inside lane in time for your junction- no wait a minute involved.

And when there braking distance ahead, and 4 cars beetling along with the leading van looking like it will arrive slightly in front of you and the 3 behind it leaving no space, it seems to require the disappear car button OP mentions. There’s just nowhere to go.

Thank you- amazed at how many people think it's supposed to be a 'merge in turn' scenario. Motorway traffic has priority. If it's a slow traffic jam sure, zipper merging is polite. But even if you on the motorway know there's a junction and move out ages before, most people won't- that's not what the outside lane is for. There'll always be traffic in the inside lane and if they can't move out when they see traffic on the slip road, then that traffic should slow right down and wait for a space.

I remember someone telling me that, when they learnt to drive, they were taught that it was like queuing and everyone should go in turns.

If that’s how some people were taught, I’m not surprised about the brake slamming aka ‘slowing down’ and ‘matching what’s going on on the slip road’.
I asked both my dcs as they did their driving tests recently. Both of them were taught that they don’t have priority.

It doesn't matter if the 3 behind it don't 'leave space' while travelling on the sliproad, if the van is coming up next to you but slightly ahead of you a normal person would slack off the accelerator to accommodate them joining, the second car on the sliproad is at that point slightly behind you and can see you perfectly well, that car can not physically occupy the space you are in, so if you just stay as you are, they will slow down to join behind you.. it's how slip roads work.

You don't need a 'disappear car' button.

They were taught they don't have priority when they are on a slip road? or don't have priority when they are on the dual carriageway/motorway?

Both the driver joining AND the driver already on the carriageway need to be considerate and allow for zip merging.

It's incredibly dangerous for drivers on the slip road to have to stop at the end of it if they've been unable to join the main carriageway. Not only do they risk being rear ended by others coming down the slip road and looking at the carriageway for a gap and not necessarily expecting a stationary car, it'll also cause more of an obstruction when they finally join the carriageway from a standing start.

It's really a time where cars on the main carriageway need to get their heads out of their arses and be considerate and helpful rather than just ploughing on using cruise control and not making any attempt whatsoever to be helpful and make the road safer.

Even better would be anticipating cars joining the carriageway and pulling over to a right hand land themselves in good time, to provide space for cars joining. It's not as if junctions appear from nowhere, there are always signs and marker posts for the exit, and 9 times out of 10, the "entry" is quarter of a mile further on, so like I say, a bit of anticipation is helpful. Cars on the carriageway probably have a minimum of a couple of miles to become aware of a junction and either allow for a larger gap in lane 1 or move into a right hand lane. Very few places have an incoming junction without a corresponding exit just before it - even then there are road signs showing the junction joining before you actually see the sliproad.

www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/joining-the-motorway.html

Bollocks! It's the responsibility of the driver joining the motorway to adjust their speed, but many don't, they simply tear down the slipway with a dangerous sense of entitlement, and then they rage when someone nearly hits them. You wouldn't join a main road from a give way junction without considering traffic on the main road, it's the same principle ffs

they simply tear down the slipway with a dangerous sense of entitlement, and then they rage when someone nearly hits them.

Or rather, when they nearly hit someone else.

I suspect the amount of this behaviour anyone observes may depend to some extent on the type of vehicle they're driving. I certainly used to find more road bullies in evidence when I was driving small underpowered hatchbacks than I do now. I'm going to bet these types moderate their speed better if they're barrelling towards a line of lorries.

Perhaps you are fortunate not to have been in the situation, but I assure you it can be bloody hairy when you are penned in heavy traffic on the inside lane and cars in the slip road are coming at you. I realise you can’t imagine how that happens, but it does.

Why?

It is the driver on the slip road that is supposed to adjust their speed.

i sound like a dick? Honestly I’m not the one sounding like a dick on this thread.

Even the most arrogant drivers know that they’ll never win against a truck!!

"... if safe for me to do so."

This is the very relevant bit. The OP said that in that situation it was not safe for her to do that.

I also normally move across a lane if it is safe to do so. But there are many occasions when driving during peak times that it is not possible to do this (the OP made reference to this).

I live in a city with quite an extensive network of dual carriageways and slip roads. I am very used to having multiple cars very close to each other on a slip road trying to merge into a very busy dual carriageway. You cannot move over in these situations and to slow down drastically while on the dual carriageway risks creating an accident with closely following vehicles behind you.

I've been in that situation, I drive thousands of miles all around the country every year, it just doesn't bother me like it seems to bother people on here, at the end of the day it would be incredibly rare for a car to just drive into the side of you, if you hold your position (assuming you are slightly in front of them) they will filter behind you, if you are slightly behind the person joining, then ease of the accelerator to give them space.

As a general rule, at busy sliproads I usually take the opportunity to overtake the slower moving traffic so I'm normally in lane 2 at least, but I think the problem you are describing may more affect nervous drivers who tend to sit below the speed limit and sit in lane one, they don't feel safe pulling out in to lane two (because the aren't doing the speed limit) and they panic when they see cars coming up the sliproad because they feel like they are going to crash into them, then they do something unpredictable like slam their brakes on or try and suddenly accelerate past the people on the sliproad, which is just as annoying when you are trying to join, if they just held their nerve and anticipate hazards effectively, all would be fine.

Absolutely, but it’s pretty scary when there are multiple cars seemingly on a collision course with you and expecting you to pull out or brake to let them in. You just don’t know what they are going to do - speed up, slow down, undertake each other or actually clip your car.