If you’re a traffic cop please help me understand…

[EvelynSalt]

…why there isn’t a national money-making, safety-drive campaign to fine middle lane drivers on motorways?

It feels like a single cop car patrolling up and down a motorway could dole out £££ in fines and hopefully the middle lane hoggers
would also learn a lesson! They are a total liability and it seems to be getting worse and worse.

I’m sure there is a logical reason why this isn’t happening or isn’t possible, so curious to learn from your experience.

I wish they would ban lorries from overtaking

Thank you for this, really interesting to read the perspective of a traffic officer. It’s so frustrating how under resourced our forces are now, they’re hamstrung in so many areas.

And I was responding to say that I don't think middle-lane hoggers are a big enough problem for the police to be concentrating their efforts on, and giving my reasons why. 🙂

There's a vast range of driving offences that many think aren't worth wasting police time on, but fortunately for safe and considerate drivers the police do take those offences seriously and deal with them when they have the manpower.

Middle lane hogging was seen as serious enough to be added to the 'driving without due care and attention' group by those who know more about the subject than the average road user.

If you are able to be undertaken, you are hogging. They frustrate the living Jesus off me late at night up the M1 as to be legal you have to swing all the way out and then all the way back across to lane 1. More often than not it’s an off duty private hire Prius being driven by someone who has never so much as considered the existence of any sort of mirror.

However, I do have some sympathy for some people in a certain level of traffic (not standstill/down to 30/40 when all lanes should be maximised but more than very infrequent cars of early morning/late night) as I’ve been in that situation where having done the right thing and pulled over past the lorry, the gap in the queue to overtake the next one has closed up, even if I wouldn’t actually get to the next one for a couple of minutes, and you end up having to slow to 56 then try to accelerate into an eventual gap of middle lane overtaking queue. Really that whole queue should pull in and back out in order but much like the lorry overtaking lorry slog, some people do 70 on Speedo, which may be anywhere between 65 and 70 and some people do 10%+1 on Speedo which could be anywhere between 70 and 77 and some people do 10%+1 on GPS which is going to actually be 77/78. Those people are glad if a 65er has finally pulled back in and they speed back up to what they want to be doing. Lane 3 is usually full of 90+ people who just slam it on for the camera gantries, cause a big braking ripple and then speed back up again. I drive a powerful car so getting from 56 to 70 is water off a ducks back, but if someone needs a run up to do that in their car they end up pulling out into lane 2 at 56 and braking gets worse and worse back in the queue, so actually them sitting there in the queue for the next lorry at 69, even if it’s for a mile or two, is actually (in current conditions) letting traffic flow.

You should be able to send in your dashcam footage of plebs sitting in lane 3 via the operation snap thing where cyclists can report close passes, and the morons on a perfectly clear motorway between 8pm and midnight when there’s basically no mitigating reasons available can get £100 billion through the post. A 3-5 minute clip of gormless Graham in his Qashquai going for a bumble should be accepted as evidence.

The people who are really unsafe are the drivers speeding, swerving about, tailgating and undertaking.

If I'm doing 70 in the middle lane of a motorway, like hell am I going to move into the nearside lane and have to slow down just because the arsehole behind me wants to do 80.

Well, yes. Hence speeding being one of the fatal four.

Middle lane hogging is a lesser offence certainly (and in the same group as tailgating, which gives an indication of its seriousness), but still an offence, and one which is usually committed by people who believe they have totally valid reasons for doing so (all of which, incidentally, the police have heard many times and don't give any credence to)

Causes massive issue with traffic flow.
And with pissed off drivers overtaking on inside which is dangerous. To everyone.

Hence why we have Highway Code to say drive in inside lane

my DS does this. He doesn’t own a car (London living) but drives hire cars and mine occasionally when visiting . I told him it was bloody awful driving, dangerous, and he took no notice until o told him I wouldn’t let him drive again or pay insurance in future. Youngest DS who was in car one time, also gave him a mouthful about his bad driving…

but issue is sometimes that we all go into “alpha” mode in our brains when driving. This is a brain state where we’re relaxed , alert but not necessarily aware or focused on what we’re doing. Brains need to do this…they can’t be alert and focused and concentrate all time..thst needs a degree of stress hormones. Like time you drive home from work on route you’ve done for 5 years and you can’t recall any of drive? It is very hard to stop that happening on long journeys without actively preventing it. Most drivers aren’t aware it’s a thing. So don’t do anything to actively prevent it. It also indicates mental fatigue, long before driver feels physical fatigue. All of this means delayed reaction time. And obviously an increased risk of poor driving, reacting to our surroundings quickly. Hence people driving at variable speeds in any lane (speeding up to overtake them slowing down - they aren’t all arseholes..some are just in alpha mode) , or driving in middle/outside lane in stuck mode, or missing your junction …or leaving your indicator on…all the things we all see

so it does matter. But difficult to know how to fix.

Clearly you only drive in south where there are no hills. It would cause mayhem on m62, m6, m65, m74, m8 or most of motorways “up north”

If we are making a wish list please can I add “rear fog lights when it isn’t foggy”. I’d like them sent to the Tower. With 3 points and a fine obvs

Can we add inconsiderate Tesla drivers in lane 3 doing 60 when there’s nothing in lane 1 or 2! M5 has always got a few, I’m on it most days alas

No I live in the north and get sick of Lorrie’s on the m62, m18 and m1 hogging both lanes or two of three.

So, I am struggling to why you are suggesting this then…

are you saying that a powerful hgv has to stay behind a really low powered lorry for miles? from point it joins motorway to when it exits? Like one continuous slow juggernaut convey going at speed of slowest lorry? That would have massive knock on to transport costs and are bills becuase goods vehicles would be taking much longer to get anywhere (they’d have to stop more for longer time driving at slower speed as well)

What about when traffic is slowing down to exit the motorway? cars exiting as well, trying to get merged with this continuous stream that could frankly be dangerous . Good Lorry drivers pull out at busy exits to allow cars to pass inside as the signs come up to say motorway will split

even more dangerous is if lorries can’t move out into middle lane as traffic joins and merges in from junctions…you’d have the traffic merging in, slamming on breaks to try to get between that juggernaut convey and Tailbacks at junctions joining the motorways. It’d grind the motorways to a halt.

then there’s stopping distances of lorries. as they are much longer than car, they obviously need way more time to manoeuvre safely, if they have nowhere to go to avoid inside lane drivers doing dangerous or idiotic stuff, are they just supposed to crash into back of them. We all need to learn to drive in a way to take avoidance action, for cars we’d be able to try to switch lanes to avoid a pile up happening in front of us, what would a lorry do. Those stopping distances mean Lorrie’s leave much much bigger gaps between the,selves and vehicle in front…a gap some silly drivers don’t realise is there for a purpose and drive into ..causing risk to lorry behind as it has to immediately brake to regain distance

in my experience Lorrie’s don’t “hog” on these motorways …they are overtaking..albeit much more slowly than your average car takes to overtake, particularly on hills. It could take 2/4 mins for a lorry to overtake another, put a few togther and yep, it may feel like hogging to you sat behind a given lorry for maybe more than 5 mins. Yep, there’s always bad drivers, but I have never seen a lorry sat in middle lane with no traffic on inside for perceivable distant. Yep the odd van or trade vehicle, but not serous hgv. See that from car drivers on virtually every motorway journey I make. Including, as I said earlier, my own “know it all “ inexperienced driver son 😤.

i do get your frustration, but lorries and hgv also need to use roads! They pay a lot for them! But your proposal is actually quite dangerous, and would be expensive for us in long run.

maybe it’s better to vent about lack of rail infrastructure that means, unlike many countries, it is both expensive and infeasible to send a lot of our goods off the road networks entirely. Inside we build wider motorways by taking out the lifesaving hard shoulder. Hey ho…that’s my pet hate…

@BeNiceWhenItsFinished and this is exactly what causes middle lane driving
the attitude of ‘why should I’ and ‘I’m doing 70’ is a poor excuse and causes traffic build up

the fact is that no matter your speed, unless you are overtaking, then you should move to the inside lane.
also you are not there to police people going 80mph

A well structured post with many good points. You are of course correct about exiting the motorway, it simply wouldn’t work. I think my issue is often when a lorry overtakes another lorry they are of a similar size/power and the overtaking lorry struggles to pass because they are essentially doing the same speed, so why are they wasting everyone’s time? I also think given the size and lack of visibility it’s really not that safe. I do agree about our infrastructure and lack of affordable public transport.

The only reasons I can think people do it:

1. they are elderly and can’t be bothered
2. they are elderly and don’t realise they are doing anything wrong
3. they know they are a bad driver and don’t trust themselves to change lanes safely
4. they are high and not aware of their surroundings
5. just zoned out, highway hypnosis.

and yes, I agree OP, it’s bloody annoying!

The majority of people I see doing it aren’t elderly at all.

Absolutely.
"I'm doing 70 therefore I can be in the middle lane" is so illogical. It's not the fucking swimming pool with slow, medium and fast lanes!

DH is an ex - traffic cop so I asked him.

It's a myth that speed cameras etc bring in revenue. It goes to a centralized pot along with other court fines etc and doesn't begin to cover the cost of policing the roads. It definitely does not go to the police force.

The focus is on the fatal -5 (speeding, distraction, drink & drugs, not wearing a seat belt & careless driving) as they are the most common factors in fatal collisions & serious injuries.

Middle lane hogging can come under careless driving but is much less likely to be a factor in a fatal collision.

They focus on the things which are shown to be the biggest risks to life - speed being by far the biggest factor, followed by drink & drugs & mobile phone use. This is based on very thorough investigations which takes place following a serious or fatal collision where they look into every factor that contributed.

They use many methods to prevent & detect offences on motorways including patrols (they even own an HGV so they can spot phone use among HGV drivers), technology eg cameras & investigation work following serious collisions.

Lane hogging & more dangerous problems eg dangerous overtaking, undertaking etc are more difficult to take to court from the limited evidence of fixed cameras.

Funding for specialist policing has been cut to the bone in recent years & so there is very little resources to tackle problems & most forces can only look at the biggest causes of death - speed, drink/drugs & mobile phones.

He also highlighted that there is a portal for members of the public to report dangerous driving captured on dashcam - it's caused Nextbase or you can go to your local forces 'report online' tool. If there is sufficient evidence in the dashcam footage the police can take action eg points, fine, warning letter.

Would I be wrong to say ‘good’?

Seriously though, if you’re so ‘anxious’ at the idea of changing lanes, you shouldn’t be on the road.

Stop making enabling excuses for dangerous driving. Road hogs get 3 penalty points, same as speeders.

So getting such poor or illegal drivers and the dangerously short sighted off the roads should be a police priority. As OP is saying. Road hogs are simply advertising their lack of situational awareness and competence.

Haha spot the lazy hog.

I’m no middle lane hogger, but have to say the wankers that speed past in the fast lane, or flash lights to make you move across (even if you’re already doing 80…cough, the maximum of 70) or those who weave in and out then undertake on the inside lane are far more dangerous than usually driving-glove clad types hogging the middle lane. Give me a cautious, anxious, middle lane hogger over the pricks in the new money speed machines in the fast lane any day.

This particular thread, however, is about middle lane hoggers. Hope that helps.

No such thing as the fast lane.