To not want to be intimidated by an HGV driver on a busy motorway.

[EdwiniasRevenge]

I was on the motorway today. Fairly busy but fluid and freely flowing traffic.

I was travelling at about 55-65mph in the slow lane. I wasn't in a hurry and found myself approaching a car +caravan in lane 2.

As I was doing an acceptable and safe motorway speed and I was in no hurry I decided that I wwasn't going to weavve out to lane 3 to overtake and I wasn't going to break the law by 'undertaking'. I was also approaching my junction. I sat behind the caravan in my lane (ie ensuring I wasn't in the caravan blind spot).

An HGV approached from behind, and continued to drive in my estimation, less than 2 car lengths behind me. It was so close that all I could see in my mirror was the radiator grill. I literally could not see his winscreen. I could not see the number plate.

I touched my brakes gently couple of times to indicate that he was uncomfortably close.

A couple of minutes late rhe was using his horn to tell me to move.

As it was a 4 lane motorway it would have been legal for the lorry to move out to lane 3 if he was tgat desperate. Meanwhile I felt intimidated and unsafe.

Netguru, there's no need to be rude. I made it clear that I was quoting my driving instructor, who is qualified to teach people to drive safely and in accordance with the highway code.

If you feel the need to get snotty so quickly with anyone who dares to disagree with you, perhaps you should consider avoiding debates and discussions.

I think the OP did nothing wrong. Her junction was approaching so she was waiting in the left most lane, not in the way, not wasting fuel and adding risk by doing stupid extra lane changes. The only possible change would be to slow down even more so that the caravan moves further ahead relatively, then dickhead in the lorry can go behind it and still leave a safe stopping distance. However sounds like he doesn't know about that.

the lorry driver is allowed in lane 2 and should have moved to that and waited until the caravan driver woke up and moved to the left. Neither of them are allowed in lane 3. If he can't get past, tough. So he'll have to wait a few extra minutes. There's probably a traffic jam coming up anyway.

Lorry drivers used to be really good drivers. Don't know what turned so many of them into intimidating idiots like this. Possibly too much pressure to do long hours?

Tailgaters should have their right foot amputated. And who suggested hazard lights? Jesus.

But the brake lights are supposed to help the vehicle behind notice that you are slowing down. FrankelInFoal

If you slow down surreptitiously they are more likely to run into the back of you.

Tapping your brake lights is more likely to cause the vehicle behind you to brake suddenly, with the potential to cause a domino effect of braking behind them.

As others have said, it can also fuel the situation by winding the other driver up. The potential repercussions are just not worth the risk. From the link I posted earlier:

“Avoid braking sharply. Flashing your brake lights isn’t going to help. It’s better to just ease off your accelerator.

This is because if you repeatedly brake, the flashing of your brake lights will start to lose impact.
It’s better to slow down gradually with your foot off the juice.
Then, if you do need to brake suddenly, the brake light should hopefully prompt the tailgater to take some evasive action.
This won’t entirely eliminate the risk of getting rear-ended but at least there’ll be less damage at a slower speed."

BTW, that quote was given by the head of driving standards at the Institute of Advanced Motorists. I'm not going to argue with him

The HGV behind wouldn't have even seen your brake lights being that close.

I saw one of those motorway cop programmes a while back where a HGV driver (playing on his phone) hadn't seen a queue building up on the motorway and went straight into the back of a car, killing the woman outright.

He thought he'd hit the car in front of the one he killed because from the height of his vehicle and the damage he'd done, he couldn't see her car.

Apart from the fact the OP should have not left it until they were almost side by side with the caravan to decide it was too dangerous to overtake by going out to lane 3, they also decided to sit in the inside lane and keep the caravan just ahead of them in the middle lane meaning the caravan could not move to the inside lane if they wanted to because when they look in their left side mirror all they can see is the OP driving slowly so think they cannot pull in.

The wise thing to do in future is plan ahead, so you look ahead and see there is a caravan in the middle lane and start changing lanes to overtake in advance then pass the caravan and move to the inside again without leaving anything to the last minute. The whole thing could have been avoided had the OP thought ahead (and of course the caravan drove in the correct lane.)

I could not plan ahead for the caravan. This would have meant moving from a motorway lane to the sliproad to rejoin the motorway.

As I was joining the motorway on a bend where technically the motorways merge rather than a classic sliproad setup.

If those that have come to point out the 'fact' that I left it too late to overtake read the thread you will see that there was never any real opportunity for me to overtake. The caravan was there when I first (or very soon after) I joined the motorway.

Of course the 'fact' is that I was so close to the caravan to let him pull in. I seemnto have missed the part where I explained that I EXPECTED him to pull in, thus ensuring there was space.

He 'fact' that the lorry isn't allowed in lane 3...hmm I thought it was only the fastest lane they weren't allowed to use (lane 3 isn't the fastest lane)

The best advice ive been given is to plan ahead in future...so I'll check my crystal ball before I approach the motorway and if there is likely to be a slow moving vehicle in the way I will put my foot down; break the speed limit and make sure I reach the motorway 45secs earlier so I arrive ahead of the idiots..

In similar situations (a middle lane blocker hogging the lane, us in the inside lane) both dh and I have passed the middle lane hogger in the inside lane, as it was our belief that undertaking involves moving in from one of the outer lanes, going past another vehicle, then pulling out again - ie. a deliberate manoeuvre, rather than simply passing a vehicle on the inside because one is going faster than they are - this is what dh has told me.

But it seems from this thread that this is not actually correct. All I can say is that I have never got in any trouble for doing so, thus far.

In your situation, EdwiniasRevenge, I would have sped up, as long as it was safe to do so, so that the arsehole on my tail could pass me when we had both passed the caravan. In purely practical terms, that would have felt like the safest option, to me.

However, you are absolutely not unreasonable to say that the HGv driver should not have tailgated you - as a professional driver, he should have known how dangerous that is. Even if you were driving badly or inconsiderately, that is never an excuse for another driver to drive dangerously.

I do not believe that on a 4 lane motorway it was impossible for you to safely move out and around this caravan in the time between two junctions. Tbh op I was quite sympathetic to you to begin with, though I thought you (and the other drivers were all in the wrong) but you're stroppy response is doing you no favours.

Why should the OP have to move any where. The lorry is completely in the wrong for being intimidating and tailgating.

I see your point, juneybean, but in that situation, my priority would be my own safety, which is why I would have sped up to get past the caravan and allow the lorry to overtake - even though it would seem to the lorry driver that he'd got his way.

I think it would only be classed as undertaking if you had sped up and then pulled out in front of the caravan.

SDT that is my understanding of undertaking too. I also have never got in trouble for it.

SDTG You're right, that isn't undertaking. Says so in the highway code.

268 - Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.

"I was travelling at about 55-65mph in the slow lane. I wasn't in a hurry and found myself approaching a car +caravan in lane 2.

As I was doing an acceptable and safe motorway speed and I was in no hurry I decided that I wwasn't going to weavve out to lane 3 to overtake and I wasn't going to break the law by 'undertaking'. I was also approaching my junction. I sat behind the caravan in my lane (ie ensuring I wasn't in the caravan blind spot)".

So your OP was misleading because you made it sound as though you were travelling along in the "slow lane" at 55-65mph and you caught up with a caravan in the middle lane and wasn't in a hurry so decided to not overtake the caravan instead choosing to drive a little bit slower in the inside lane than the caravan until you came to your junction.

This meant the caravan had no chance to pull in if they wanted to and the lorry was unable to overtake either because of you and the caravan. The caravan was in the wrong but you didn't help the situation either. Just because you aren't in a hurry doing 55-65mph so don't want to overtake doesn't mean everyone else isn't.

15mph is below the speed limit is perfectly safe or vehicles wouldn't have 56mph speed limiters fitted.

This is at best, naive; at worst, completely moronic. It's the brainwashed attitude of 'speed kills', that if you're travelling under the arbitrary speed limit you are "right".

A speed is neither safe nor unsafe; speed differential is unsafe. If every road user on a particular stretch is doing 90mph it could be perfectly safe; on another road with 98% of people doing 60mph and one person doing 20mph could create a very dangerous situation.

15mph is below the speed limit is perfectly safe

But you weren't doing 15mph below the limit - you matched speeds with the caravan which, you claim, was doing about 50mph, so you were actually going 20mph slower than the limit. Given that speedometers can be out by up to 10%, you may have been doing 45mph, or 11mph slower than the HGV's speed limiter.

No, you didn't do anything wrong, but you also didn't spare much thought for the drivers around you.

I have never driven a lorry, but my understanding is that it takes them a lot longer to slow down when breaking than cars.

Basically you are saying the lorry should have braked a lot earlier, rather than attempting to maintain a constant speed.

If you had undertaken the caravan, it would have to prevent an accident (the lorry driving into you).

Touching the break to indicate you have no intention of going any faster seems a bit idiotic under the circumstances; no wonder the lorry driver sounded his horn.

At one point you say you refused to "weave" to lane three, and later you say you couldn't drop behind the caravan and let the lorry undertake (which is the maneuver which would have made most sense, surely). I'm confused.

I could not plan ahead for the caravan.

Then you aren't observing and reading the road or the traffic correctly.

I seemnto have missed the part where I explained that I EXPECTED him to pull in,

In our current driving culture, that's a mistake. Also, as quoted above, you said you couldn't plan for the caravan, but now you're saying you expected it to do something (which turned out to be wrong) and planned your driving based on that incorrect assumption.

I have never driven a lorry, but my understanding is that it takes them a lot longer to slow down when breaking than cars.

Not as much as you might think:

It's accelerating they have trouble with.

OP, in answer to the question you asked, YANBU. I have driven on a motorway with an HGV practically touching my back bumper, and it was the most terrifying experience I've had in 25 years of driving. (Different scenario, before everyone piles in to tell me I'm a crap driver too: there were roadworks, 'stay in lane' signs and a 50mph speed limit, I was doing bang on 50 and the HGV driver obviously wanted to go a bit faster.) I really thought I might die that day: if I'd had to brake suddenly there's no way the HGV could have stopped in time. I would have reported him but was alone in the car, couldn't see his numberplate in the mirror because he was too bloody close and once I got through the roadworks I just wanted to speed up enough to get away from him.

There are no other circumstances in which it's regarded as acceptable to threaten someone with a lethal weapon, but that's what this HGV driver was doing. Doesn't actually matter what OP was doing or how annoying she was being, it's still not acceptable to risk killing someone because you're fed up and might be late.

I couldn't plan for the presence of the caravan. When he first came into my view I was travelling up an uphill slip road which was curving away from the motorway.

At this point ut would have been travellig faster than me and probabky overtook me as I increased my speed after the bend.

Me EXPECTING him to pull in was used in reference to those saying I wasn't leaving space for him to do so. I was making the point I specifically left him space to do so in anticipation.

I don't think anyone thinks that the lorry driver behaved well, just that the OP could have got out of the situation very easily. And that it didn't need to happen in the first place.

Doesn't actually matter what OP was doing or how annoying she was being, it's still not acceptable to risk killing someone because you're fed up and might be late.

No it's not acceptable, but it does matter what the OP did, because like it or not we always have some element of control - brake testing another driver is not usually the smartest idea (although sometimes tempting, I admit); brake testing a 40 tonne truck a few metres off your bumper is lunacy.

Our actions influence the perceptions, moods and actions of those around us. Defensive driving does not mean being inconsiderate just because "the law says I'm right! Harrumph!"

I don't think anyone thinks that the lorry driver behaved well, just that the OP could have got out of the situation very easily.

This.