To think you should join a fast road at speed?

[MamaPain]

Or at least at the speed the traffic on the road is currently moving and that the onus is not on those currently on the road to get out of the way?

People are such obnoxious berks about driving. I like driving and I'm a confident driver, but I allow for the fact that not everyone feels the same as I do - so I don't expect everyone to drive in the way that I do. If you're aware of what's going on around you: some people drive hesitantly, brake suddenly, change lanes or making turns without indicating, for example - then you're ready for situations as they happen without the need for all this pontificating.

British roads are some of the most orderly in the world, but I've never heard people in any other country moan about other drivers as much as they do here.

The ideal scenario would be traffic switching the right lane before junctions, but also the traffic on the slip road joining at 50mph, accelerating as they merge so that those who want to be back in the left hand lane can move back. However I drive on a city centre stretch of motorway where this is not always possible due to no gaps at all in the right hand lane sometimes, so I have to stay in the left and carry on past the junction, where you can see a queue of stationary cars building up. It's a badly designed bit of road TBH there just isn't the time to be weaving in and out. I do try to move over if it is safe to do so of course.

Joining at 50mph is far too slow, and dangerous. Lorries will be doing 60 in the left lane. If you can't or won't match that you should avoid motorways.

I don't know where you lot are driving but around here- rural, most slip roads which come off a 30mph zone onto a dual carriageway are very short. You can't get up speed on them, unless you were in a racing car.

I do agree on some roads you should get up to speed, but it isn't always possible!

People are such obnoxious berks about driving. I like driving and I'm a confident driver, but I allow for the fact that not everyone feels the same as I do - so I don't expect everyone to drive in the way that I do

Fantastic post Findo

My dd is learning to drive at the moment. I tell her being a safe driver is 90% about observing and anticipating other drivers. That you don't have to be a twat about judging other drivers, you don't know their situation. Just observe, anticipate and drive calmly.

My dh drives a hgv and often struggles with this type of driver. It can take more effort to get a heavy wagon up to a safe speed on a slip road and if the person in front slows down for no good reason it can leave him in a very awkward position of joining a fast moving road at quite slowly.
I've also had the person in front stop at a slip road (I'm guessing they didn't check for a gap first and ended up parallel with traffic rather than slipping in the gaps in front or behind). Luckily I could see they wouldn't get on so slowed down well before but I had to join a free flowing motorway at less than 30mph, was a nerve wracking moment for someone with fairly limited motorway experience!

Yes but no. You do need to retain the ability to slow down and stop if there isn't a gap when you get to the motorway. Depending on the volume of traffic and the consideration of other drivers that can be quite difficult to judge.

What is not safe to do is just accelerate to 70 and assume a gap will appear.

I always move over if I can to help people on if it's busy.

The slip road I use coming home from work has a bend so tight you can't do much more than 30mph, then it has a quite short straight bit, until you're half way down the slip road you can't see the traffic behind you. Sometimes the traffic is at a standstill and so is the slip road. It's the only time I've ever seen cars stopped on a slip road.

Agree with general sentiment of thread.
Would add that whilst people should be joining the mway safely the drivers on the mway should be observant and treat traffic joining the mway as a potential hazard and should be aware enough to take action if necessary to allow it to happen.
People grimly hanging on to their wheel staring straight ahead with 2 clear outside lanes whilst the joining car approaches are driving badly too.