Please tell me this pisses you off too?

[WaitrosePigeon]

I do a lot of motorway driving.
Can someone please enlighten me as to why people don't indicate when changing lanes? People just drift in and out of the lanes, cut in front of me etc.

I guess it's laziness but how is it hard to indicate? Surely it's just an ingrained thing you do without really thinking about it?

It's really starting to piss me off.

A family member of mine is a driving instructor Becky. He's very in demand and relies on word of mouth to bring in the customers. He'd be horrified if I thought it was OK not to indicate on the motorway providing I was moving into a lane to the left.

I get extremely nervous when I'm overtaking on the mway and the person I'm overtaking starts to indicate. Because I mirror-signal-manoeuver, I expect them to make a move. I don't signal until it's clear I can move.

The exception of course is when it's very busy. Then I don't expect them to suddenly pull out because it's clear that they are just looking for a space. But when it's fairly quiet and they do it, my legs go weak!

What annoys me the most is when it's a really busy motorway, I'm in the outside lane which is moving faster than the middle lane and keeping a safe but tight distance to the car in front of me, someone from the middle lane tries to cut in in front of me. There's no room! And I have to slow down to get a safe distance in front of me again.

It also annoys me when lanes are merging and this has been sign posted for ages, but people wait until the very last yard to merge.

Lane hoggers only annoys me slightly, I undertake them. (Can't be arsed from moving from lane 1 to 3 and then back to lane 1 again just to get past.)

Almost worse than the non-indicators are the ones who get halfway into the next lane, then indicate.

Yanbu but its not just motorways, it really pisses me off when people dont indicate on roundabouts. Its seems normal that you have to play guessing games as to which exit they are taking, it`s only a flick of the finger ffs.

Really BluePancakes you weren't taught 'mirror, signal, maneuver'?

Did you not read what I wrote?
I clarified that I was talking about when you already know it's safe to manoeuvre; but that you should look around again before pulling out to check it's safe.

Maybe I misunderstood the other poster, because there's too many people round here who pull out and then start indicating.

LurkingHusband, you can stick at 70mph in whatever lane, as long as you're overtaking. As soon as you've finished overtaking you should move in and not police the speed others are driving at.

Surely it's just an ingrained thing you do without really thinking about it?

That's even more dangerous!

"Thinking about it" should be part of your driving. You shouldn't be changing lanes if it means someone else has to change their course/speed to accommodate you. You should only indicate when there is a message to send.

Indicating automatically is a signal that you're driving automatically and not thinking about what you're doing.

Nope - most motorway accidents will happen when changing lanes

Do you have any actual evidence for this?

It also annoys me when lanes are merging and this has been sign posted for ages, but people wait until the very last yard to merge.

Eh? That's exactly what you are supposed to do, because it reduces traffic jams and smooths flow.

Where would you have everyone merge into one single lane if not at the point where the lanes merge?

10m back?
100m?
At the sight of the very first sign indicating the lanes will be merging a mile back?

And what happens to the now empty-but-still-open lane?

I just drove from Cornwall to Manchester and the number of middle lane hoggers gave me the rage
I actually saw someone brake really heavily to move into the middle lane when the motorway went from 2 lanes to 3. He nearly caused a pile up.
And from my anecdotal evidence the hoggers were nearly all middle aged white men.
And the merge in turn thing, arggggg. On the A30 at Bodmin there is a bloody great merge in turn sign and the number of people who sped up to stop people merging was ridiculous.
If you can't read or know the meaning of road signs then you need to hand in your licence.

Yes BluePancakes I did read what you wrote. You said you were taught to indicate before looking.

About merging and why zippering in one-by-one at the merge point is the correct way:

Ok, I didn't explain properly what I meant. In busy traffic I would wait and merge in turn at the end too.

But if is not busy and all cars have merged and someone uses the opportunity to overtake a lot of cars to merge at the end, that is what annoys me. I accept I'm still wrong but it annoys me.

cantshakeitoff that's what I meant! The ones who deliberately speed up and drive right to the very end and force their way in, not the ones who merge properly.

Ok, misunderstand me if you must. It doesn't take much to have another quick look to check it's safe before moving, but hey ho. I'm in the wrong.

Nope - most motorway accidents will happen when changing lanes

Do you have any actual evidence for this?

www.thompsons.law.co.uk/road-traffic-accidents/blind-spot-motorway-accidents-increase.htm

(excerpt)

The study analysed 50,000 accidents between 2009-2011 and revealed a 48% increase in accidents when lane changing on a motorway.

In the majority of cases a collision occurred when a driver was changing lanes without checking their blind spot or indicating, and in most cases the driver was moving from right to left.

Middle lane drivers doing 55mph. Just move over ffs!

And the absolute worst bit of motorway driving I've ever seen was a car in the outside lane, realised he was going to miss his exit and just STOPPED in lane three, then proceeded to turn his car and drive across the other two lanes to get to the exit. There were cars slamming on their brakes left, right and centre (including me).

I hope his fuckwittery was caught on camera and he was fined or something. Bloody dick.

The ones who deliberately speed up and drive right to the very end and force their way in, not the ones who merge properly.

But the ones who drive to the end ARE the ones merging properly. It's everyone else who is getting it wrong.

It makes me feel really weird that there are people who indicate before checking it's safe to move, then check their mirrors

Don't you realise how the drivers behind you will be feeling? They will be anticipating you moving, likely out in front of them.

Check your mirrors first to check there's nothing baring down on you, indicate, move.

The ones who drive right to the end when everyone else has merged earlier might be technically right, but as IME they tend to be the ones who then race off overtaking at 95 and boy-racer-weavering around, I doubt that's their main reason for doing it.

I was also taught that there is no need to indicate if moving back to the LH lane on a dual carriageway or from the middle to left lane of a motorway, as there is an automatic assumption you will return to the driving lane after overtaking when it is safe and clear to do so.

Is part of the confusion that some people don't use their mirrors as a normal part of motorway driving, and only use them when manoeuvring? I can see for new drivers that you need to emphasise mirror, signal, manoeuvre - I'm not disputing that at all - but for more experienced drivers, surely you should frequently be checking your mirrors anyway, as part of normal driving? (Eg, so you can see that there is someone approaching from behind who may pull in front of you.) So, when it's safe (because you've already checked your mirrors), you indicate, then do a quick check of the mirror and blind spot, and pull out. It takes less time to do, than it did for me to type that. As I said in my first post, I agree that people should not be putting their indicator on, and then take an age to look around, checking mirrors etc. But that wasn't what I was talking about.

Anyway, I probably should have left this thread pages ago, after my bold-fail, followed by a double post.

I hate middle lane hogging and find driving with DH frustrating as he sometimes stays in the middle lane too long.

I find motorway driving v tiring because you have to be constantly alert, checking mirrors, judging the speed of traffic ahead and behind you. I might go into the slow lane already anticipating that in a couple of minutes I'll need to change lanes. However DH goes into the slow lane then only starts checking when he can move out once he wants to move. He then ends up having to slow down behind a lorry and wait for a space in the middle lane, whereas as I am checking all the time I judge a space and move.

He therefore finds lane changing more stressful therefore hogs.

Driving in the US, I came across a "merge in turn sign" - and everyone obeyed it. I almost cried.

It seems to be a thing here now. I have seen a couple of signs saying "use lane until merge". And I try to enforce it myself (so let a car in from the next lane in front of me). Generally it seems to work. Certainly I've seen less instances where HGVs "enforce" it on behalf of other drivers.

I suspect with the advent of Smart Motorways and driverless cars/lorries, the UKs motorway rule book will be rewritten and the distinction between lanes will be changed. Anyone who has driven through the M6/M42 smart sections will know that when operational, the entire motorway becomes a single stream of traffic all doing the maximum with no real space to change lanes - even if you wanted. And in the same way the hard shoulder becomes the run-off/run-on lane, I also think L3 will be given over to trains of autonomous lorries - to solve the problem of drivers trying to join the motorway with a stream of perfectly spaced lorries using L1.

Or, maybe not .

Driving recently down a quiet bit of motorway to find a woman driving at about 60 mph in the outside lane. Not over taking, just driving. I think I pulled a wtf are you doing face.