Picture the scene. Sunday afternoon, M5 southbound near Bristol. Left lane pretty full of traffic, me in my little Toyota Aygo struggling a bit in the high winds. Satnav tells me in two miles I need to keep right to get to Cribbs Causeway. Check middle lane, it’s empty. So is fast lane. I move over, figuring two miles of empty lane, not a problem to anyone and I’m less of a threat to my own and others’ safety in an empty lane than a fairly full one in this high wind.
Woman in a white car (Subaru, I think) pulls in right behind me, tailgating hard. Maybe half a metre between my car and hers? Flashing lights like crazy, gesticulating very angrily at me to move over. It’s not safe for me to move left as too much traffic and I don’t want to mess up the manoeuvre in such high wind. Besides, it’s now about 1.5 miles till I’ll have to be in this lane anyway. Fast lane is empty, she could simply overtake me. Which she does, after a minute or two of trying extremely aggressively to intimidate me and make me move over.
She then zigs back in front of me, zags into left lane, right in front (and I mean right in front) of a lorry who has to move over to prevent himself crashing into her.
Why do people drive like this? I fully accept I was lane-hogging, however I was no danger to other traffic and no obstruction to her overtaking as the fast lane was empty. In high winds, me driving in an empty lane in my little car is much less dangerous to me and others. I couldn’t have moved over safely due to volume of traffic in the left lane, and I would have needed to move back over fairly swiftly anyway. It’s the look of crazed anger in her eyes that shook me the most. Like she was some self-appointed lane cop or something. Genuinely did make me wonder if she was on something.
Anyway, probably will be told I was the rude one for not moving over but like I say, I couldn’t have. She nearly caused a pile up in the left lane herself! Just wondering what others thought of the situation?