To expect people to drive in the correct lane on the motorway?

[Sidge]

Drove back from Yorkshire today - 250 miles, most of it on the M1.

Couldn't believe how many people seem incapable of driving in the correct lane - often there was a virtually empty inside lane, then the traffic was all stacked up in the outer two lanes.

What's that all about? Is it because there's a lorry about a mile and a half ahead that you might have to pass in a couple of minutes, so they just sit in the middle lane instead to save having to actually steer the car?

Or is there an invisible force field surrounding the inside lane that only certain cars can break through?

Grr, bloody idiot drivers.

And don't get me started on how many knobheads still use their mobiles whilst driving...

policy, the m25 is not representative of any other motorway.
more like a huge car park? also it has loads of camera's, so even wehn clear, it wont have people going very fast.
and when you get on the m25, your satnav doesnt tell you to go straight for 63 miles and turn left at the roundabout, (A9 in scotland) or go straight for 211 miles, (A74M which becomes the M6 further south.

DH spent years policing the motorway.

His biggest bugbear is middle-lane drivers.

(there are others...)

It's dangerous.

nell - so presumably, anyone in the outside lane who isn't overtaking is also breaking the law. Funny how nobody ever complains about them, hmmm?

Also - as I've said below - the inside lane is rarely clear on the motorways I use(principally M25, M23, M40, M4). I'm quite happy to use the inside lane when it is clear. The problem is, it is usually full of lorries and pork-pie hat men doing 50mph.

LL - start a thread and I'll be placated!

Sorry for belligerence. Been getting nadgered with the neighbours.

If you want me to complain about fast lane-hoggers, I will

I fear there is some arguing over semantics in order to get a point across.

You either stick to the law in its entirety or you don't. You cannot pick and choose.

Hang on, hang on

I suspect Policywonk is speaking of heavily congested motorways where moving into the nearside lane would mean you would catch up to the next vehicle ina nanosecond but be unable to move back out for about an hour. Am I correct?

Hands up.

PW - you overtake them, carefully, without swerving, and then go back into the inside lane again to travel further until you come across the next few.

If you're overtaking loads of vehicles, at a sensible speed, that's fine. That's not middle-lane hogging.

I do understand, and accept, people's points about sticking to the law. I just get peed off because people are always complaining about this issue, but never about speeding on the motorway - and that just smacks of hypocrisy to me. If the posters on this thread were only concerned with the letter of the law, God knows there are a million motoring infractions we could be complaining about (roundabout signalling for one, as someone mentioned about a million years ago). It just seems to me that people complain about this particular issue because they want to speed, and middle-lane drivers get in their way.

I wasn't complaining about people driving at the legal safe limit in the correct lane, I was having a mini-rant about people who drive in the incorrect lane, regardless of speed.

If you drive at 69 mph in the middle lane when the inside lane is empty than I shall think you are very annoying

Wilkie - I know you are supposed to move into the outer lanes to overtake, and that is what makes me nervous if I pass people in the middle lane (someone moving left without looking or indicating). But I think these people are causing a lot of the jams because traffic tries to move lanes to get past them, then the outside lane snarls up, grinds to a halt and we all look like we're in the States driving on the right.

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YES winestein

I live in the SOUTH and there are BLOODY LOADS OF US DOWN HERE

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I see what you're saying PW - if it helps I have a thousand other motoring grievances I can share with you

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Doodle, it's not illegal if you're overtaking a run of vehicles and there's little gaps between the runs iykwim.

It's when people sit in the middle lane for seemingly miles, when there are no vehicles in the inside lane to overtake that it becomes a problem.

And there are loads that do it.

Yellow boxes are no longer prescribed signs Doodle

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Ooookaaaay, it's all gone nice again.

If any of you want to talk about castration for incorrect signalling at roundabouts (or, indeed, blocking off yellow boxes, Doodle), I'm your woman.

Oooh, hang on - I want to castrate incorrect signallers at roundabouts too

Only castration?

You're soft you are.

I say hung, drawn and quartered at least for not indicating at roundabouts. And slow torture for blocking a box junction.

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I blocked a fantastically (is that a word?) yellow box junction over Ealing Broadway the other day. Completely unintentionally - woman in front slammed on brakes suddenly for someone pulling out of a parking (clear road ahead of her). Was very unpopular .

It's lorries and caravans that are the problem on the M-way at the moment - when they overtake each other or even, god forbid, 2 of them overtake blocking all 3 lanes, that traffic all backs up (especially uphill!).

Round London way, you'd have to be going really slowly to be stuck in the left lane permanently as all 3/4 lanes are normally quite full of traffic.