To ask WHY do so many people hog the middle lane of the motorway?

[Ginuwine]

I realise with a global pandemic etc this is small fry, but I couldn't believe my journey to and from Dorset this weekend. I drive an awful lot for work, but Saturday was an outlier in how many mouthbreathers were on the roads.

Sitting just below 70 mph in the middle lane, junction after junction. Never ever moving back over despite a huge clear inside lane.

Why does this bother me?

Well, when a car is racing up the slip road, the Highway Code says I don't have to give way. They have to match traffic speed and then merge when safe.

However sometimes it would be nice to change lanes to allow them to. Except I can't...because the busiest lane in this three lane motorway is the middle one. Full of people dawdling - not speeding up, not going past, just sitting there in their own world, oblivious.

Worse, I then move across into lane 3, go round, then come back into lane 1.. by which time they've sped up to my position. If I want to go around the lorry in front of me - nope! Rolling roadblock in the way - have to move to Lane 3 just to do it again. And so on..

The funniest are the ones who merge from the motorway and cut up everyone just to get into their favoured lane IMMEDIATELY. Then sit there without question, blocking legitimate overtakes, for eight or nine junctions.

Why?? Why do people do this?

I have three theories:

• People think the left lane is for "lorries" and want a superior position on the road. The "fast lane" (ugh) is for the Porsches and Range Rovers. So middle it is.

• People won't tell you their real reason is laziness. They just say "it doesn't matter anyway - I'm doing the speed limit - people can just go round me. Anyway, tailgating is worse go and shout at them"

• like reversing, some people hate the driving discipline of changing lanes. They want to limit it as much as possible and believe the act of changing lanes causes accidents.

So tell me please - why do so many people hog the middle lane when the Highway Code and all driving instruction tells us to keep left? The congestion caused by middle lane hogging is so frustrating.

Right there with you OP!!! I absolutely HATE it. It completely prevents the road from working as it should. You're not taught motorway driving directly here (no excuse) but when you are it is that you should always be trying to move back left.

There’s an unofficial sense amongst drivers I think that the left lane is the slow lane, designed for lorries and pensioners/nervous drivers, and the middle and right hand lane are for everyone else.

They’re wrong but we all know real life driving customs aren’t necessarily in line with the Highway Code. For example I’ve noticed since COVID barely anyone indicates anymore on roundabouts. At all. I can see two from my house and maybe two out of ten drivers bother to indicate when they’re entering or leaving a roundabout. It frustrates me far mode than middle lane hogging as you often sit wasting time because someone hasn’t indicated they’re leaving at the first exit and looks therefore like they’re going to go past you, when they’re not. It’s just so fucking rude and entitled. The difference between pre and post Covid is astonishing. People have either forgotten how to drive or just don’t give a fuck anymore.

I once passed a driver on the M23 doing about 55 in the outside lane. The number of cars having to undertake was amazing (I admit, I crossed over to the empty inside lane and dropped down to 55 for a minute to watch). Their inability to understand the situation was incredible. Some people just have no awareness.

@mamamalt

Thank you! I think you're so right about being taught it etc.

The problem is a lot of us Brits would probably say "sod the Highway Code, I'm staying where I am because changing lanes is dangerous and I know best."

There's no changing the minds of those folk, and there's a lot of them about..

I’ve also heard nervous drivers say it’s safer for them to just sit in the middle lane where they can remain for a long time rather than ‘weave in and out of other lanes’! They reduce the amount of lane crossing as much as they can because having to indicate and move across stresses them out. Or people don’t see the point in moving across when they’ll have to go back into the middle lane very quickly anyway when they are coming up behind a lorry or slow car.

Not saying it’s right just explaining why people do it.

Placemarking - in a bad mood today so this suits.
I was out driving yesterday and noticed it seems to be worse ATM. No one was using the inside lane at all. Middlelaners always seem blithely unaware of the absolute chaos they're causing.

Most people aren't taught how to drive on motorways - I think it's only recently that it's started to be included in the driving test(?).

So there's a lot of very poor motorway drivers out there.

(I admit, I crossed over to the empty inside lane and dropped down to 55 for a minute to watch).
🤣

@ChangePart1

You are spot on about roundabouts - it is as bad / worse, I think!

The frustrating thing about roundabout driving post-COVID is that when you're waiting to go straight on and someone's not indicating, but positioned their car while driving as if they are doing the same on the opposite side; then suddenly swing around to turn right and then glare at you as if you're meant to be a mind reader

Indicating helps traffic flow. Keeping lane discipline helps traffic flow

The funny thing is, I actually think smart motorways exist partly because this "choose a lane and feel safer" mentality has led to two or three rows of bunched up traffic causing congestion, and therefore more capacity needed.

Pisses me off also.

We don't do any motorway training for the test of course so people who have no real interest in driving probably don't know the rules.

We also accept pretty much anyone's licence from anywhere as valid if they wish to drive here - or they can change if for a UK one without any further test or instruction - plenty of people come from places where habits and rules are different.

We also have almost zero enforcement of any traffic rules or laws.

Because a lot of people are shit drivers who appear to have won their driving licence in a raffle.

I drove back up the M74 and saw a lot of this. It just means you have to cross from lane 1 to lane 3 to pass them legally, then back from lane 3 into the unoccupied lane 1 to continue. While the oblivious numpty bumbles along in lane 2.

I agree that a lot of people think the middle lane is just for those who want to go at middle/medium speed 😳

I also sort of get what a pp said about slightly nervous drivers thinking it's safer all round to stay in the middle lane rather than keep crossing lanes, but I think the answer to that is to either take an advanced driving lesson or two, or get off the motorway...

I find a couple of full beam flashes usually sends them into the slow lane......always gives a great feeling of satisfaction

I think it's a combination of laziness and nervousness. Even when the road changes from 3 to 4 lanes, they still doggedly sit in that lane.

Loads of this on the M5 at the weekend. Get in the right bloody lane.

This drives me absolutely nuts too OP. And the ones who do the same in the fast lane so nobody can overtake at all.

@KatherineOfGaunt

I once passed a driver on the M23 doing about 55 in the outside lane. The number of cars having to undertake was amazing (I admit, I crossed over to the empty inside lane and dropped down to 55 for a minute to watch). Their inability to understand the situation was incredible. Some people just have no awareness.

Yes, same here. Saw an oblivious driver in lane 3 doing well below the 70 speed limit and all other traffic having to go into lanes 1 and 2 to get past her. I can only think she was foreign from a country that drives on the right, can't think of any other reason why you'd stay in lane 3 at a slow speed when faster traffic is passing you in lanes 1 and 2.

Oh how I feel your pain

I have a DH and a really very good friend who both do this. I have had to stop mentioning it to them otherwise well, it would be a case of LTB.

I can just about (not really at all) understand it when there is a lot of traffic in the inside lane, they claim it's 'dangerous' to keep changing lanes snd safer to stay in one lane. Pah.

I just can't be a passenger for either at night, on an otherwise empty motorway, Pootling along in the middle lane.

Goodness I feel my blood pressure rising.

Hanging is simply too good for them.

@DynamoKev

We don't do any motorway training for the test of course so people who have no real interest in driving probably don't know the rules.

We also accept pretty much anyone's licence from anywhere as valid if they wish to drive here - or they can change if for a UK one without any further test or instruction - plenty of people come from places where habits and rules are different.

We also have almost zero enforcement of any traffic rules or laws.

Pretty sure Motorways are included in the theory test.

Because, fundamentally, people don’t know how to drive on motorways properly. They see the lanes as being based on speed and not based on overtaking. Is motorway driving part of the tuition these days? Because if not it should be.

@PotassiumChloride

Because, fundamentally, people don’t know how to drive on motorways properly. They see the lanes as being based on speed and not based on overtaking. Is motorway driving part of the tuition these days? Because if not it should be.

How can they fail to see all those huge roadside signs telling drivers not to hog the middle lane?

Oh god! Those people who just sit in those lanes drive me fucking nuts. As so the swathes of people who can't be arsed to I dictate any more. Lazy lazy arseholes.

My OH had a driving instructor who told her the best thing to do on motorways was 'just get in the middle lane and sit there until your destination'. Doesn't exactly help.

Undertaking is treated by the Highway Code as a 'do not' rather than a 'must not', so it's not an offence as such. But it also tells you not to 'weave in and out of lanes' to overtake. I'd argue that it is a safer/better manoeuvre to quickly/safely undertake than to go lane 1,2,3,2,1 - four lane changes - to negotiate a middle lane hog when there is nothing else around.

Maybe they should abolish the speed limit on long straight stretches of the motorway, like in Germany. When the outside lane has people whizzing past at 180kph and the middle lane not much slower, you better believe the nervous drivers (me) stick to the inside lane...