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.

I find a couple of full beam flashes usually sends them into the slow lane......

I find that really rude.

Albeit there is no such thing as a 'slow lane', I find it eminently reasonable.

I usually stay in the middle because if I'm doing 70 you are constantly weaving in and out. I've seen people doing 55 in the middle and it drives me mad. Flashing would not make me move. If people weren't driving so slowly in the left and doing a steady speed I'd stay in the left. I don't understand drivers who speed past then later you see them doing 60 or whatever and don't get me started on lorry drivers overtaking each other

@thecatsthecats

This may mark me down as a middle-lane-moron, but here goes anyways

I find that a LOT of drivers have no sodding idea of a safe distance for moving into a lane - which applies to vehicles both behind and before you. Pulling in very close of a car they've just overtaken. Pulling in very close behind a car that has just overtaken them.

So sometimes - and I mean sometimes, I find myself having taken a nice, respectful long overtake of a vehicle at 65 with me at 70, with a nice, generous gap to the car in front of me in the lefthand lane. But I'm clearly going to make up ground quickly in the lefthand lane, and shouldn't be eating up my stopping distance. So I stay out in the middle.

Honestly, you only have to drive on a foggy day to see that people have absolutely no clue about safe stopping distances, and there are almost certainly proud posters on this thread who don't middle lane hog but who do cut it way too fine cutting in and out.

(incidentally, I'm normally to be found in the right hand lane overtaking middle lane traffic - I make no claims to sainthood, this is just an observation)

I agree with this

@hedgehogger1

People that speed up as you overtake them too. They're annoying. Pootling along at 60ish til you try to get past...

Totally this. I’m sure (some) men get their egos bashed when I’ve been in this situation. It’s like they see they’ve been overtaken by a woman and need to try to prove some kind of point. Dickheads. I’ve over taken men before who’ve been pootling along in the middle lane. Then when I pull back into the middle lane they decide to overtake me.

@newtb

There was a programme on TV years ago where this complete wanker said he had the 'right' to stay in the middle lane. He drove a company Cavalier and would only pull over to the inside lane if the car behind had headlamp wipers.

It was both laughable and frightening.

That sounds like A to B -

@snowballer

Middle lane hoggers are the worst.

Can I also add: lorries overtaking other lorries on a long uphill stretch of a two lane dual carriageway - the A1 is a beast for this. 25 mins later it finally pulls back over, having gained only the length of the lorry but having caused gridlock behind it. Why??!

The Germans call that "Elephant Racing". Only in German which I can't remember.

People use the fact that motorway driving isn’t taught as an excuse. It’s exactly the same as driving on a dual carriageway - you pull out to overtake and then pull back in. Most people will have done some dual carriageway driving with their instructor.

I do a lot of driving for work and it really does annoy me. There was talk of the police clamping down more but I can’t see that they’ve got the time with the sheer number of people that do it.

Elefantenrennen

@Bryonyshcmyony

Flashing your headlights as a bossy "move over" sign is not good driving. It's an arrogant fuckwits move.

As is sitting in the middle lane when the left lane is clear.

@Bryonyshcmyony

Bryonyshcmyony, I conclude that if you have only come across a middle lane hogger about three times in your life, you have only been on a motorway three times in your life, because I see at least two or three every single time I use a motorway, regardless of traffic volume or time of day. And that's on the ten-mile stretch between the junction from which I join my local motorway and the one at which I leave it

I used to commute daily on a motorway.

If you are seeing two or three a day you may be one of those drivers who is just annoyed if anyone gets in their way at all.

Or I may not.

In Mini I am frequently in lane 1 for the distance between the two junctions I am on the motorway, playing tag with the lorries, rather than being in lane 2. It gives me plenty of opportunity to notice the car which is beside me in lane 2 for a couple of miles at a time, getting in the way of the lorries that want to overtake me and causing anyone who wants to go any faster a considerable nuisance.

In Glorious Skoda I'm more likely to be in lanes 2 and 3, it's true, and anywhere between here and Helsinki (not this past eighteen months, mind, and I miss the long journeys.)

If you weren't sitting in the middle lane when the inside lane was clear, no one would flash you. If you don't want to piss people off, don't drive like a pillock. And if you genuinely are too scared to pull out around lorries and other vehicles moving more slowly than you, stick to single lane A roads/have some more driving lessons.

@AriadnetheSpider

Isn’t it rather obvious how light flashing can be used aggressively, why does it need to be explained?!

Aggressive: tailgating, reviving, repeated short flashes

Non-aggressive: one long flash from a safe distance to alert the driver in front of your presence, with the inference that they are presenting an obstruction and need to move left.

This assumes that people are actually aware of whats happening behind them. The amount of times Ive seen people completely oblivious to police approaching at speed, blue lights on. I once saw somebody just slam on his brakes in the outside lane in front of a police car on a blue light when they (finally) saw it. Fortunately it was far enough behind to avoid a collision.

@DynamoKev

Elefantenrennen

Thank you!

Also, if you "rarely see any middle lane hoggers" that's probably because YOU are the middle lane hogger

If you weren't sitting in the middle lane when the inside lane was clear, no one would flash you.
Both are wrong.

@NotPersephone

No excuse for this. It absolutely boils my piss. I flash, undertake, tailgate and growl on a daily basis. Unless you’ve actually had a lobotomy that prevents you from understanding how motorways work, it’s pure laziness.

Passive driving (like sitting at 70 in the middle lane) is dangerous - more so than actively paying attention to what is around you and exercising lane discipline. Most modern cars have visual and audible warnings if you pull out into the path of another car - my dashboard and wing mirrors light up like Belisha beacons if I pull out too close. It’s really not fucking rocket science.

To be fair, your driving practices sound lot more dangerous.

@NotPersephone

No excuse for this. It absolutely boils my piss. I flash, undertake, tailgate and growl on a daily basis. Unless you’ve actually had a lobotomy that prevents you from understanding how motorways work, it’s pure laziness.

Passive driving (like sitting at 70 in the middle lane) is dangerous - more so than actively paying attention to what is around you and exercising lane discipline. Most modern cars have visual and audible warnings if you pull out into the path of another car - my dashboard and wing mirrors light up like Belisha beacons if I pull out too close. It’s really not fucking rocket science.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Infact in this situation two wrongs makes an accident much more likely.

[quote NotPersephone]@Sirzy I’ve never had an accident in 30+ years of driving (on 3 continents).

Seen plenty caused by inattentive and poorly disciplined drivers who can’t follow simple rules though.[/quote]
Nor have I but it doesn’t make me think I’m invincible. Your driving sounds incredibly dangerous to me, not least because of your anger.

It’s annoying, dangerous and very common. I’m not sure if people who do it are ignorant, selfish or thick.

I’ve driven a lot over all lockdowns (work related and necessary journeys) and I didn’t see middle lane hogging, particularly in the first lock down. Now I know people will say that it’s because the roads were quiet but that’s not true (in pre-Covid times late night weekend trips with hardly any traffic were full of middle lane hogs). There seems to be a strong correlation between people who have no useful function in society and bad driving….

Another observation from lockdown driving was that there was a much lower proportion of expensive cars on the road. Also says a lot about the useful members of society..

And, seeing as I’m on rant mode, what’s happened to lane changing discipline? When I learnt to drive I was taught that you waited for a gap in traffic before moving lanes. It was up to you to anticipate slow moving traffic in your lane and merge into the overtaking lane safely. Now people just slap their indicator on and change lane with no thought that the cars in the lane they forcefully join are going faster. That also pisses me off. Grumpy old woman that I am.

I think this is much worse since the introduction of smart motorways which have no hard shoulder and only occasional refuge areas.
I am certainly much more alert when driving on the inside lane in case i ram some unfortunate who has broken down. I dont hog the middle lane but i am very aware of the possible dangers of the inside lane on a smart motorway.
A very not smart invention in my opinion.

I hate those oblivious ignorant morons too, OP! I'm a fast driver who will always head back to the left-most lane if the space is there, I cannot understand the hammerheads who seem to think they're above it.

YANBU! at all those defending hogging of the middle lane