What do you think of my driving instructor forcing me to do 82mph on a motorway?

[HappyPeach]

I had a pass-plus lesson on motorway driving to build my confidence. It was with the AA driving school, not my original instructor. I am an absolute stickler for the limit being the limit & not wanting to get fines or lose my reaction time. The instructor said I had to 'do 70 + 5mph + 10%' so I wasn't allowed to drive below 82mph as he called it 'failure to make progress' and I would piss off the other drivers. I'm really unhappy about this and I'm thinking of reporting him. I know many people drive at 80mph and above but that doesn't mean I have to. What d'you think?

But I'm not going to derail the thread onto a rights and wrongs of speeding

No, please do. Educate me on "rights" of speeding ? I need to know what I've been doing wrong all these years.

Truly MN is a fount of all knowledge.

Given that the purpose of the lesson was to provide a new driver with confidence and the ability to drive safely and presumably legally on the motorway, the guy is a weirdo. It's the equivalent of pushing you to break the speed limit in a 30 mph zone, and telling you it's good for you. It just doesnt make any sense, and neither do his random calculations.

I think he might have been pursuing some kind of weird little control fetish there. Avoid. It's not you, it's him.

They are just guide lines if it was a actual officer not a camera he could be one of those types that ticket anything over the limit

The first thing you need to learn when driving is that you, and you alone are responsible.

Assuming he didn’t hold a gun to your head he didn’t force you.

How would you respond to any other passenger urging you to speed? Run a red light? Overtake a slow vehicle on a dangerous bend? Or how would you drive when you are terrified with a screaming, bleeding toddler on your way to a&e?

The answer has to be the same to ALL of the above scenarios or you are not competent to be behind the wheel of a machine with the potential to kill.

I’m sorry that’s harsh but it’s also the truth.

By all means report him, demand a refund, or anything else you feel is appropriate. But also look at your own behaviour here.

I’m the kind of complete conflict-avoidant pushover that MN despairs of, but nobody sits in my car without a seatbelt, and nobody tells me how to drive.

@Agrudge

They are just guide lines if it was a actual officer not a camera he could be one of those types that ticket anything over the limit

They still work to the thresholds. People often claim otherwise but mysteriously never have evidence of it.

I've been sent on a speed awareness course (with the alternative being getting points on my licence) for doing 77mph on the motorway, and was told that all the 'rules' about +5/10% etc being acceptable are all nonsense. The police are well within their rights to prosecute you for going over the speed limit at any point.

It not my job to educate you.

I drive, I speed but not excessively. Get over it

That is dangerous very very very dangerous
You force lorries out you make nervous drivers over take you make fast drives have to slam on the brakes

If you're not comfy then don't drive.

I resent this attitude massively

You are a danger to yourself and others....

That's terrible. No way he should have forced that on you. I once got a speeding fine for traveling at 78mph on an empty motorway.

I got fed up of someone in the outside lane and at the end of the motorway after they pulled out on me I held my hand on the horn in the left lane and drove past starting in

They put their sirens on and pulled me over

I didn't get a ticket

I was told they were trying to push the car in front out of the outside lane but they had to pull me over because that behaviour on the road startles other drivers ☹️ and it can be fatal

They do apparently pull people over for sitting in the outside lane

I basically never meet anyone on the motorway who wants to drive as fast as me or faster but if they did I would be in in a flash to let them past

It's a very English thing to do, lane hog

Given that were getting more electric vehicles Ion the road i would argue dropping the speed limit to 60 for "environmental" reason is soon to be a waste of time
My car is electric and I tend to drive around 60 on a motorway as it's more efficient on the battery.

It's a very English thing to do, lane hog

Oh I beg to differ. Some of the worst lane discipline I have ever seen is on the M74 in Scotland.

I also have seen bad driving in Spain, France and Germany. There are hopeless drivers everywhere.

If it’s pissing people off?
you should be be moving out of lane 1 unless you are overtaking something which at 50th I very much doubt it. You’ll get pulled over one day for dangerous driving or they’ll assume you are drunk as drunk drivers sometimes drive ridiculously slow as well thinking they are being safe and compensating.
please hand your licence back in if your don’t feel safe. FFS if you’re sitting the middle lane also as you feel it’s safer, then you will cause an accident.

@HappyPeach report your instructor, telling you to break the law is not on. I would ask if it’s part of their course.

Please report him. Preferably sue him for compensation as well. His accreditation as a driving instructor should be withdrawn.

Sloowwww down, this is not good advice. It's a good idea to know how sueing someone for compensation actually works before advising other people to do it.

@User112 so when someone hit you in the rear are you going to be happy?

The general rule is they don't prosecute upto 77 miles per hour, if you use a calibrated GPS speedo against your car it's likely at least 3mph under. I'm guessing he's had his checked and knows 82 is under the threshold for prosecution for his car.

I once got a snotty letter for doing 77 (Speedo was 80mph) but stating they don't prosecute at that speed.

Some people will argue it's safer to stick to the limit, I know the limits of my car, I know it could take a considerable bump that's why I bought it. So in my case I would argue it's safer to keep up with the flow of traffic which is likely to be around 80 on the Speedo than drive at 70 on the Speedo which is likely 65mph and have everyone breaking behind you.

I heard something about Liz considering autobahn limits 🤞🏻.

You are highly unlikely to get a ticket for doing 75 but I would not risk it at 80, it’s nonsense to say you’re holding up traffic because trucks are limited to 56 mph even on motorways, stick close to 70 and you’re fine.

Never mind the speeding, think of the fuel consumption!

You really will piss people off big time if you drive slower than the trucks and they pull out to overtake you, 70 or so on a motorway is fine

The motorway near me has been turned into a smart motorway and anyone doing over 77 gets an immediate speeding ticket. They’ve ticketed some amazing number and myself only ever seeing three cameras gone in my 26 years of driving. Now have seen some 37 just from this motorway!

sk you’d of got a ticket if you’d of driven on that one.

“If you think 50 mph is acceptable on the motorway, you should not be on the motorway.”

Agree with this. It’s not safe to be doing 20mph less than everyone else, you won’t be able to move out of the way quickly enough, should the need arise.

In answer to the OP - yes that’s ridiculous, I’d report your concerns to the driving school.

What? How could he justify that if you were stopped by the police? He sounds like an idiot.

@awmum2b

In general there is a consensus that you won't get a ticket if it's speedlimit + 10% but that isn't actually a fact and the limit is the limit.

It is fact.

Argue with one of the country's top motoring barristers if you like, but you'll lose.

(Image credit: Andrew Thompson.)

It's a bit like the debate over smart motorways. I am not keen on them, but if an HGV goes into the back of a broken down car, it's because the driver wasn't paying attention.

I'd rather be wrong and alive, than dead but satisfied it was the HGV driver's fault for not paying attention.