To think driving standards are abysmal?

[Pihrd]

On the motorway, two lorries in front of me so I begin to overtake. I’m not keen on overtaking in my little car, but have to when stuck behind lorries. Just as I was about to overtake, one lorry suddenly pulls out in front of me, causing me to break hard then wait for ages as it edges pass the other lorry at about 1mph faster. This happens numerous times a month. WHY do lorries wait till you’re just about to overtake then suddenly pull out?

And why do driver tailgate you on the motorway? If I have to break for any reason, we’re both fucked. What is wrong with people?

@nyancatdays but I wouldn't need to move from lane 1 to lane 4 which no doubt you class as weaving and driting if you weren't sat doing 67mph in lane 3 when lane 1 was perfectly fine to do 70mph until that point and I was following the keep left unless overtaking rule.

I do a lot of motorway driving and I find that people can't anticipate what might happen and have no idea about the traffic around them at any given time. Which is really an essential skill for the motorways.

I’m sure in the old days lorries were supposed to only stay in the first lane and use the second for overtaking only. Now they are most definitely in lane 3 a lot. They are dangerous.

So you were in the outside lane on motorway and the lorry pulled out in front of you causing you to have to brake? I mean, that sounds awful but I have never experienced that. Were you in the outside lane but approaching to overtake so slowly it would have taken notable time to overtake? In my experience, lorries try to maintain their speed. So they are proactive about changing lane, but usually wait if a mich faster car is approaching.

I’m taking my driving test on 29th at the grand old age of 52. I’m bricking it lol

Im hoping for no lorry issues that day lol

I usually drive at 72mph in lane 3, but I have to say, on no motorway I’m ever on is anyone driving at 70 in the left lane (apart from the M6 Toll which is delightful). I’m usually on the M25/M5/M42/M6 at peak times, and there are always lorries on speed limiters driving bumper to bumper in a constant convoy at 55 in the left lane. You’d not be able to drive at 70 unless you were in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and flew on top of them. The only time you can get in or out of the left lane is to enter or exit the carriageway and that’s difficult enough!

Which are these motorways where people can drive at 70 in the left lane, or even get into the left lane amongst the lorries? I must be missing out on some great motorway driving experiences! 😆🙄

Hah! You must be joking. They love to do this! They play lorry chicken with each other all the time. I think they do it to keep themselves busy. On a local A road near me it’s like a lorry pastime, where they deliberately pull out to overtake in the fast lane whenever the road is going uphill.

The M5 in Devon (apart from the vexatious bit in Exeter where one lane becomes both a joining lane and an exit lane simultaneously).

The main problem is there are too many cars on the roads.

M25 on Easter Sunday 4pm somewhere between junction 22 and 18. Pretty much empty road for a bit. And pretty much everyone driving in lane 3. We had 1 and 2 to ourself for quite a while. And yes my husband did “undertake” some of them. We were driving at 70. They were driving at about 60.

Not sure that 4pm on Easter Sunday is a peak time! Obviously you can drive in the left lane if there isn’t anyone in it. Haulage traffic is much less on main public holidays (it’s probably nice on Christmas Day, too). I’m usually driving at peak times, as I said, for work. Not sure I’ve ever seen the M25 look like that in my life! More like a car park most of the time I’m on it.

This is so true. We've done circa 1000 miles in the last 2 days and going south on the M1 from around junction 30, the driving is desperate, the worst we encountered (and we've driven through Paris today!). Drivers in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lanes with absolutely nothing inside them. Often younger women I'm sad to say. Mile after mile of it. It's as if they never learned the rules of motorway driving. It's hard to avoid undertaking if you're doing 70 in the inside lane and the other lanes are full of idiots doing less. It forces me into the 3rd or 4th lanes to get past - completely unnecessary if people only knew how to drive.

No. If I was going slowly I wouldn’t have had to slam on my breaks.

Didn’t say it was peak time. You asked which motorways people drive on where you can drive in lane 1 with no issues you didn’t specify it had to be in peak time only.

My point though is about the amount of people who think lane 3 is fine to drive in (slowly) when there’s no one else in lanes 1 and 2. Would you class my car as weaving and drifting if I had to go from lane 1 to lane 4 in order to get round those people? Which is quite frankly ridiculous. Which is why my husband chose just to undertake them. (Which I don’t class as undertaking anyway as we were just maintaining our speed in our lane) But I know the topic of undertaking is a tricky one and highly debated on here.

You can't have been in the outside lane - that would have been lane number three, in which most "lorries" are not allowed to use under normal circumstances, and from which there is no other lane you could go into so as to overtake.

It sounds like you were in the inside lane, AKA lane one. What @onwards2025 is saying makes sense to me, which is that from the way you've described the incident, you must have been sitting behind a lorry and doing the same speed, if not slightly less. If this is so, ideally you'd have been in lane two and doing 70mph or whatever speed below that depending on the traffic, so as to be away from the lorries ASAP rather than sitting behind them.

This is in no way a criticism, it is an explanation of what may well have been the problem, based on your description of the event.

@MarlyMet I don’t class that as undertaking either tbh. It’s clearly the case that you shouldn’t be driving in lane 3 if there’s no-one in lanes 1 or 2; but in these debates on MN there isn’t usually much nuance in recognising that motorway driving changes depending on the conditions (on a packed 4-laner in congestion it’s faster and safer for everybody to stay in lane, and not be moving in and out all the time with not enough stopping distance, for example).

I call “weaving and drifting” those people who on congested motorways slide about between lanes without bothering to signal or even look in their mirrors half the time, when everyone’s going at the same speed anyway. And today on a long journey I’ve experienced the full gamut of cars and lorries pulling out with not enough space or without checking mirrors, people weaving about across the whole carriageway and back without a single signal, people signalling after pulling out, signalling without looking and starting to pull out then realising it’s not safe and having to go back in again (lots of lorries doing this); people driving along on their phones, people braking too late because they aren’t paying attention, people letting their dogs stick their heads out of the window, and racers tailgating and agitating to go at 85 then having to brake suddenly. Oh, and someone signalling left then moving right, almost forgot that one!

All of those things are actually dangerous as well as tiresome, so I can’t get worked up about a few people in the middle lane, who are generally the only ones not driving like maniacs in the first place.

You know that there are 2-lane motorways, @Bonniethetiler ?

I do. What point are you making?

Christ. I know what lane I was in. I was the one driving. Why do you think there was three lanes?

The arrogance is insane.

It wouldn't have mattered how many lanes there were, you can't overtake from the outside lane - it's physically not possible, because next to it is the crash barrier.

You what? You use the outside lane to overtake. That is what I was just about to do, overtake two lorries, when one of the lorries suddenly pulled in front of me.

So do you mean you were travelling in the outside lane and as you neared a lorry that was on your left, it moved in front of you and cut you up?. From the way you wrote it, it sounded like you were in the "outside lane" with two lorries in front of you in the same lane.

I agree with you totally though in your edited post: the arrogance is insane.

On the motorway, two lorries in front of me so I begin to overtake.

I’m not sure how this can read that I was in the outside lane with two lorries in front of me.

But yes, two lorries in front of me, all three of us in the same lane. I move lanes to overtake and at the last second the back lorry moves lane causing me to break.

It was read that way because you said "I was in the outside lane, obviously, about to overtake". I can imagine now from what you have since written that you were in the inside lane, moved to the outside, was about to speed up, when the lorry then moved over too. Which goes back to what @onwards was saying about the point at which a decision is made to overtake.

I had this happen years ago also, lorry ran me off the road and into the barrier after pulling out in front of me. In my opinion when you drive a vehicle capable of massive damage that you KNOW has a massive blind spot, it’s your responsibility to double / triple check it’s safe to move or don’t change lanes. The lorry that ran me off the road didn’t even signal until after it had started moving so it was too late for me to anything.

No, I wasn’t about to speed up. I was already travelling faster than the lorry. Hence needing to overtake.