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Indeed Cam and others, you should allways be in the inside if it is clear, middle and outside lanes are for overtaking only.

Every Thursday night around 5pm I drive 45 mins up the motorway to Taunton, I see the problem every week, you will get a car going along at around 60-65mph overtake a lorry then see another lorry about 15 car lenghts down the road and stay in the middle lane for the mile and half it takes them to catch it up, thus forcing 70-75 mph traffic into the outside lane slowing the whole motorway down, causing frustration, anger, bad decisons and accidents.

These are the drivers who will targeted.

ferrarilover wrote:Drives for miles down the middle lane, sees speed limits as absolutes, yup, starting to get an idea of what sort of driver Scorer is. He's a lovely chap, well read and articulate, but he's a menace and a danger on the road.

Matt.

I have to slow right down to be able to read the road signs...

forevertufc wrote:Indeed Cam and others, you should allways be in the inside if it is clear, middle and outside lanes are for overtaking only.

Every Thursday night around 5pm I drive 45 mins up the motorway to Taunton, I see the problem every week, you will get a car going along at around 60-65mph overtake a lorry then see another lorry about 15 car lengths down the road and stay in the middle lane for the mile and half it takes them to catch it up, thus forcing 70-75 mph traffic into the outside lane slowing the whole motorway down, causing frustration, anger, bad decisons and accidents.

These are the drivers who will be targeted.

But these are generally not the drivers who cause the accidents; it's usually the drivers who fly along well in excess of the 70mph speed limit who expect everyone to stay out of their way and who get frustrated, angry and inconsiderate towards the slower drivers. And drivers who keep on cutting in front of other vehicles; who don't leave enough of a gap between the vehicle in front; and who drive without due care and consideration for other road users.

Drivers who use the middle lane are unjustly denigrated. They will also be unjustly accused. The only way to demonstrate and to defeat this will be to fit a dashboard camera in the car to record your journey. Then you'll see who the bad drivers are. Some of them will indeed be middle lane users, but I suspect no more or less than other drivers.

It really, REALLY isn't. The number of people driving well in excess on the posted limit is very, very small. I know because I was one of those people. My cruising speed, for many years and hundreds of thousands of miles was 100mph. It was a very rare day indeed that I came across anybody doing anything like my pace. What caused problems then and what causes problems now (now that I spend the majority of my time doing 70-80) are idiots doing 40 on the inside (the very elderly) and forcing lorries into the middle lane and middle lane morons who force people doing 65 into the outside lane. The speed limit may well be 70mph, but righteous indignation does not change the fact that the motorway speed limit is (rightly, in my view) largely ignored. The reality is that punting along the middle lane at 70 or less when there is a perfectly serviceable inside lane available is both anti-social and dangerous.
The other thing which grips my shit is idiots who pull alongside while I'm doing a cruise control controlled 70mph (for instance), then just sit on my offisde corner, refusing to overtake. These are the same idiots who then get angry when I pull out in front of them to overtake. Overtake or pull in your **** ing retards!

Matt.

From personal experience Gullscorer, BY FAR the most dangerous road users are the ones who don't pay enough attention to those around them, and I'm afraid the most dangerous of those are the ones travelling below or at the speed limit. I'd be rich if I gained a quid for every time some egit from the middle lane who has had acres of space to pull out into the overtaking lane, overtake the guy in front of him and pull in. Instead, they see me coming up much quicker than them so slow down despite having loads of time, then at the very last minute decide that they did have time, pull out 2 inches from my bumper with no signal and then cause me to slam on the brakes.

I was actually once pulled over for this exact incident, and according to the Police Officer I was committing the most dangerous offence, until I asked him to explain how a competent driver doing 80mph on a relatively quiet motorway is MORE dangerous than not using your mirrors, not signalling and pulling out with so little space that there is no option for the overtaker to emergency brake. He had no answer and let me go.

So Matt, you are admitting that most of your motorway driving is done in excess of the official speed limit, and you seem to be saying that anybody in front of you who is driving at a more appropriate speed should not be in your way or should not be on the motorway at all, or they will force you (shock, horror) to overtake.

Is it illegal to do 40mph on the inside lane? No. You could be fined for causing a hazard or obstruction on a public highway, but you'd have to be going pretty slowly for that, depending on the circumstances. Is it legal to drive 70-80-100mph on the outside lane? Definitely not. And the outside lane is for overtaking only whether at 65mph or 70mph.

Surely the important thing is for drivers to drive with common sense, courtesy and due consideration for other road users, and not to let themselves get impatient and angry. And that goes for you, me, and everybody.

I haven't mentioned women drivers yet, have I ..?

Oh, and idiots at roundabouts. I'm constantly nearly slamming into the guy in front of me due to their inability to look right. A quick glance shows that it is totally clear, so why do you need to come to a complete stop?!

And then the Ocado driver who was in front of me in a one way street. He obviously missed the house he was going to as he thought it fine to slam on the brakes, stick it into reverse and start reversing back towards me and the car behind me. He then got annoyed that I wouldn't get out his way. That was until he had a 6 foot fairly sizeable bloke giving him sh*t through the window. He backed down quite quickly after that, hopefully he learnt how to drive.

cambgull wrote:Oh, and idiots at roundabouts. I'm constantly nearly slamming into the guy in front of me due to their inability to look right. A quick glance shows that it is totally clear, so why do you need to come to a complete stop?!

absolutely gets on my bloody nerves that, at junctions and roundabouts, a quick look is all thats needed but they stop dead and take about 5 minutes to decide whether to go even if the road is clear or if other cars are about a mile away.

cambgull wrote:Oh, and idiots at roundabouts. I'm constantly nearly slamming into the guy in front of me due to their inability to look right. A quick glance shows that it is totally clear, so why do you need to come to a complete stop?!

chunkygull wrote:
absolutely gets on my bloody nerves that, at junctions and roundabouts, a quick look is all that's needed but they stop dead and take about 5 minutes to decide whether to go even if the road is clear or if other cars are about a mile away.

Yep, those red traffic lights at roundabouts and junctions are a bloody nuisance...

Your sarcasm fails when you realise the VAST majority of roundabouts in the UK don't have traffic lights.

But why sensibility get in the way of good sarcasm, right?

Gullscorer wrote:So Matt, you are admitting that most of your motorway driving is done in excess of the official speed limit, and you seem to be saying that anybody in front of you who is driving at a more appropriate speed should not be in your way or should not be on the motorway at all, or they will force you (shock, horror) to overtake.

Is it illegal to do 40mph on the inside lane? No. You could be fined for causing a hazard or obstruction on a public highway, but you'd have to be going pretty slowly for that, depending on the circumstances. Is it legal to drive 70-80-100mph on the outside lane? Definitely not. And the outside lane is for overtaking only whether at 65mph or 70mph.

Surely the important thing is for drivers to drive with common sense, courtesy and due consideration for other road users, and not to let themselves get impatient and angry. And that goes for you, me, and everybody.

I haven't mentioned women drivers yet, have I ..?

Paragraph one: if that's what you read when you looked at what I'd written, then you aren't smart enough to understand the point I'm making. But you are certainly smart enough, which means you're being obtuse.

Paragraph two: the offence would be DWDCA or, if at 40 MPH, I'd be pushing for dangerous driving (that is, driving which falls far below the standard expected of a careful and competent driver).

All this rubbish about the speed limit is irrelevant. If the Government of all those years ago had decided on 60mph instead of 70, it would be people like you suggesting that people doing 70 are a menace. As it is, they plucked 70 out of their collective arses and here we are today. The facts of life are that a great many people travel at X speed on the motorway and a large percentage of them are greatly inconvenienced or even put in danger by prats trundling along inappropriately in the middle lane causing untold problems in their wake. We have three lanes, keep left unless overtaking.
If you like, come with me to an away game, we'll spend 6 hours on the motorway at between 70 and 80 and we'll spend around 80% of our time in the inside lane (and we'll undertake at least 20 daft, ignorant twats who are beetling along the middle lane with no good cause.)

Matt.

Well aware of what the motorway speed limit is G/S , however if every driver went down the motorway not exceeding the 70mph you surley would end up with far to many cars trying to drive down the same road at the same time, causing the motorway network to grind to a halt.

And probably a large part of the reason why the police are quite happy to let drivers go 80 mph because they know it helps to keep the traffic flowing, were as drivers sat in the middle lane doing 65mph for no good reason, cause utter mayhem.

Looks like we might still get the 80mph trial on motorways next year, after it was first mooted a couple years ago.

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Very smart move if they decide to go for it. There is no reason for a car capable of doing a faster speed being restricted by rules implemented when the very top speed of cars was 70mph.

Luke, I had no thought of sarcasm, FFS it was just a joke. Lighten up. And it was not unfunny. Perhaps you disliked it because the joke was on you??

Matt, so you've stated quite clearly that you think driving at 40mph on the inside lane of a motorway is dangerous driving, but doing 70-80mph on the same inside lane is OK, and undertaking on the same inside lane is also (at best) OK, or (at worst) a necessary manoeuvre due to the idiotic driving of other ignorant twats? The mind boggles. I would take you up on your offer, but I value my own life more than that!

We can argue the merits or otherwise of a particular speed limit, or of middle-lane driving, or of overtaking lanes or undertaking other vehicles, but nobody should disregard any parts of the law and the Highway Code just because they don't agree them, whether it's speed limits or middle lanes or whatever. Drivers who think they can pick and choose which rules to obey and which ones apply only to others and not to themselves should think again before taking a vehicle onto the road. Especially if it's a Ferrari...

I think everyone has valid points about this debate but the 2 key components of all these bad drivers are ignorance/arrogance and lack of common sense. Give them all the advance driving in the world if you wish but these undesirable human traits will always ensure that our roads are full of complete fannies. Especially ones wearing suits and driving silver cars and the ones who fail to say thankyou which is the singlemost annoying thing for me about driving. I would think nothing of spitting in their faces as to me they are stealing oxygen. Anyway, rules are there for a reason but if they are continually flouted and these rule breakers go unpunished then the rest of us will continue to suffer. I do happen to think Matt is wrong to speed at 100mph although I regularly do 80 ish and I do agree with him that the very people who trawl the motorways every day or on a regular basis at 80, 90 100mph are more aware of the dangers around them generally speaking and are less likely to have accidents. If you pay attention to what is going on around you and are extremely alert and aware then I reckon if you did 150mph then you'd still have less accidents than some motorists who quite frankly should be owning donkeys instead to get around, should wear straw hats and drink scrumpy under a tree and have black teeth. Numbskulls.