Double white lines,safe to overtake or not.

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Double white lines,safe to overtake or not.

49 posts & 24 voices | Started 3 years ago by project | Latest reply from aracer

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project - Member

Ha there been a change in the Law that allows you to ignore them.
Reason being,last week, was stuck behind 3 cyclists, so patiently waited for the end of the white lines on a blind bendy road, the idiot in the van started tooting and shouting abuse, i just ignored him , but the cyclists obviously thought it was me.
Got to a straight bit and as i was about to overtake the cyclists , white van man overtook me,closely followed by an idiot in a volvo.

A few minutes latter,there was the white van stopped, with the volvo in front of it,blue lights flashing disguised in its tail lights.

There is a god i now know.

Posted 3 years ago #
Nick - Member

nice

Posted 3 years ago #
milkherd - Member

Awesome!

Posted 3 years ago #
MoreCashThanDash - Member

I hope you stopped in full view, pointed and laughed your head off at the van driver.

Posted 3 years ago #
cuckoo - Member

You can cross double white lines to overtake a slow-moving vehicle (i.e. one with an Amber flashing light on top) and cyclists only if it is safe to do so.

It is the "if safe to do so" bit that most people struugle to deal with. Nice to hear the van driver get their come-upance though.

Posted 3 years ago #
gonefishin - Member

You are actually allowed to cross the white lines to overtake bicycles and other vehicles if they are travelling at less than 10mph. Rule 129 of the highway code. Obviously the caveat of "if it is safe to do so" applies here as it does to every rule of the road.

Posted 3 years ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

white van man

Why is it significant that the van man was 'white' ? ...............RACIST

Posted 3 years ago #
deadlydarcy - Member

I was so determined not to be a white van man that I bought a black one.

So this week I am a sweating white black van man - it's like a cocking oven in this heat.

Posted 3 years ago #
aracer - Member

Personally there are plenty of places where I'd rather the cars crossed the double white lines than attempted to overtake me without doing so. What's more, in these places it's perfectly safe for them to do so even when I'm doing 20mph+, since the idiots who decide where they go don't know the HC and put them in where it's only unsafe to overtake something car sized doing 40+.

Posted 3 years ago #
Riksbar - Member

I was so determined not to be a white van man that I bought a black one.

deadlydarcy earlier today.

Posted 3 years ago #
deadlydarcy - Member

Oh if only it was that cool...think more Postman Pat

On the OP, was it the Karma Police in the volvo?

Posted 3 years ago #
CountZero - Member

ernie_lynch - Member
white van man
Why is it significant that the van man was 'white' ? ...............RACIST

ernie, you left off the winky emoticon to show you were joking. Unless, of course, you were being serious, in which case you've just displayed you're an arsehole of spectacular proportions.

Posted 3 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

Well I can see ernie's winky...

Posted 3 years ago #
deadlydarcy - Member

Me too. Btw Graham apple-fanboi S, outside of the thread, valiant fight against the conspiracy theorists. An enjoyable read.

Posted 3 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

Why thankyou! Though I fear talking sense to RudeBoy might be a lost cause.

oh and for the Apple fanbois


(I think that will probably only work on iPhones)

Posted 3 years ago #
notlocal - Member

:?safe to overtake on double white lines?

You'll have to ask the young couple (pregnant wife) I was called to assist today, after their car was turned over, following a head on crash.
Their car was flipped onto its roof by an on-coming car driven by some moron who couldn't wait for a straight bit of road.

Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt. What annoyed me more though was the fact that the idiot who caused the "accident" didn't even have the decency to approach the victims and ask if they were both ok.

My advice? If you can't see a clear bit of road as long as the stopping distance and more, then don't overtake. Would't everyone rather turn up late to their destination, than have the Police knocking on their next of kin's door??? Ends sermon

Posted 3 years ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

you've just displayed you're an arsehole of spectacular proportions.

*takes a bow*

Why thank you

*blushes*

Posted 3 years ago #
tyger - Member

LOL

Posted 3 years ago #
deadlydarcy - Member

I thought that said "just displayed your arsehole..." in which case I was getting uncomfortably excited.

Posted 3 years ago #
thegreatape - Member

I see too many overtakes where the overtaker gets out, round and back in just before the end of the straight bit. I can only assume that in their eyes that is plenty of room, if they are back in before the bend. Problem is, if something comes around the bend towards them at 60mph or more, then everyone is well and truly fecked.

Posted 3 years ago #
coffeeking - Member

Theoretically the double whites start at the point at which you should be back in - i.e. if you go over the double whites when pulling back in you're in the unsafe section, but if you're back in before then you're fine - they calculate the position etc from visibility and road speed etc. I have been known to mis-judge my cars ability to accelerate and clip the end of the whites, but usually because I'm trying to give the person I'm passing a good bit of room rather than cutting them up.

Posted 3 years ago #
joemarshall - Member

I have one point on my commute where the road is narrow (just room for 2 lanes), there's a completely blind corner, and it is on an uphill. At the corner it is if anything more narrow than normal, so I can't ride far enough out that someone could safely pass.

So cars are coming down the hill at 40-45mph (40 limit), I'm riding my bike up the hill at about 12mph. Now, however far out in the road I ride, people will still try to overtake me right on the corner. It's got a lower speed limit than the rest of this A road because it's an accident blackspot, it has double white lines, it has 'slow' signs and 'slow' written on the road, it is just blatantly obviously a really dangerous place to overtake. People just won't stop overtaking me there.

It occurs to me that a 'stupid overtaking' camera, would be dead easy to build, just stick a rear facing camera on that corner, aimed at the wrong lane, and fine/give points to everyone who does it. What a great way that would be to take some of Derbyshire's finest drivers off the roads.

Joe

Posted 3 years ago #
PeterPoddy - Member

The 'safe to overtake' part is pretty much irrelevant. Double whites mean it's illegal to cross them (Apart from the 10mph bit), and that's that. So, if you choose to cross them and get done for it, there's no wriggling out of it as in this case.

However, I know of more then one example of small dashed white lins where I wouldn't dream of overtaking, and similarly double whites where it's perfectly safe in the right circumstnaces, or on the right vehicle....

Posted 3 years ago #
mt - Member

CountZero - Member Humour I recognise that.

the need to have a sign for when to laugh show over liberal tendancies.

Posted 3 years ago #
aracer - Member

they calculate the position etc from visibility and road speed etc.

Really? I thought they made it up. If they do calculate it, then calculations very definitely aren't based on the idea of overtaking a vehicle traveling at the minimum speed for crossing the lines to be illegal - either the law needs changing, or the criteria for putting them in does.

Posted 3 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

I drive the A68 twice a week (Northumberland to Edinburgh and back).

Several things are very apparent:
- some folk completely ignore the solid white lines.
- it is vitally important to some folk to get one place ahead in a queue, even if it means risking their own life and others.
- many folk either have literally no idea what the national speed limit. (Pop quiz: road with two lanes in either direction, what is the limit?)

On my last trip I witnessed:

- an eejit cross the white lines to overtake a solid line of vehicles at 70mph on a blind summit in thick fog. Cue sudden appearance of oncoming headlights and frantic braking.

- a lorry driver who suddenly slowed 40 every time he passed a speed camera - despite being on a derestricted road.

- some folks using the fog as a reason to turn on every light on the car. Thanks.. now I'm blind.

- other folk who didn't bother with any lights even in the thickest patches of fog. MMmm.. stealthy.

Basically, everyone on the road is an idiot (including me!)

Posted 3 years ago #
aracer - Member

(Pop quiz: road with two lanes in either direction, what is the limit?)
Depends

- a lorry driver who suddenly slowed 40 every time he passed a speed camera - despite being on a derestricted road.
NSL SC?

Basically, everyone on the road is an idiot (including me!)
Yep, you just proved that one then.

Posted 3 years ago #
ourmaninthenorth - Member

Pop quiz: road with two lanes in either direction, what is the limit?

Without central reservation: 60mph (unless otherwise specified)
With central reservation: 70mph (unless otherwise specified)

Posted 3 years ago #
Nonsense - Member

If we are being particualarly bum gazing about it, in addition to the 10mph rule, double white lines are only legally enforceable if they have cats eyes through the middle of them, however you could still get in trouble for careless driving. Also the amber flashing lights only applies to road maintenance vehicles, not any slow moving vehicle that happens to have a light on it. I think I may go and shut my finger in a door as punishment now.

Posted 3 years ago #
porterclough - Member

- a lorry driver who suddenly slowed 40 every time he passed a speed camera - despite being on a derestricted road.

Maybe 'cos that's the limit for an HGV on a single carriageway NSL?

Rule 124:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070304

Posted 3 years ago #
aracer - Member

double white lines are only legally enforceable if they have cats eyes through the middle of them

Really? Got a link to that? It would make an awful lot of them not legally enforceable if so.

Posted 3 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

Depends

Correct.

NSL SC?

Yep, where he should have been limited to 50 (not that a speed camera can correctly identify the vehicle type anyway, but hey ho).

Yep, you just proved that one then

Because...?

ourmaninthenorth: indeedy. IME some folk, including my missus, don't realise the significance of the central reservation.

Posted 3 years ago #
deadlydarcy - Member

Yep, where he should have been limited to 50 (not that a speed camera can correctly identify the vehicle type anyway, but hey ho).

Wasn't there a thread a while back where a guy here got done because he was driving a van which was subject to a lower speed limit - on a camera?

Posted 3 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

Maybe 'cos that's the limit for an HGV on a single carriageway NSL?

He was the smaller type. (LGV?) So 50 I think.

Either way, tootling along at one speed (whether speeding or not) and then stamping on the brakes every time you see a camera is not really terribly sensible.

Posted 3 years ago #
aracer - Member

He was the smaller type. (LGV?) So 50 I think.

Well you should have said...

As DD says, some cameras can discriminate.

Posted 3 years ago #

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