Changing the law, good or bad?

I am now starting to get sick of the brain dead who think it’s ok to sit in the middle lane with, I suppose, the sole objective of screwing up the traffic flow.

What would be so wrong in changing the law to allow undertaking, as in USA, as clearly these numpties do not have the ability to learn or respect others?

I’m not talking about changing all laws to pander to the majority, but this aspect, it’s a law for the sake of law rather than maintaining the fabric of society.

Equally, why not increase the max speed in the overtaking lane (only) to 90mph? The speed limit was set 100s of years ago when cars had crap top speeds and crap brakes.

how about prosecuting them rather than getting us to do a more dangerous driving move?
The 90 mph in the overtaking lane – which lane is this as all but the inside are this? Imagine I am doing 65 mph and need to overtake two lorries – one overtaking the other – how easy is it for me to pull out into the 90 mph lane? – where we know poeple will do over 100mph.
Think 70 mph works fine as it limits most peole to sa max of about 90 anyway

The speed limit was set 100s of years ago when cars had crap top speeds and crap brakes.

Risk homeostasis

Make it legal to shoot the twunts who sit in the outside lane because they are too boody lazy to move back in for the 17miles before the next slow moving lorry as it might mean they have to use a mirror, an indicator and a deviation in direction to get back out again.

If anything I would try to make more drivers learn patience. It’s not a race, if someone is in front of you, you wait until it is safe to pass. If it’s not safe, don’t pass. Unless you work for the emergency services your few minutes wasted is not more important than other road users safety, even if the driver blocking you is a div.
Just accept there are idiots on the road and don’t get angry about it. If you don’t you are likely to turn a poor situation into a much worse one.

undertaking is illegal, however passing on the inside isn’t.

Prosecution is the current option and that isn’t working, undertaking seems to work in the USofA.

Think 70 mph works fine as it limits most peole to sa max of about 90 anyway

So, the illegal act of driving at 90 has become acceptable and the police don’t prosecute, so why not make it legal, same for undertaking.
Undertaking is only dangerous because we are not taught how to deal with it and the selfrighteous will move over to demonstrate how dangerous it really is. After all it is legal in slow moving traffic.

Just accept there are idiots on the road and don’t get angry about it

I’m not angry, just curious.

Make a habit of passing commercial vehicles on the inside and see how that works out for you

Make a habit of passing commercial vehicles on the inside and see how that works out for you

Well, that would be plain silly now because it’s illegal, but if the law was changed, it wouldn’t be so ridiculous.

I’m not demanding chance, or saying it’s right, just looking for opinion, this isn’t a troll either. 😀

I though over, under, round and through taking is the law in Spain Don?

😳

I guess that’s where my curiosity has come from iDave, people sit in the middle lane, and I think there is a reason for it. The traffic screams past in the outside lane and the inside lane is empty. Often I’ll cruise along at 110 in the inside lane without a care. But you don’t get the selfrighteous element who will do things to provoke problems.

If anything I would try to make more drivers learn patience

True but how about teaching middle lane dwellers to obey the highway code

DS is said why not make it legal you could try yto counter these points if you want
Trucks have a huge blind spot and I am guessing middle lane dwellers dont use the mirrors much.
Far easier to enforce the current law and get middle laners to actually pull in as the highway code states – I see littlle point changing the law because people dont obey it – [hysterical dail wail voice ]where would this end 😉

The speed limit was set 100s of years ago when cars had crap top speeds and crap brakes.

By “100s of years ago” you mean 1965? 🙄

Have we rebuilt all our motorways since then to have longer slip roads, wider turns and a grippier surface?
I know a few roads with the slip road in the outside lane, I don’t fancy hitting that at 100mph+

By “100s of years ago” you mean 1965?

Are you trying to tell me the car hasn’t been around for 100s of years? 🙄

to be honest i will undertake when i see the need. in itself it’s not a dangerous act. all depends on the situation and speed.

…or make it compulsory to take a motorway driving test ?

The bloke driving the Audi I came across yesterday on my way back from Cwmcarn thought it safe to undertake using the middle lane whilst accelerating to approx 100mph. When a car from the r/hand lane decided to indicate left and move to the middle lane Mr.Audi was then forced into the slow lane, where upon he was then very fast approaching the rear end of an old Triumph Herald which was only doing about 50mph. Mr.Audi was then forced on to the hard shoulder where he brushed the verge ’cause he’d had to swerve so hard – he then continued to weave through the lanes at about 90mph before he got boxed in and I caught up with him about a mile further up the road.

What a complete ****.

Kev

to be honest i will undertake when i see the need. in itself it’s not a dangerous act. all depends on the situation and speed.

And I think that applies to most reasonable thinking people, so why not make it legal?

Keva, even by allowing undertaking, the guy in the Audi would be guilty of dangerous driving.

I am guessing middle lane dwellers dont use the mirrors much

I honetly think this is the root of the problem. If you drive on the continent through Austria and Germany etc then the awareness of drivers of what is behind them is amazing. It seems that at least as much attention is on what is coming from behind as what is in front, if not more. Comparing the lane movement and dexterity of the flow of traffic on the continent to here shows a massive difference. I think we are far too tight collar and regimented.

Lazy?Childishly competitive?

You know when they close a lane and the signs say 800m till lane closed and the whole world is in the left lane already. The lane is not closed yet. Utilise the road that is available. Anyway, I had a situation where I decided to proceed along the still open lane and a twud from the inside lane pulled out to ‘block’ me, and continued to track the speed of the traffic in the inside lane all the way until it closed. Come on!? However the vibe I got was as if the whole of that lane was in erupting in applause for the guys heroic act. Quite indicative of the driving attitudes in Britain.

Are you trying to tell me the car hasn’t been around for 100s of years?

Since the early Neolithic period if my understanding of The Flintstones is correct, but the 70mph speed limit has only been in place since 1965. Till then you could go as fast as you and your passenger could run. Faster if Dino was pushing.

The speed limit was set 100s of years ago when cars had crap top speeds and crap brakes.

[/quote
Say what you mean
It was only hundreds of years if you want to class steam powered cars – i dont think we set thelimit for these niche vehicles and virtualluy none 100 years ago.
What you said was FACTUALLY wrong on speed limits no point trying to have a dig at someone for pointing out your error

Overtaking on the left is not an offence in the United Kingdom

from here http://www.middlelanemorons.com/script/middle_lane_morons_prob.php

Since the early Neolithic period if The Flintstones is correct, but the 70mph speed limit has only been in place since 1965. Till the you could go as fast as you and your passenger could run. Faster if Dino was pushing.

That’s cleared that one up then. 😆

Chill Junkyard, my tongue was firmly in my cheek on that point, check for that “s” again. 😉 And I think GrahamS has taken it the way it was intended.

Make a habit of passing commercial vehicles on the inside and see how that works out for you
Well, that would be plain silly now because it’s illegal, but if the law was changed, it wouldn’t be so ridiculous.

I’m not demanding chance, or saying it’s right, just looking for opinion, this isn’t a troll either.

The legality has nothing to do with it – its the death like symptoms. Passing some vehicles on the inside is extremely dangerous. If you changed the law you’d either need to have a two tier law that made it legal to pass some types of vehicle on the left but not others or have open season and accept the deaths.

I often end up undertaking, I just don’t understand some people on relatively empty roads sitting in the middle/outside lanes. I wouldn’t do it to try and weave through heavy traffic though. Not saying it’s acceptable to the law but it is to me :p
As for speed limits, part of me says yes they should be increased but I think it would need to be variable based on conditions like in France but would be a pain to implement now. Anyway they same to be going the other way – that f**king 50mph 3 lane M4 between Newport and Cardiff makes me angry every time I pass through it, the place is enough of a shite hole as it is without being forced to drive at HGV speeds for no apparent reason.

people drive crap as a rule, but especially so when given a choice of lanes…

The continentals are just as bad on 3 lane roads, and even worse if they come from countries where speeders are ‘hounded’ – the Dutch are a good example of this.

The speed limit was set 100s of years ago

I thought it was thousands of years ago actually. Well, it was before I was born, so as good as, in my book. 🙂

(Some clever clogs will probbly be along shortly to explain, using charts, diagrams and quoting Richard Dawkins, that it was in fact several millions of years ago in fact before the Earth existed and maybe not that long after the Big Bang thingy really. But hey ho. They probbly live in Milton Keynes or something and are therefore quite bitter and hateful anyway, so there)

So have the traffic police just defined that if you overtake on the inside then due to the incompetency of twunts to use their mirrors it is ‘dangerous driving’. They seem to be ok about it if we overtake on the outside when the speed differential between the cars is great. Why would the dangers be any more prevalent on the inside?

OK Elfin, could we leave cars and Big Bang out of the same sentence, please? 😉

Why would the dangers be any more prevalent on the inside?

Now we’re thinking. 😀

Why would the dangers be any more prevalent on the inside?

Because broadly we have an etiquette of passing on one side and so thats the manoever that drivers are expecting – and specifically with a lot of vehicles visibility is poor to non on the left and during the time you are passing you can’t be seen.

I did notice this time but thought i would stay “in charachter” and moan

don… yeh I know… not saying undertaking is wrong full stop, I do it when it’s necessary and safe to do so, just pointing out that Mr.Audi was being a bit of a kn0b… the motorway at the time was pretty much packed and moving at 70-80mph. Where he though he was going to get I’ve no idea ?

I still think it should be compulsory for people to take a motorway test.

Kev

Are these middle lane hogs that everyone gets all flustered about real? I’ve clocked up roughly 3000 miles in the last week or so and I can think of only 2 or 3 instances of someone daydreaming in the middle lane, and thats usually been quite late and in pretty quite conditions.

Why would the dangers be any more prevalent on the inside?

Slip roads generally come off the inside lane, so you get far more numpties that are sitting in the middle/outside lane and then swerve across as they realise they are about to miss their exit. If you are coming up the inside lane at speed, possibly obscured by other vehicles, then that it obviously a “more prevalent” danger.

Also, possibly, the driver has a slightly better view of the right hand lane as he sits on the right of the car and can easily check over his shoulder.

Oh yes, they exist. I generally come across 5 or 6 per day, 2 or 3 serious problems, but as I said I think there is a logical reason for it here.

I once was coming up to a car doing 50 in lane no. 2 (of a 4-lane section of the M6). I couldn’t move out due to the flow of traffic. Lane no. 1 was completely empty.

I gave them a quick flash of my lights to say “ey up, you can move over, you know”.

What did they do?

They panicked and moved out suddenly into lane no. 3

Oh the humanity.

I still waited till I could overtake (cos I’m a good boy and I didn’t want to be anywhere near where I thought they might go).

If you allowed undertaking then the slow/mid/fast lane as they stand may “cease to exist”. Those that currently hog the middle lane would just choose any lane at random to drive at 50 mph in. I think you would find traffic flow would become worse.
Its the very fact that you are forced to overtake that defines the slow/mid/fast lanes.

Part of me thinks the only change to the law that would make me happy is allowing me to mount twin .50 calibre machine guns on my car to blow them off the road.

But the sensible part of me thinks sod it just drive around them and carry on.

Most days the sensible part of me wins…

…most days

I’m not sure undertaking does work in the USA and I know when I mentioned that it was illegal in the UK they thought it was a great idea.

Checking the nearside blindspot in a 15 seater minibus is just about impossible. To move inside a lane the procedure was something like

Mirror, Signal, start manouevre slowly, listen for horns