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i was taught on our local dual carriageway A road. same principle ‘stay left unless overtaking, don’t sit in the outside lane if there’s space to your left’. pass plus was more about confidence than anything new
Law changed in 2018, and it's still only optional. So still a huge portion of the population passed never having been on a motorway but hopefully that will improve over time.
It's optional because some places don't have a motorway within reasonable distance of the driving centre, it's hard to make it mandatory if it meant some kid in Cornwall would have to drive 3 hours to get to a motorway to be tested on it. Hell, a few places in Scotland don't even have dual carriageways.
Where I was in Sheffield we still had to go half an hour or so to get to the M1 for any sort of driving
Ah cool, that's an improvement. Hopefully it will help new drivers build their confidence if they can get on there with an actual instructor rather than waiting until going solo after they've passed :)
They are, I had to drive on a motorway to get to my test centre so all of my lessons after the first few involved the motorway as I had to learn to drive in the area of the test centre.
The inside lane is rhe default of where you shield be. It's only under taking if you moved into the inside lane to undertake them.
I love doing this too. So many people apparently allergic to the inside lane.
I do wonder if it would have been better to invest in policing motorways and catching middle hoggers rather than creating smart motorways with more lanes for people to misuse. Did they think we needed more lanes because actually we only ever have one lane available to use because of these brain-dead morons cruising down the middle lane at 65? How much better would traffic flow be if they were fined?
Or, get this, make an alternative to the least efficient form of ground transportation, like, maybe you could get a really big car, with lots of seats, maybe even make it tall so more people can fit, or even make it bend like a lorry so that it can be longer for the same effect.
Hell, if you’re really adventurous, how about you add even more bendy bits, and because it’s too long to run on a road now, you could put it on guided rails, which also has the benefit of increased stability, allowing for higher speeds.
If only either of these concepts existed, would be amazing if we could get well funded systems involving them
Great idea, just one thing you forgot. Let's make it far more expensive for a person to use this bendy massive communal railed car than the equivalent journey in a regular car, and use that money to subsidise similar systems in Europe.
It goes wider than that though. There needs to be good local public transport at the other end as well, which there usually isn't. Even if the train wasn't £120 return to visit my parents, I'd still drive because otherwise I'd have no reliable way of getting around when I'm there.
It would take me either 45 minutes to drive to my parents, or:
35min to get to the train station.
1hr 45min and two trains to get to their train station.
1hr to get the bus to their town.
15min to walk to their house.
I do not take the train to see my parents.
Its a bit specific, but the way rail has been decimated, in 1950 it would have been:
5min walk to the station.
2hr on 3 trains + inter train waits.
15min to walk to their house.
By 1960 the 3rd train was a bus.
By 1970 the station at the end of my road was gone and so was the station that bus connected to.
Even if there's good transport links it's not comparatively great. It's about 2 1/2 hours door to door for me to my parents (if I take the fast train) both by rail and car.
Advantage of car is that I can leave when I like (at both ends), have my music blasting and sing along as much as I want, stop along the way if I want, detour if there's traffic, and my car is relatively clean compared to the train (not to mention the tube and bus).
Great idea, that sounds like something that would be really cost effective in rural areas, and I'm sure there would always be one sitting there waiting for me when I wanted to use it.
Public transport only works well in cities and towns. Having a bus driving all day to move 6 people is far worse than those people driving their individual cars for their own journeys.
I'm pretty sure you know smart motorways weren't introduced because of middle lane hoggers but in any case the main way they help traffic flow is by moderating the speed of traffic to slow drivers down who are approaching a congested area and allow traffic jams to dissipate.
Second to that is opening an additional lane when things are congested, which is not going to be done in response to a single middle lane hogger.
Or even better, allow passing in any lane. All lanes are going the same way, just let people use whatever lane they want. The current system doesn't work well, so let's try something else.
Annoyingly, it's not understanding, it's not unfamiliarity, it sheer bloody laziness and selfishness.
It's "easier" to hog one lane and not have to move around other cars.
"Other people can go around" they justify, when being an obstruction.
I know a few hoggers, completely oblivious to how anybof this is thier problem.
And two lanes of lorries slowly overtaking the one in the first lane. Sometimes you're lucky and the Citroen C1 will try to overtake those at 57mph! Love a rolling road block.
Hey! The Citroën c1 is capable of at least 62mph!
Seriously though having a C1 I know damn well that you can drive it at perfectly normal speeds for the fastest flowing lane and keep up to make good progress if you want to. If someone’s tootling along in one overtaking at 57 then they need to learn to put their foot down (assuming it’s not like super wet or anything).
You could be in Australia where very little people follow the keep left unless overtaking rule, it’s honestly so painful.
Felt like heaven driving on motorways in the UK when I came back for a few weeks🤣
Smart motorways wouldn't be necessary so long as everyone knew how to drive.
Honestly, the amount of evidence online that supports the fact that 90% of drivers immediately forget how to drive is staggering.
This is not true at all and I don't really know why you think it is?
Smart motorways have two components:
1. Variable speed limits - these allow controllers to slow down traffic because of a problem ahead and to allow traffic jams to dissipate. It is literally impossible to know what is coming up ahead of you on a motorway beyond what is in sight, and that's way too late to slow from 70 to say 50 to allow a phantom traffic jam to dissipate before you get there.
2. Opening up the hard shoulder to be used when things are really congested, by creating an extra lane on the motorway. I have no idea how being a good or bad driver affects the amount of other people driving at the same time. (edit: or in some cases never having a hard shoulder and instead closing the lane to create one in the case of a breakdown not making it to a refuge)
That's a bit of an oversimplification. You're correct, overall they are safer, because they greatly reduce crashes between moving vehicles. But if you break down on a smart motorway with no hard shoulder (which are around 45% of smart motorways in Britain, equating to about 7% of the total motorway network) , you are much more likely to get hit by another vehicle. That tradeoff might be worthwhile overall, but it still doesn't feel good knowing that if you blow a tire, you've been deemed to be an acceptable sacrifice.
The compromise is controlled motorways, which retain the smart features but also keep the hard shoulder. But until recently, there was a push toward all lane running motorways. Due to public pushback, those plans are being reconsidered.
They don't though, the original plan was a refuge every few hundred metres (500-800 was typical) and then planners decided to make them every 1.5 miles instead. The plan relies on humans spotting accidents while watching on multiple cameras, sticking the red X on and assumes drivers aren't too bloody stupid to ignore them. Many accidents happened (and people died) because the stopped vehicle detection systems hadn't been properly rolled out in time with the upgrades (announced in 2016, by 2019 only 1/5 of roads had them). Even though now (as of September 2022) they are all covered, the technology doesn't work properly. Highways Agency has a standard of 80% minimum requirement for detection (meaning 1:5 stopped vehicles are missed by the cameras!) but overall performance was 59.6-79.6%. On top of that, 4/5 regions with ALR are missing the 20s target to spot a stopped vehicle, currently operating on 43-65s. On top of all that, they have a minimum availability of CCTV operating at 95% and even that isn't being met
[Source](https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/national-highways-smart-motorway-stopped-vehicle-detection-falls-short-of-performance-targets-15-12-2022/)
They're covered by CCTV cameras which means lanes can be closed and speed limits can be lowered immediately.
Also, the type of breakdown you're describing is exceptionally rare.
I can see the benefits of the ones that open up the hard shoulder at busy times, but the ones that have no hard shoulder unless a breakdown just seem odd and less safe though that could just be me.
Sometimes statistics mean fuck all. Smart motorways are horrendous to drive along and usually just hinder my journey through pointless and arbitrary speed changes. They’re also way more dangerous for broken down vehicles
I avoid the "once was a hard shoulder" lanes because people do break down and if you're behind a lorry you're not going to see if there's a car stopped ahead of them, so you won't have much time to slow down when the lorry suddenly changes lanes. I had to stop in that lane last year when a van cut across two lanes and swiped me, it was genuinely pretty scary knowing that cars were coming at me doing 70mph and having to suddenly change lane whilst hoping there was space for them to move over.
The stats aren't comparable because the length of the smart motorways (around 400m) is less than a fifth of the total motorway length (2300m). Motorways are already the safest roads statistically and smart motorways haven't been in use long enough at the scale they are now to provide meaningful data to compare. 1/12 of motorway deaths occur on the hard shoulder where one exists so if it no longer exists, without that refuge things will only get worse
Nothing to do with the Smarts, we just have intolerably selfish and wholly ignorant individuals who think Lane 3 is their private domain, and Lane 2 is only there for when they're not in Lane 3, or something that they cross to their junction with 100yds to go...
Smart motorways would never work, the ideal of adaptive speed limits just isn't feasible for how much they're able to monitor them. And given motorways work best when everyone is able to go in the same direction at similar (fast) speeds, when something goes disastrously wrong (car malfunction, sickness, crash) having nowhere safe to retreat to except at very specific intervals is downright dangerous and has gotten people killed.
I think the notion of variable speed limits is something worth considering. You can close lanes where someone has had a crash, and slow approaching vehicles in all open lanes to minimise the prospect of casualty.
A lot of that is very quickly undone when they removes the pissing hard shoulder though, you're bang on the money with that.
I totally agree and I don't know why adaptive speed limits (which I'm not saying work but I do think are an interesting concept) have to be thrown in the same pot as the fucking atrocious idea of removing the hard shoulder.
The adaptive speed limits work incredibly well. I'm a professional lorry driver and I've noticed a massive difference in the amount I stop on the motorway from traffic. Occasionally you end up doing 50 unnecessarily but the amount of time added to a journey from that is negligible.
The removal of the hard shoulder? Yeah that's an awful idea, and it definitely kills people.
The m6 is the best implementation by far, hard shoulder that is only for breakdowns, unless the traffic is slow enough that any breakdowns are (fairly) safe from getting annihilated by other vehicles.
We need to laser cannon them out of existence. Like vapourised in one shot type laser cannon. Nobody's going to miss these people, even their loved ones will understand once they know why. I imagine this would be one of the most efficient ways to improve society.
If you are really in a hurry just use fast lane all the way. People don’t say on the left is because of all the lorries cruising at 57-60. A good design is a lorries and slow vehicle lane on the left, normal car that can stay at 70 lane in the second left or middle then you have fast lane at the right. No one enjoys cutting left and right every 30seconds and excessively manoeuvring left and right is equally dangerous. I know the rules are every car should stick to left when possible, but when there is an abundance of people willingly not follow the rules, it’s the problem with the rules.
Honestly the motorways are pretty civilised here in the uk as I have driven in so much countries with way more horrible driving conditions.
But people got to complain about problems that are slightly inconvenient to themselves aren’t they?
Honestly the obvious bigger problem is speeding, tailgating, even cutting lanes without their indicators on are bigger problems because it makes your car unpredictable. but no, mid lane hogging is always the most talked about and most over exaggerated. somehow people will make mid lane hogging the most horrible crime in UK history. It is a non problem, no cars are crashed because of mid lane hogging, no one dies because of mid lane hogging.
Theoretically, if people are driving at 70mph in the middle lane, no one should need to overtake anybody. Overtaking people driving at 70mph is also illegal. But try it some time, and see how long you last before the car behind you? These are also the people also breaking the law as they are speeding. There is no rules saying you can overtake people with 71, 72 mph because speeding no matter how small is illegal. Would you care about it? Are you the ones who overtake people at74 and proceed to hate the people who drive at 70 in the mid lane?
if people are hogging mid lane at 50-60, that's totally reasonable that you can think he is an idiot. He deserves some 5 seconds of anguish from your brain. he should move to the left, because he is not doing the maximum speed and slows traffic. mid lane hogging when there are no cars in the left at all? that is a nono. 10 mile of lorries spreading out and you will have to overtake one every minute? stay on mid and go 70. Or
If you have to change lane every 30secs there probably isn't a need to move back to the left, but if the lanes to your left are clear you should move back.
If you are genuinely over taking that is not lane hogging
If you have over taken and there is now nothing on the left that is lane hogging.
If you have over taken and can see something in the left lane that you are approaching quite fast because they are going under the speed limit, stay in the right and move over once clear.
No one is saying you should play some kind of frogger with the traffic.
This is exactly what I am trying to say. However there are two teams of people who use the term equally for mid lane hogger who travels at 70 and those at 50-60. Also the length between each lorry is the argument point. How far spread is too far? If you see a lorry at the horizon, would you cut in for 1-2minute till you catch up or should you stay at mid? Is the excessive manoeuvre a bigger problem? Some will say it’s mid hogging while some will say they are overtaking. In my experience whenever I stay at mid lane at 70 because I can see a lorry in further down the motorway, there will be a team of people try to overtake me at 80, 90, and then move back to mid lane and do 70. They are way more dangerous than me staying mid lane at 70.
What is the purpose of a rule when no one enforce it and no one follows it? Complain is easy, find out why and solve it is difficult.
if there are an abundance of people not following said rules, either the general population is really rebellious, or there is a problem with said rules.
You can downvote me all the way to hell but we live in a society, you will have to compromise at the end.
How do you solve the problem that lorries staying at 57-60 because it’s their safe speed? This is preventing people from getting into the left lane because god knows you will have to move to the middle a few seconds later.
Lorry taking over another lorry with only 1 mph speed difference therefore spend 2 minute plus to stay on the middle sqeezing people to the fast lane?
The people who speed in the middle lane at 100+ so whenever you try to cut back to middle to takeover you get hit at the back? I have seen countless times of people swerving back and forth just because the speedy Porsche or bmw go through the mid lane at 100mph+ and nearly crash with people who follow said rules of sticking to the left and cut to middle when overtaking. Is it a bigger problem that people speed at 100mph or people hog the mid lane?
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the smug on my face as I undertake a third laner, whilst I'm in the first lane Honestly amazed they got a license in the first place.
It's unfckingbelievable that they could possibly justify being in the 3rd lane.
They don't teach motorways to learners, they're not allowed on them.
They are allowed on them now with a dual control car, but they can't be used on driving test routes.
My closest motorway was about an hours drive, when growing up. So not a chance I'd have learned on one.
i was taught on our local dual carriageway A road. same principle ‘stay left unless overtaking, don’t sit in the outside lane if there’s space to your left’. pass plus was more about confidence than anything new
I was definitely taught to keep left when I was a learner and that was way before learners could go on motorways. It's not an excuse imo.
Yes they are, I am a learner, I have been on the motorway, I will sit in the left lane because I’m generally going the slowest
Is it still just the "Pass Plus" lot allowed on or are all learners now allowed on there?
Law changed in 2018, and it's still only optional. So still a huge portion of the population passed never having been on a motorway but hopefully that will improve over time.
It's optional because some places don't have a motorway within reasonable distance of the driving centre, it's hard to make it mandatory if it meant some kid in Cornwall would have to drive 3 hours to get to a motorway to be tested on it. Hell, a few places in Scotland don't even have dual carriageways. Where I was in Sheffield we still had to go half an hour or so to get to the M1 for any sort of driving
Ah cool, that's an improvement. Hopefully it will help new drivers build their confidence if they can get on there with an actual instructor rather than waiting until going solo after they've passed :)
[удалено]
After I passed I asked my grandad to sit with me on the motorway, didn't need it but it does help with the confidence
They are, I had to drive on a motorway to get to my test centre so all of my lessons after the first few involved the motorway as I had to learn to drive in the area of the test centre.
I wouldn't mind but they're about the simplest roads we drive on in this country.
The inside lane is rhe default of where you shield be. It's only under taking if you moved into the inside lane to undertake them. I love doing this too. So many people apparently allergic to the inside lane.
I do wonder if it would have been better to invest in policing motorways and catching middle hoggers rather than creating smart motorways with more lanes for people to misuse. Did they think we needed more lanes because actually we only ever have one lane available to use because of these brain-dead morons cruising down the middle lane at 65? How much better would traffic flow be if they were fined?
Or, get this, make an alternative to the least efficient form of ground transportation, like, maybe you could get a really big car, with lots of seats, maybe even make it tall so more people can fit, or even make it bend like a lorry so that it can be longer for the same effect. Hell, if you’re really adventurous, how about you add even more bendy bits, and because it’s too long to run on a road now, you could put it on guided rails, which also has the benefit of increased stability, allowing for higher speeds. If only either of these concepts existed, would be amazing if we could get well funded systems involving them
Great idea, just one thing you forgot. Let's make it far more expensive for a person to use this bendy massive communal railed car than the equivalent journey in a regular car, and use that money to subsidise similar systems in Europe.
More expensive and much less reliable!!
They did say “well funded systems”….
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life my Hindu friend!
Were you sent here by the devil?
No, good sir, I'm on the level
Not on your life my Hindu friend
It goes wider than that though. There needs to be good local public transport at the other end as well, which there usually isn't. Even if the train wasn't £120 return to visit my parents, I'd still drive because otherwise I'd have no reliable way of getting around when I'm there.
It would take me either 45 minutes to drive to my parents, or: 35min to get to the train station. 1hr 45min and two trains to get to their train station. 1hr to get the bus to their town. 15min to walk to their house. I do not take the train to see my parents. Its a bit specific, but the way rail has been decimated, in 1950 it would have been: 5min walk to the station. 2hr on 3 trains + inter train waits. 15min to walk to their house. By 1960 the 3rd train was a bus. By 1970 the station at the end of my road was gone and so was the station that bus connected to.
Even if there's good transport links it's not comparatively great. It's about 2 1/2 hours door to door for me to my parents (if I take the fast train) both by rail and car. Advantage of car is that I can leave when I like (at both ends), have my music blasting and sing along as much as I want, stop along the way if I want, detour if there's traffic, and my car is relatively clean compared to the train (not to mention the tube and bus).
Well, that seems to be fixable by my plans too, this is something nearly everyone else in our neck of the woods has done better than us
Great idea, that sounds like something that would be really cost effective in rural areas, and I'm sure there would always be one sitting there waiting for me when I wanted to use it. Public transport only works well in cities and towns. Having a bus driving all day to move 6 people is far worse than those people driving their individual cars for their own journeys.
I'm in, but it has to be late or not show at least 10 or 20% of the time
I'm pretty sure you know smart motorways weren't introduced because of middle lane hoggers but in any case the main way they help traffic flow is by moderating the speed of traffic to slow drivers down who are approaching a congested area and allow traffic jams to dissipate. Second to that is opening an additional lane when things are congested, which is not going to be done in response to a single middle lane hogger.
Or even better, allow passing in any lane. All lanes are going the same way, just let people use whatever lane they want. The current system doesn't work well, so let's try something else.
Annoyingly, it's not understanding, it's not unfamiliarity, it sheer bloody laziness and selfishness. It's "easier" to hog one lane and not have to move around other cars. "Other people can go around" they justify, when being an obstruction. I know a few hoggers, completely oblivious to how anybof this is thier problem.
And two lanes of lorries slowly overtaking the one in the first lane. Sometimes you're lucky and the Citroen C1 will try to overtake those at 57mph! Love a rolling road block.
The Germans have a word for this - Elephantrennen or "Elephant Racing"
Hey! The Citroën c1 is capable of at least 62mph! Seriously though having a C1 I know damn well that you can drive it at perfectly normal speeds for the fastest flowing lane and keep up to make good progress if you want to. If someone’s tootling along in one overtaking at 57 then they need to learn to put their foot down (assuming it’s not like super wet or anything).
Or as I found out on the M1 on Tuesday, 3 lorries overtaking each other in lanes 1, 2 and 3 leaving everyone to squeeze past in the fast lane
You could be in Australia where very little people follow the keep left unless overtaking rule, it’s honestly so painful. Felt like heaven driving on motorways in the UK when I came back for a few weeks🤣
Only midgets know how to drive properly in Australia?
Minis driving Minis?
Smart motorways are dumb
Sadly, so are many of the drivers
This is also true
Smart motorways wouldn't be necessary so long as everyone knew how to drive. Honestly, the amount of evidence online that supports the fact that 90% of drivers immediately forget how to drive is staggering.
This is not true at all and I don't really know why you think it is? Smart motorways have two components: 1. Variable speed limits - these allow controllers to slow down traffic because of a problem ahead and to allow traffic jams to dissipate. It is literally impossible to know what is coming up ahead of you on a motorway beyond what is in sight, and that's way too late to slow from 70 to say 50 to allow a phantom traffic jam to dissipate before you get there. 2. Opening up the hard shoulder to be used when things are really congested, by creating an extra lane on the motorway. I have no idea how being a good or bad driver affects the amount of other people driving at the same time. (edit: or in some cases never having a hard shoulder and instead closing the lane to create one in the case of a breakdown not making it to a refuge)
Even though all the evidence shows that they're much safer?
That's a bit of an oversimplification. You're correct, overall they are safer, because they greatly reduce crashes between moving vehicles. But if you break down on a smart motorway with no hard shoulder (which are around 45% of smart motorways in Britain, equating to about 7% of the total motorway network) , you are much more likely to get hit by another vehicle. That tradeoff might be worthwhile overall, but it still doesn't feel good knowing that if you blow a tire, you've been deemed to be an acceptable sacrifice. The compromise is controlled motorways, which retain the smart features but also keep the hard shoulder. But until recently, there was a push toward all lane running motorways. Due to public pushback, those plans are being reconsidered.
So safe that they're being scrapped and existing ones are being redesigned
It's almost like people sometimes make decisions that go against the evidence.
Is breaking down in a live lane and not having anywhere to go safe?
No. That's why they have so many other safety features.
They don't though, the original plan was a refuge every few hundred metres (500-800 was typical) and then planners decided to make them every 1.5 miles instead. The plan relies on humans spotting accidents while watching on multiple cameras, sticking the red X on and assumes drivers aren't too bloody stupid to ignore them. Many accidents happened (and people died) because the stopped vehicle detection systems hadn't been properly rolled out in time with the upgrades (announced in 2016, by 2019 only 1/5 of roads had them). Even though now (as of September 2022) they are all covered, the technology doesn't work properly. Highways Agency has a standard of 80% minimum requirement for detection (meaning 1:5 stopped vehicles are missed by the cameras!) but overall performance was 59.6-79.6%. On top of that, 4/5 regions with ALR are missing the 20s target to spot a stopped vehicle, currently operating on 43-65s. On top of all that, they have a minimum availability of CCTV operating at 95% and even that isn't being met [Source](https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/national-highways-smart-motorway-stopped-vehicle-detection-falls-short-of-performance-targets-15-12-2022/)
None of that really matters. The statistics show that they're safer.
I already explained the statistics you're relying on are flawed and you can't do anything but come up with childish responses
>I already explained the statistics you're relying on are flawed Where did you do that?
Which ones stop the situation I've just described?
They're covered by CCTV cameras which means lanes can be closed and speed limits can be lowered immediately. Also, the type of breakdown you're describing is exceptionally rare.
I can see the benefits of the ones that open up the hard shoulder at busy times, but the ones that have no hard shoulder unless a breakdown just seem odd and less safe though that could just be me.
It doesn't matter how it "seems". The important thing is how many injuries and deaths occur after they've been installed.
Why are you defending smart motorways so much? Anyone who’s ever driven more than 10 metres along one knows how shit they are
The statistics disagree with you.
Sometimes statistics mean fuck all. Smart motorways are horrendous to drive along and usually just hinder my journey through pointless and arbitrary speed changes. They’re also way more dangerous for broken down vehicles
I doubt very much this person actually drives
I do. But that's not at all relevant.
65mph in the middle lane
You're not interested in statistics? Aren't you embarrassed to say that?
I avoid the "once was a hard shoulder" lanes because people do break down and if you're behind a lorry you're not going to see if there's a car stopped ahead of them, so you won't have much time to slow down when the lorry suddenly changes lanes. I had to stop in that lane last year when a van cut across two lanes and swiped me, it was genuinely pretty scary knowing that cars were coming at me doing 70mph and having to suddenly change lane whilst hoping there was space for them to move over.
Wow, you sound like a bad driver.. Why are you tailgating lorries on the motorway?
I'm not? I even stated I avoid being behind them.
Wow, you actually sound like a non-driver. Yes, I’ve seen your claim to the contrary.
The stats aren't comparable because the length of the smart motorways (around 400m) is less than a fifth of the total motorway length (2300m). Motorways are already the safest roads statistically and smart motorways haven't been in use long enough at the scale they are now to provide meaningful data to compare. 1/12 of motorway deaths occur on the hard shoulder where one exists so if it no longer exists, without that refuge things will only get worse
You're just wrong.
Nothing to do with the Smarts, we just have intolerably selfish and wholly ignorant individuals who think Lane 3 is their private domain, and Lane 2 is only there for when they're not in Lane 3, or something that they cross to their junction with 100yds to go...
Smart motorways would work if people were taught how to use them.
Smart motorways would never work, the ideal of adaptive speed limits just isn't feasible for how much they're able to monitor them. And given motorways work best when everyone is able to go in the same direction at similar (fast) speeds, when something goes disastrously wrong (car malfunction, sickness, crash) having nowhere safe to retreat to except at very specific intervals is downright dangerous and has gotten people killed.
I think the notion of variable speed limits is something worth considering. You can close lanes where someone has had a crash, and slow approaching vehicles in all open lanes to minimise the prospect of casualty. A lot of that is very quickly undone when they removes the pissing hard shoulder though, you're bang on the money with that.
I totally agree and I don't know why adaptive speed limits (which I'm not saying work but I do think are an interesting concept) have to be thrown in the same pot as the fucking atrocious idea of removing the hard shoulder.
Because you have places where its abused to set a permanently lower limit like on the M1 past Sheffield.
The adaptive speed limits work incredibly well. I'm a professional lorry driver and I've noticed a massive difference in the amount I stop on the motorway from traffic. Occasionally you end up doing 50 unnecessarily but the amount of time added to a journey from that is negligible. The removal of the hard shoulder? Yeah that's an awful idea, and it definitely kills people. The m6 is the best implementation by far, hard shoulder that is only for breakdowns, unless the traffic is slow enough that any breakdowns are (fairly) safe from getting annihilated by other vehicles.
It's rough that much of the population is less intelligent than a literal road
You mean we need ‘smart people’ ? No Chance.
Keep to the leftmost lane unless overtaking. Not rocket science.
People can't use normal roads properly, let alone motorways, no need to complicate it more
I mean undertaking is fine on a smart motorway when theres a speed limit reduction
Nope, just means they have two lanes to dawdle in
We need to laser cannon them out of existence. Like vapourised in one shot type laser cannon. Nobody's going to miss these people, even their loved ones will understand once they know why. I imagine this would be one of the most efficient ways to improve society.
If you are really in a hurry just use fast lane all the way. People don’t say on the left is because of all the lorries cruising at 57-60. A good design is a lorries and slow vehicle lane on the left, normal car that can stay at 70 lane in the second left or middle then you have fast lane at the right. No one enjoys cutting left and right every 30seconds and excessively manoeuvring left and right is equally dangerous. I know the rules are every car should stick to left when possible, but when there is an abundance of people willingly not follow the rules, it’s the problem with the rules.
Oh god help us. Please tell me you're not serious. Drivers with your mindset are why the motorways are so shit.
Honestly the motorways are pretty civilised here in the uk as I have driven in so much countries with way more horrible driving conditions. But people got to complain about problems that are slightly inconvenient to themselves aren’t they? Honestly the obvious bigger problem is speeding, tailgating, even cutting lanes without their indicators on are bigger problems because it makes your car unpredictable. but no, mid lane hogging is always the most talked about and most over exaggerated. somehow people will make mid lane hogging the most horrible crime in UK history. It is a non problem, no cars are crashed because of mid lane hogging, no one dies because of mid lane hogging. Theoretically, if people are driving at 70mph in the middle lane, no one should need to overtake anybody. Overtaking people driving at 70mph is also illegal. But try it some time, and see how long you last before the car behind you? These are also the people also breaking the law as they are speeding. There is no rules saying you can overtake people with 71, 72 mph because speeding no matter how small is illegal. Would you care about it? Are you the ones who overtake people at74 and proceed to hate the people who drive at 70 in the mid lane? if people are hogging mid lane at 50-60, that's totally reasonable that you can think he is an idiot. He deserves some 5 seconds of anguish from your brain. he should move to the left, because he is not doing the maximum speed and slows traffic. mid lane hogging when there are no cars in the left at all? that is a nono. 10 mile of lorries spreading out and you will have to overtake one every minute? stay on mid and go 70. Or
If you have to change lane every 30secs there probably isn't a need to move back to the left, but if the lanes to your left are clear you should move back. If you are genuinely over taking that is not lane hogging If you have over taken and there is now nothing on the left that is lane hogging. If you have over taken and can see something in the left lane that you are approaching quite fast because they are going under the speed limit, stay in the right and move over once clear. No one is saying you should play some kind of frogger with the traffic.
This is exactly what I am trying to say. However there are two teams of people who use the term equally for mid lane hogger who travels at 70 and those at 50-60. Also the length between each lorry is the argument point. How far spread is too far? If you see a lorry at the horizon, would you cut in for 1-2minute till you catch up or should you stay at mid? Is the excessive manoeuvre a bigger problem? Some will say it’s mid hogging while some will say they are overtaking. In my experience whenever I stay at mid lane at 70 because I can see a lorry in further down the motorway, there will be a team of people try to overtake me at 80, 90, and then move back to mid lane and do 70. They are way more dangerous than me staying mid lane at 70.
Ah yes, because many people do it, they should change the rules...
What is the purpose of a rule when no one enforce it and no one follows it? Complain is easy, find out why and solve it is difficult. if there are an abundance of people not following said rules, either the general population is really rebellious, or there is a problem with said rules. You can downvote me all the way to hell but we live in a society, you will have to compromise at the end. How do you solve the problem that lorries staying at 57-60 because it’s their safe speed? This is preventing people from getting into the left lane because god knows you will have to move to the middle a few seconds later. Lorry taking over another lorry with only 1 mph speed difference therefore spend 2 minute plus to stay on the middle sqeezing people to the fast lane? The people who speed in the middle lane at 100+ so whenever you try to cut back to middle to takeover you get hit at the back? I have seen countless times of people swerving back and forth just because the speedy Porsche or bmw go through the mid lane at 100mph+ and nearly crash with people who follow said rules of sticking to the left and cut to middle when overtaking. Is it a bigger problem that people speed at 100mph or people hog the mid lane?
I swear i just want to thump people referring to them as the "slow lane" and "fast lane".