Middle Lane Smackdown

[AtW]

So technically I could go 40 if I wanted.

You could, but technically the police could pull you over for a little chat

[lilelvis2000]

You could, but technically the police could pull you over for a little chat

You've taken your Lada out for a spin then eh? Jolly good show.

[NickFitz]

People would soon keep left then as most people are too tight to even pay to use the M6 toll.

I always use the M6 Toll if I'm going that way. It's lovely; feels like the M6 used to be in the early Seventies

About a week after they finished connecting the M6 to the M1 (late 1971?), we went back to Liverpool for a visit. As my father came to a halt at the top of the slip road off the M6 at J20 near Warrington, he told us it was the first time he'd changed gear since joining the M1 at Northampton J15

[Scrag Meister]

How about we make over (under) taking on the inside legal - it hardly ever stirs the feckers from their slumber

FTFY

[eek]

You could, but technically the police could pull you over for a little chat

I wish they would pull my mother in law over. She is absolutely lethal on a motorway.

[Wanderer]

I never really got it about these "middle lane hoggers". Before people go nuclear on me, hear me out.

My view of a free flowing motorway is that the lanes have minimum speed limits which promote good flow of traffic. Left lane 60 MPH or less, middle lane 60-70 MPH, right lane > 70 MPH. If you are in those speed ranges then you are OK to sit in the lane you are in in anything except a completely empty motorway (where it doesn't matter if you sit in the middle lane anyway).

If I'm doing 70 MPH+ in the middle lane and I come up behind someone I want to pass then I simply move into the third lane and pass them. How bloody difficult is that! It is ME who wants to drive at an illegal speed and overtake so why should other vehicles be forced into a lane of slower traffic while there is a free lane to the right that I can use?

The left lane is where trucks drive slowly and people who are scared of motorways and greenies who like to drive at 55 MPH go. I think some of them shouldn't be on the motorway but they are legally entitled to use the road that they've paid for so we have to tolerate them. Maximum speed in this lane is 60 MPH. You often find people going quite a bit slower than this.

The middle lane is where most people drive because they are doing making good progress at between 60 and 70 MPH maintaining a reasonable following distance and fairly steady speed. If you go into the left lane at 70 MPH+, then within 60 seconds you are changing lanes back to the middle lane only to find that there is a stream of 3 cars overtaking you at 2 MPH faster than you and forcing you to slow down to 56 MPH behind a truck on it's speed limiter and wait for a gap to get back into the lane you want. That's not conducive to making good progress and it's dangerous.

The right lane is for people who want to travel at 70 MPH+ and as we all know this is tolerated in this country. Trying to do that speed in the left lane with merging traffic, trucks stuck doing 56 MPH and people stopped on the hard shoulder is down right dangerous. If you are doing 70MPH+ in this lane then before long you will come up behind some dozy twat who is doing 56 MPH behind a truck, then you pull into the middle lane to pass and suddenly the car in front has the same idea and pulls into your path while doing half your speed.

I've seen kooks doing 70 MPH+ who think it's clever to cross three lanes of motorway zig zagging back and forth. It's stupid and it's not safe. If you are doing well over the speed limit then stay in the fast lane unless there is someone closing in on you in which case you should let them pass when it's safe to move over. If someone flashes you then you have to consider if you should be in a slower lane and politely move over when it's safe to do so. If someone in front is impeding your progress then flash them and they will politely move over and let you past. It's not rocket science.


+ means 70 MPH + 10% + 2 MPH, you know what I mean

[Ticktock]

Left lane 60 MPH or less, middle lane 60-70 MPH, right lane > 70 MPH. If you are in those speed ranges then you are OK to sit in the lane you are in in anything except a completely empty motorway (where it doesn't matter if you sit in the middle lane anyway).

If I'm doing 70 MPH+ in the middle lane and I come up behind someone I want to pass then I simply move into the third lane and pass them. How bloody difficult is that!

So, assuming speed limits aren't really a factor... You, and everyone else, are driving at 85mph, in the third lane. Someone else is driving at 75mph. They have moved to the third lane, as everyone in the middle lane is sitting at 65mph. The refuse to move back over, as they don't want to drop 10mph, so now you, and everyone else in the third lane is forced down to 75mph instead of your preferred speed, with no chance to get past and speed up again.

This is precisely the problem. You have solved nothing. If, as is meant to be the law, everyone was keeping to the left lane except when overtaking, and then the third lane only to overtake slower movers in lane two, and if the motorways weren't so congested that people were able to move back over once they finished overtaking, then suddenly the third lane would be empty for a whole lot more of the time, allowing you to buzz past at 85mph.

[VectraMan]

If I'm doing 70 MPH+ in the middle lane and I come up behind someone I want to pass then I simply move into the third lane and pass them. How bloody difficult is that! It is ME who wants to drive at an illegal speed and overtake so why should other vehicles be forced into a lane of slower traffic while there is a free lane to the right that I can use?

If there is a free lane to the right. What happens most of the time with reasonably heavy traffic, is the left hand lane is underused because you have the middle lane brigade trundling along in the centre at 70 ish, and a long queue in the outside lane of people wanting to get past, all getting stressed, driving too close, not wanting to let people out etc.

Presumably it cost quite a bit extra making our motorways 3 lane rather than 2 lane, and a large part of that is wasted as a result of the middle laners.

[doodab]

if the motorways weren't so congested that people were able to move back over once they finished overtaking

That's the crux of the matter. You very rarely see people sat in the middle lane on an empty motorway. It seems to me to be much like wanderer says, when it's a bit crowded people sit in the middle lane because otherwise you are forced to drive at 56mph. Most of the disruption to the smooth flow of traffic in the middle lane is caused not by the people who sit there but by trucks & other denizens of the inside lane overtaking each other.

[Gibbon]

That's the crux of the matter. You very rarely see people sat in the middle lane on an empty motorway.

You do on the M1 between Junction 25 & 41 and esp 25 -> 28 where it's 4 lanes and the middle lane is now lane 3 as they're all sat there.