UKC

Not sure if this has already been posted. If so please delete.

Thank goodness for this. Tail-gating and Middle Lane Hogs are two of the most frustrating things you encounter in motorway driving and FINALLY, the police are doing something about it!

http://news.sky.com/story/1099507/middle-lane-hogs-face-100-on-the-spot-fin...

In reply to Richiehill:

The Simpsons already did it:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=552105

Besides, on the spot fines need on the spot police.

Will change nothing but good sound-bite.

In reply to Richiehill:
Punishing Tail gating is great as it's dangerous and it's quite easy to define the offence.
Middle lane hogging is different as it alone is not dangerous and it could be difficult to be consistent with its application as it coud be a matter of perspective.

What if you are 'middle lane hogging' at 70mph?

In reply to Richiehill: I once followed a Police car all the way down the M40 from Brum to London, no traffic, four coppers inside, middle lane all the way.

In reply to mark20:

Hopefully that would receive a fine, as it should also for sticking to 70 in the outside lane when not overtaking when others are wanting to pass. It's not the job of civilian drivers to enforce the law for others; it's for them to respect the law themselves by returning to the inside lane when appropriate.

Even without debating the rights and wrongs of going 75 or 80 on a motorway it's worth remembering that many speedometers understate speeds, so you may be reading 70 when you're actually doing 65, while others may be reading 65 at the same speed and quite rightly getting frustrated at someone causing an obstruction that could very easy be prevented simply by using the correct lane.

In reply to Richiehill:

How is this supposed to enamour tory voters in their SUV's?

D

In reply to gethin_allen: I think it is dangerous and so do the police by the sounds of things. If you're doing 65 in the middle lane and someone is approaching you in the inside lane, they have to cross three lanes of potentially faster moving traffic in order to overtake that one car - just because it can't be bothered to move over. Not only this, but the fact that you will then slow down that faster moving traffic causing them to change lanes, slow down or accelerate creates even more hazards. Just because one bloke can't be bothered to move over.

There are also underlying issues with this. A lot of the people misusing the middle lane will fall into a few of categories:


No confidence to drive at either side of the road

These should be put on some form of advanced driving course in order to increase their confidence and thus, competence.


No knowledge of the lane system

Should be put onto driving awareness course and then, as above, advanced driving course.


Can't be bothered moving lanes

Should be punished with fines as stated by these laws.


Didn't realise that they were hogging the middle lane

Should be punished under the dangerous driving and/or driving without due care and attention.

As for speed, yes that's a valid point, however we may as well just acknowledge that Police Officers will invariable "turn a blind-eye" to people doing 80. Not that any one is condoning it, we may as well just admit that it happens.

The on the spot Police is a valid point. Let's just hope that the current upturn in visible Police presence and decline of bureaucratic nonsense that has occurred whilst the coalition has been in power won't be overturned as soon as Labour get a sniff.

In reply to Richiehill:
Let's just hope that the current upturn in visible Police presence and decline of bureaucratic nonsense that has occurred whilst the coalition has been in power


I actually lol'd.

In reply to mark20:

Speed doesn't matter. If you are in the middle lane and there is no vehicle to your left, move in. Though I would like a law against speeding up when being overtaken, then slowing down again when the overtaker gives up and pulls in behind.

Neil

In reply to off-duty:

Is that not what this whole law is about? Removing the bureaucracy to give police greater powers for roadside punishment? This reducing bureaucratic nonsense that had been on the rise ever since Labour took control?

Thought so.

In reply to Richiehill:

^^^^^^^^^^^ agree with later pioint, why do so many middle lane hogs do it?

In reply to Dauphin:


Perhaps its not, rather its intended to make better and more efficient use of our overly congested motorway network.

In reply to Richiehill:

Thought this was more bureaucratic nonsense myself. Better approached by a motorway section at part of the driving test and some natty retro style public information broadcasting on late night telly. I'm thinking it ends with the CS gassing and tasering of a cock in an X6.



D

In reply to john arran:
Agreed. There may actually be some reasonable mitigation for somebody coming up behind you at 80 in the outer lane. He or she might actually be in an emergency situation (child going to hospital &c) and prepared to risk a fine. I've been in that situation myself - three years ago a relative was dying in hospital and we had to get there pdq.

In reply to Richiehill:

Ah, so when you say :- "Let's just hope that the current upturn in visible Police presence and decline of bureaucratic nonsense that has occurred whilst the coalition has been in power won't be overturned as soon as Labour get a sniff." you are referring to the present - "the current upturn" and the past "decline [....] has occurred" when what you actually mean is the future - as these proposals won't be implemented until July.

Because what you have written rather suggests that you believe that the coalition have already improved frontline police presence and reduced police bureaucracy.

In reply to off-duty: There has to be something that they have improved, doesn't there?

In reply to off-duty: Well, the proposal may not be implemented until July but they are attempting to improve things at present and, because this proposal hasn't been dreamt up overnight, I'm guessing that includes past too.

They probably would have already achieved said proposal, if it wasn't for bureaucratic hoops that they've had to jump through as a direct result of what was left over from the last Labour government.

In reply to Richiehill: 'this proposal hasn't been dreamt up overnight'

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

This is possibly one of the most stupid, ill thought out and unenforceable bits of legislation since - oh wait, let's see - the dangerous dogs legislation. That worked out well didn't it?

Believing that the current mob have thought their policies through is like believing the US govt blew up the Twin Towers. The truth is they really are as stupid as they appear.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I believe MPs salaries and pensions have improved.

In reply to Richiehill:

Guessing?


What bureaucratic hoops are those?

In reply to Richiehill:
So considering a recent scenario I was in. Driving on a quiet motorway at around 10 pm on a Sunday. It had been raining and due to the piss poor surface on the road the car in front was kicking up loads of spray. It was going plenty fast enough that I didn't want to pass it and doing so would mean breaking the speed limit considerably in poor driving conditions. Sitting in the middle lane meant that I was out of the spray and there were very few cars passing me.
Now apply a hypothetical police officer in the mix. PC 1, says well done on using common sense. PC 2 has had a bad day/has a bit of an attitude stops me and fines me £100 and gives me 3 points.

Yes I could contest it and go to court, as you can with any attempt to prosecute, but, it's going to cost a fortune and most people would just cough up. If the police officer knows it's going to court then they are less likely to try their luck IMO.

In reply to Richiehill:


Slightly misleading title. There is no new offence being created, so hogging the middle lane will be no more punishable when the new rules are introduced than it is now.

As I understand it, careless driving isn't the easiest charge to prove for that kind of low-level anti-social driving. It will be interesting to see how many people call the bluff and reject the FPN.

In reply to Richiehill:

I don't believe this will change the way I drive one bit, and I spend most of my time in the outside lane

In reply to gethin_allen:

Or, alternatively, just drive in the proper lane but leave a large enough gap from the car in front to avoid most of the spray. The fact that you think a bit of water on the road is a cast-iron reason to hog the middle lane is exactly the reason why we need some education and enforcement on this issue.

In reply to gethin_allen:

Only a fool breaks the two second rule. (Or 4 seconds in wet weather I think).
Equates to about 100m (200m) at 70mph.

In reply to off-duty:

You think? Oh so its ok for you to not know the exact answers, but for someone else, well, that's totally unacceptable.

Hypocrisy and bureaucracy. Well done!

As for the chap commenting about the spray. Someone else already got there first. If you were driving at the recommended distance then you'd not be getting any spray. Slow down and increase the gap! Simple.

In reply to Richiehill:

I'm not the one making a statement of alleged fact "the current upturn in visible Police presence and decline of bureaucratic nonsense that has occurred whilst the coalition has been in power" that then transpires to be a guess.

Not sure where the hypocrisy is in that. Nor am I sure where I have suggested that your guessing is "totally unacceptable".



Wow. Could that be "Only a fool breaks the two second rule", which is how most driving instructors refer to Highway code rule 126, and as per that rule - doubled in wet weather.

In reply to off-duty: what is hypocritical is the fact that you've argued a point against my statement, because its best guess, then argued another opinion using your own best guess. That is the very definition of Hypocrisy.

That statement wasn't a guess, you've completely mis-quoted me. I've noticed an increase in visible Policing. Now, my dads a copper and so are most of our family friends. All of which have noticed a vast reduction in Bureaucracy since the coalition took over.

Plus, my "guess" as you've put it comes from a much later statement. One saying that "This has not been dreamt up over night". Which it can't have. The Government can't just make up a law, it has to be voted on and pushed through Lords and, this is the guess part right here incase you wish to mis-quote me again, various other bits of Bureaucracy.

You could be an editor for the Sun or the Daily Mail!

In reply to off-duty:

Yes, how was that justified?
Some said that it was partly because they 'lost ' money due to the loss of 'expenses. '

In my job expenses are monies paid out by me, and only refunded by my employer. I don't get more money than I spent, therefore my salary has not increased or reduced.

Somehow, MP's MADE money out of 'expenses' , which must mean that they were getting more money back than they were putting out. How that ls something that they could use as justification for a pay rise was lost on me.

A bit off topic I accept.

In reply to Richiehill:

I have highlighted the fact that your "statement" was in fact "just guessing".
I have then suggested in an entirely different post with an entirely different person that the stopping distance was 2 seconds in dry and that I wasn't sure if it was 4 seconds in the wet or not.

Had I continued my conversation with you by making my own guesses about the coalitions impact on policing - THEN I might have been hypocritical.




I have quoted you exactly:- " but they are attempting to improve things at present and, because this proposal hasn't been dreamt up overnight, I'm guessing that includes past too."

Had you actually written the paragraph about your friends and families general experiences I would have said that my experience is different, but it might well be dependent on where you work and what your role is.
But you didn't.
Unfortunately whether you intended it or not, what you wrote suggested that you believed, based on a guess, that they have tried to improve things in the past as well.


I'll leave the obvious retort to that unspoken.

In reply to Richiehill:

So what happens if you're tailgating a middle lane hog in order to make them move over?

In reply to Richiehill:

Far worse than the so-called middle lane hogs are the people who rush up at 85 to 90 to those in the middle lane who are doing 75 and expect them to either get out of the way or break the law by a bigger margin. Whilst it is obviously good practice to keep to the left whenever possible, continual lane changing can be overdone. One of the big problems on British motorways is that the lorries are not allowed to go more than 60, so that every time a lorry pulls out, the following traffic is forced rightwards. There are usually some drivers who get suddenly caught in the middle lane behind a 60 mph lorry and who can't get up sufficient speed to move safely into a busy overtaking lane that is moving at 85 mph. Those people stuck in the middle lane are not hogs.

In reply to Richiehill:

Middle lane hogging can often be a very grey area. When there is a lot of traffic it is not necessarily best practice to keep returning to the inner lane every time you pass a car, because a short while later you will have to pull out again to overtake slower traffic in the inner lane. It all depends on the spacing of the traffic in the inner lane and the volume of traffic in the middle lane, but if you try to always return to the inner lane you tend to get trapped by faster traffic. It's virtually impossible to maintain a constant speed on a motorway because of this.

Tail gating is much more obvious and agressive.

Ultimately motorway driving, as with all driving, means exercising consideration to toward other drivers, and not unecessarily obstructing them, intimidating them or "trapping" them, and much of the skill lies in looking and anticipating well ahead (this includes being aware of what the vehicles in front may want to do), at the same time as keeping a weather eye on your mirrors.

As other's have said it's not a motorist's job to "play policeman" by obstructing faster traffic even if you are doing 70 mph, but equally those chosing to break the speed limit should not be intimidating slower motorists by tail gating them, and should allow time and space for them to pull in which may be impracticle in heavy traffic.

In reply to John Stainforth:

Usually the aforementioned X6 drivers.

(Does anybody on here admit to owning one, or even viewing them with anything other than scorn?)

In reply to off-duty:


I guess 70% of motorist on our local motorway are fools then

Fine them all until they learnt to leave their f-----g distance. Three fines and crush their car and take their licence away until they damn well learn.

In reply to off-duty: No, no, no. You've completely misquoted me and now you're getting confused in your own mistake!

A piece of legislation can't have just been dreamt up overnight. Now, because it hasn't been dreamt up overnight and because they've had to jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops, again a guess - but I think a fairly accurate one, this MUST mean that they've been trying to help move things along in the past - this is before I revealed that I had more information regarding my family.

There is nothing wrong with having a guess at something now and again, especially when it's something where I have very little experience or knowledge. But, what I guessed at, I'm 90% certain is correct. Now, you tried to use the fact that my guess was a negative on my knowledge of what is going on. Then you use a guess to back-up a point that you made in a later post. It doesn't matter who it was aimed at, it doesn't matter what it was relating to, if you don't believe that commonsense guesswork should be used in debate, then don't use it yourself. THAT was the hypocritical part.

In reply to James Jackson:

This is completely up to the Police Officer at the scene, whether they see the frustration of the car behind and lets lets off, or whether they take that as the more dangerous maneuver is down to them and the situation that they find themselves in. They may even pull both over.

In reply to John Stainforth:

Going off your language I'm going to deduce that you're a middle lane hog and you see nothing wrong with it.

This also very rarely happens, there is already a law about what you're saying. It's called dangerous driving and speeding. So yes, it is dangerous, but it's also punishable. Also, if you're doing 75 in the middle lane, and the inside lane is free, why are you in the middle lane? That shouldn't occur unless you're overtaking someone. Very few people will come screaming up behind you at 90 MPH, flashing at you to move over if the inside lane is not free.

It's not so much that lorries are limited to 60 MPH in the UK, it's more that some lorries are more powerful than others, some can pull heavier loads whilst others struggle and some are empty so they can keep their speed whilst going up hills. If all lorries did 60, and stuck to 60 - rather than 62 because it'll get them back 20 minutes earlier - then there wouldn't be any lorries overtaking.

In reply to Richiehill: he didn't say that the inside lane, in the suggested scenario, was free. It reads as if he is driving at a perfectly legitimate speed in the middle lane, not 'hogging' it.

Its probably correct that 'very few' folk will scream up behind you and flash if the inside lane is occupied but there are many arrogant idiots who will tailgate in such a situation. Indeed certain drivers will happily flash you in the outside lane merely because you see fit to drive at less than 100.

In reply to Richiehill: Er, just for what it's worth, no sensible definition of 'bureaucratic hoop' would equate to standard legislative process.

Your idea that these things must have been though through is laughable, but you are still young. Some other things that have been 'thought through' by govts of various persuasions: NHS reorganisation, railway privatisation, dangerous dogs, tax credit system. Not.

In reply to Luke90:
"reason to hog the middle lane"

But, as stated, it was 10 pm on a Quite Sunday evening and hardly a car passed me. So who exactly was I getting in the way of?

Regarding leaving a 2-4 second gap between vehicles. At 70 you are travelling at ~31 meters a second. Leaving such a gap in most circumstances would result in you going backwards as people pull in front of you, even at quiet times.

In reply to James Jackson:

I suspect this was missing a smiley, but even so - you pull to the right to overtake them, not try to do the police's job for them.

Neil

In reply to gethin_allen:

If someone takes your braking distance, drop back. Annoying them isn't worth your own safety, surely?

Neil

In reply to Neil Williams:

If you're overtaking the left lane then various t---s who let themselves get shafted into slower traffic in the left lane do have a nasty habit of constantly pulling out into that nice safe space in front of you. As people aren't summarily executed for pulling out into the 2-second buffer in front of another car knowing full well that they're boxing themselves in and can't accelerate away opening up the buffer again I tend to drop in to the left lane with the philosophy that I'd rather be going slightly slower yet maintain a safe distance in front of me.

Sadly this fails spectacularly in the USA where there is a general lack of lane discipline and any space is pulled into from both sides by tubby lardarses in SUVs.

In reply to Richiehill:

I read someones theory on here once about middle lane hogs which I thought was rather good: Make it illegal to be undertaken.

In reply to Richiehill:
"illegal to be undertaken" - interesting idea. would have to be quite well explained to stop people swerving madly left without observation (mor ethan they do now, anyway...)

>Boring middle-aged comment alert>
recently: several journeys to the midlands, mainly motorways/dual carriageways. fuel economy at 57mph about double that at 70 (using downhills to speed up a bit on occasion). less stressful, not many manouvres, took about 30 minutes more. Bit boring .
60 was easier to stick to than 57. it's nice & quiet in Lane 1

In reply to Richiehill:

Your deduction is wrong: I am not a middle lane hog. I always get out of the way (i.e. move left) to let faster traffic pass, if it is safe to do so. Conversely, if it is not safe to move out of the way I will not be bullied by someone on my bumper to break the speed limit.

"This also very rarely happens" ... well I see it happen several times an hour on most British motorways.

"Very few people will come screaming up behind you at 90 mph". I experience this almost every time I am on a motorway.

There is a self-important class of driver out there that seems to think it has a right to speed. Much more dangerous than the middle lane hogs IMO, and more difficult too avoid.

In reply to gethin_allen:

Obviously, if the motorway's particularly quiet, you're not going to get in *many* people's way. I regularly drive on motorways at that kind of time though and most of them are still busy enough that I do get held up from time to time by people who are sat in the middle lane, seemingly because they're too lazy to ever want to change lanes. I'm not necessarily tarring you with the same brush but your spray justification is ludicrously weak. That's no reason at all to sit in the middle lane.


In the circumstances you were talking about (quiet motorway, late Sunday evening), I find it pretty unlikely that many people would be pulling into a 60-100m gap, that's not all that large.

I am, in some senses, a fairly aggressive driver in that I tend to drive at fairly high speeds on motorways. I'm always careful about leaving a proper gap in front of me though and it's only when it gets pretty busy that I find many people choosing to move into that gap.

In any case, I'm not quite sure where you're going with this argument. People pulling into gaps isn't a good reason not to leave any gap and it's *certainly* not a reason to sit a lane across from anyone you want to sit behind for a while. That would cause chaos. What was your point?

In reply to John Stainforth:

Your choice of language is a little ambiguous and I may be over-interpreting but it sounds like you might be looking at this the wrong way around. The default option should be to move over to the left-most lane, at any time you're not actively overtaking. It sounds like you're talking about pulling over if and when you see faster traffic approaching behind you. That's bound to irritate people because in many cases they'll have to slow down, wait for you to choose a safe time to pull in and then resume their original speed. That may not be what you actually meant but it is something I see people doing on the motorway fairly regularly which slows everyone down and wastes fuel.

In reply to Luke90:

That is my default option, more or less, though I don't weave in and out between every lorry doing 60 mph in the slow lane.

I try never to slow down other drivers. The only people who get slowed down by me are those who are seriously speeding. These are the same types of drivers as those who nearly come into the back of you when you slow down gently to obey the speed limits going through villages, and then tailgate you the whole way through.

In reply to Richiehill:

Has anyone noticed an increase in the number of chancers using the hard shoulder when traffic grinds to a stand still? four cars came down the hard shoulder at about 40 whilst I waited along with everyone else on the main carriageway on the m25 this afternoon! It's. Something I've seen a few times recently.

In reply to John Stainforth:

Fair enough. Sorry for lumping you in with the people I was actually moaning about.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

I think this is probably being encouraged by those sections in variable speed limit zones where they often DO open the hard shoulder up to traffic when there are queues.

I like the idea of the 70mph middle lane owner. That would make a change as I seem to remember when I lived in England that the middle lane would be occupied by the sort of challenged person who insists on 40mph on an A road. There was always the need to go out to the outside lane and then go all the way back again within the speed limit.

As said above, they can either not be bothered or are incompetent to the point of being frightened to change lane. The latter should not be on the big bad motorway!

In reply to GrahamD: That is a VERY good idea.

In reply to James Jackson:

Please add 'when there's an empty lane to the right for overtaking'