It seems membership of the Middle Lane Owners Club is increasing...

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st13phil

Hardcore MB Enthusiast
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...at least if my journey back from the Lakes on the M6 yesterday is anything to go by.

Went up to the Lakes on the bike over the weekend (stayed at the Patterdale Hotel on the southern end of Ullswater fwiw) and had a great time. Only one wet day out of the three we were there, so can't even complain about the weather :p

[Rant Mode]

Coming back yesterday, we left at about 10am, headed up to Penrith and then rode the A6 over Shap to Kendal in brilliant sunshine. Life's good sometimes.

Then we picked up the M6 for the haul south. What a fiasco. Lane three full of tailgating tin boxes, mostly due to lane two being populated by morons who insist on using that lane when lane one is almost totally devoid of traffic. When will they actually learn to drive???? These people reduce the capacity of our roads by huge margins and yet we do absolutely nothing about them. The most spectacular display of this incompetence was on the M6 Toll which, despite being nearly empty, was reduced to one lane for all traffic that wanted to travel at > 60-65mph by the imbeciles at approximately half-mile intervals who seem completely oblivious to the fact that their hogging of the middle lane causes faster traffic to traverse from lane one to lane three and then back to lane one to overtake them :rolleyes:

Never mind overtaking on the inside being a 3-point offence, I'd give anyone who uses lane 2 or 3 unless overtaking six points and a mandatory Driving Improvement Course.

[/Rant Mode]

Ahh... I feel better now ;)
 
Tend to agree. We are often told the roads are "full" yet, as you say, the idiots in the middle lane are oblivious to the tailnbacks they cause. If we actually had traffic police on the road pulling people for this they would soon get the message (my dad included:rolleyes: )
 
The MLOC are a real pain if you're towing as you can't use lane 3 to overtake. Being morons they don't realise/notice/care (delete as applicable).
 
Technically overtaking on the inside isn't an offense if the traffic in the outside lane is slow moving.

268

Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.
 
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Technically overtaking on the inside isn't an offense if the traffic in the outside lane is slow moving.

268

Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.

Oh no.................................. :devil::

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=49059&highlight=overtaking
 
Technically overtaking on the inside isn't an offense if the traffic in the outside lane is slow moving.
Without wishing to rehash the discussion in the thread linked by Robert, you'd be hard pushed to claim that a moron hogging lane two at 60mph was "slow moving". Also, there's the key phrase in rule 268: "...or move to a lane on your left to overtake". Difficult to prove that you didn't move to the left to overtake I'm afraid, unless you've approached from a long distance back in which case the definition of "slow moving" will come into play.
 
Well, the slow moving driver is causing the congestion if he is travelling slower than the speed limit. Especially if he has a line of cars behind him.

And, if I move into the left lane to join a queue of traffic that happens to be moving faster than the right lane, have I then broken the law?
 
It's not just the MLOC that cause frustration.

Catch up with someone in L3 who has the opportunity to pull left. Stay a proper distance behind and they think you don't want to pass and they just stay there. If you move closer than you probably should they move over to let you past and the pull out again. Quite baffling.

I drive quite a lot in France, Belgium, and Germany and we Brits are by far the worst for lane discipline. Present company excepted of course.
 
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Catch up with someone in L3 who has the opportunity to pull left. Stay a proper distance behind and they think you don't want to pass and they just stay there. If you move closer than you probably should they move over to let you past and the pull out again. Quite baffling.

Even more baffling, I drive a small works van and someone in lane 3 will refuse to let me pass for mile after mile. If I pull to the left and let the car behind me past and immediately pull back out behind them, the car in front will pull over and let both of us by. Which proves they know all along that they are holding you up, but as its a van, they will not pull over to the left. This happens regularly, so it is not a one off.

Russ
 
I stopped on the motorway once coming back from the lake district (Friends live up there) and there was a police video display for exactly what this thread is about.

Why don't they do a television advert regards this problem and leave it to be shown not just for a week but keep showing it for a couple of months at least.

Oh no sorry silly me it would cost too much,back to the drawing board.

:mad::mad::mad:
 
Why don't they do a television advert regards this problem and leave it to be shown not just for a week but keep showing it for a couple of months at least.
An absolutely excellent idea. Seatbelts were important enough for the DoT as it was then to pay for the Jimmy-jangle-jangle-jewellery-jewellery-Saville "Clunk Click Every Trip" ad-campaign on TV, in the press and on posters everywhere so why not a "Don't be a Middle Lane Moron" campaign? Who could we get to front that up?
Oh no sorry silly me it would cost too much,back to the drawing board.
I fear you may be right :(
 
Where is the money to be made from teaching people lane discipline? ;)

Also, enforcing it would require actual police and not just cameras.
 
I bet that any driver that gets pulled over will instantly go into rant mode about the police having nothing better to do, and they were 'just' going to pull back to the nearside lane when they got stopped.

Totally agree about this being an obnoxious habit, and is it any worse here compared to other countries? If so has anyone any ideas as to why, especially as we all moan about it?

Regards
John
 

I agree with Robert.

I was stopped by a police on a Bimmer motorcycle on A13 going out of London near Dagenham one Friday evening last summer. He told me I might get a jail sentence for overtaking in the middle lane in a 50mph zone with slower moving cars on the fast lane. And these morons were talking and driving at 40mph. I complained what he supposed me to do on a busy Friday evening? He let me off with a cautious when I was expecting a ticket.

On the subject of M6 after the Penrith junction, did you guys or lasses notice on the north bound, there are sensors mounted on the overhead bridge. Are these speed camera, reg recogniser or traffic info?
 
I agree with Robert.

I was stopped by a police on a Bimmer motorcycle on A13 going out of London near Dagenham one Friday evening last summer. He told me I might get a jail sentence for overtaking in the middle lane in a 50mph zone with slower moving cars on the fast lane. And these morons were talking and driving at 40mph. I complained what he supposed me to do on a busy Friday evening? He let me off with a cautious when I was expecting a ticket.

On the subject of M6 after the Penrith junction, did you guys or lasses notice on the north bound, there are sensors mounted on the overhead bridge. Are these speed camera, reg recogniser or traffic info?

They should be Middle lane Moron sensors; they make a star-trek like portal which makes middle lane morons disappear.

:D ;)
 
ITotally agree about this being an obnoxious habit, and is it any worse here compared to other countries? If so has anyone any ideas as to why, especially as we all moan about it?
Yes John, it's much worse than in other countries. France, Spain and Germany for a start. I suspect that there are a number of reasons why it's worse here than elsewhere, including:
  1. Most other countries include "motorway" driving as part of their driver training & testing regime while we don't
  2. The countries I mentioned above all have a real police presence on their motorway networks and don't rely on remote enforcement technology like we do
  3. Not keeping to the right (left for us!) unless overtaking is a specific driving offence in many countries, and due to the presence of police patrols, you will get a ticket for it
  4. If you don't keep to the right on a derestricted section of German Autobahn then you're likely to get run into at very high speed
  5. Traffic on French and Spanish motorways tends to be less dense (i.e. lower volume, not intelligence ;) ) which means that you can often travel at the speed limit in the inside lane for significant distances without the need to overtake anything
Ultimately, this is yet another driver quality issue - but unusually it's one that could probably be relatively easily addressed by a concerted publicity campaign in the first instance.
 
Yes John, it's much worse than in other countries. France, Spain and Germany for a start. I suspect that there are a number of reasons why it's worse here than elsewhere, including:
Hi Phil
Thank you very much indeed for the post

regards
John
 
is it any worse here compared to other countries? If so has anyone any ideas as to why, especially as we all moan about it?

Regards
John

It doesn't happen in the USA, you can overtake in any lane over there.
I have never had to sit behind a buffoon hogging the fast lane over there.

Russ
 
Even more baffling, I drive a small works van and someone in lane 3 will refuse to let me pass for mile after mile. If I pull to the left and let the car behind me past and immediately pull back out behind them, the car in front will pull over and let both of us by. Which proves they know all along that they are holding you up, but as its a van, they will not pull over to the left. This happens regularly, so it is not a one off.

Russ

I've often had the problem of 3rd laners not moving across. I find that if I 'give up' by moving in a lane they will often also move across, thus clearing the 3rd lane for overtaking. It must be a similar psychology at work, but I don't understand it. Perhaps something to do with taking the perceived pressure off them? It doesn't seem to work with middle laners though - I guess they are just oblivious:mad:
 
It doesn't happen in the USA, you can overtake in any lane over there.
I have never had to sit behind a buffoon hogging the fast lane over there.

Russ
I have seen horrendous accidents on the freeways of America and some of these have involved vehicles 'undertaking'. It is definitely something I do not agree with. I agree whole heartedly with the comments made by st13phil.

Regards
John
 

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