Saw a new motorway driving technique at the weekend

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stevehg

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Driving on two lane stretch of A1M, guy in an old BMW 3 series comes hurtling up behind me while I'm sitting behind 7-8 other cars at ~70mph in overtaking lane with the first car is overtaking a couple of lorries and a national express coach. Guy in BMW keeps dropping back a car length and then rushing up again and sitting as far out as possible.

He then loses his patience and veers into inside lane, so I thought, typical impatient ****, and expecting him to go down inside and push in further up. But no, he had other ideas, he accelerates up to about 90-95mph and promptly moves over into hard shoulder and undertakes the lorries and coach around a bend whilst throwing up a plume of debris.

Luckily for him and the rest of us there was no one broken down around the bend.

cheers, Steve
 
I really hope he takes himself out of the genepool without hurting anyone else the aggressive thug...

I always see cars in the right hand lane of the motorway when traffic is that busy all lanes are full, almost pushing the car in front along, then when that car moves out of the way, he moves up 10 meters to the car in front and starts pushing him/her out of the way, and so on...

...10 minutes later, 5 panicked / angered motorists later and several near accidents he's still in plain sight and is getting home no sooner than the rest of us, just far less likely so.
 
I don't panic, or get angry. I just move over when it's safe to do so. Let 'em go; you never know whether Turbo Nutter B*****d might do something REALLY stupid - sorry, even MORE stupid - and you might catch some of the fallout.

Occasionally, of course, the red mist comes down, and I'M the TNB :crazy:..... must keep taking the happy pills.

The driver of the old BMW 3 series might, of course, have been in some sort of emergency situation; but like the rest of us I, rather doubt it.
 
To be honest, if I was ever in a similar situation to the OP I'd be very happy that they got in front of me, as you really don't want that sort of driver behind you. Keep them where you can see and avoid them...
 
...10 minutes later, 5 panicked / angered motorists later and several near accidents he's still in plain sight and is getting home no sooner than the rest of us, just far less likely so.

He may well not have sold enough shirts to reach his quota.
 
Sitting in a queue of traffic driving home this evening and we were waiting to filter into more slow moving traffic and the new transit van in front of me pops on his hazard lights and pulls out into oncoming traffic and just overtakes the queue and slips into a gap in the traffic and does the same to that queue - I was amazed at his cheek and how everyone moved out his way.

DB
 
How would he have been able to do this unless everyone was sat in the wrong lane?

I take it that you never use you car to travel on two lane motorway sections like those on A1M, M11 etc. as this happens all the time. ;) ;)

Bunch of slow moving vehicles in inside lane, a bunch of faster mover cars move out to overtake, some doing 65mph, some doing 70mph overtaking the 65mph ones, and some doing slightly over 70mph overtaking the others. Naturally they bunch up.

Now, from your post I can only assume that you'd prefer these vehicles travelling at different speeds to all keep to the inside lane and overtake the lorries one at a time???
 
It would be better and safer for those overtaking vehicles to pass when safe to do so at 80 or 90 so that their overtake manoeuvre is quickly carried out and as safely as possible.

Sticking to dead on 70 inconveniences the majority of road users who travel faster than that on the UK motorways.

The BMW driver sounds like an idiot to use the hard shoulder for his manoeuvre but then again many times on sections of motorway with even four or five lanes people all tend to bunch up on the outside. If there's space to pass on the inside then expect people to use it.
 
The "perfect driver" would move to the left to allow the faster car through.

I think I would struggle to remember....
 
....he accelerates up to about 90-95mph and promptly moves over into hard shoulder and undertakes the lorries and coach around a bend whilst throwing up a plume of debris.

I saw someone do the same thing on a long left-hand bend on the M5 - he didn't hesitate as he approached the rest of the traffic and swept across all 3 land onto the hard shoulder at a similar speed to the driver you saw, if not more.

My heart was in my mouth and I assumed he must be being chased by Police but nothing appeared.
 
I take it that you never use you car to travel on two lane motorway sections like those on A1M, M11 etc. as this happens all the time. ;) ;)

Bunch of slow moving vehicles in inside lane, a bunch of faster mover cars move out to overtake, some doing 65mph, some doing 70mph overtaking the 65mph ones, and some doing slightly over 70mph overtaking the others. Naturally they bunch up.

Now, from your post I can only assume that you'd prefer these vehicles travelling at different speeds to all keep to the inside lane and overtake the lorries one at a time???

I use it quite regular.

I also attempt to move into the second lane when there's a car in the inside lane.

What I don't do is sit in the second lane worrying that I might lose my place in the queue if I move over (something distinctly British about that).
 
I use it quite regular.

I also attempt to move into the second lane when there's a car in the inside lane.

What I don't do is sit in the second lane worrying that I might lose my place in the queue if I move over (something distinctly British about that).

Indeed...the British lose face if they let a faster driver through...the continental driver loses face if he holds the faster driver up.
 
It would be better and safer for those overtaking vehicles to pass when safe to do so at 80 or 90 so that their overtake manoeuvre is quickly carried out and as safely as possible.

Sticking to dead on 70 inconveniences the majority of road users who travel faster than that on the UK motorways.

The BMW driver sounds like an idiot to use the hard shoulder for his manoeuvre but then again many times on sections of motorway with even four or five lanes people all tend to bunch up on the outside. If there's space to pass on the inside then expect people to use it.

The motorways down South must be very different to those here in Scotland .

Only a tiny minority hereabouts go significantly over 70 , and many do less .
 
Only a tiny minority hereabouts go significantly over 70 , and many do less .

Saving fuel, no doubt... :eek:

Only lorries do less than 70mph in the go-faster country of England. Got to keep the economy moving... ;)
 
It's years since I've seen overtaking on the hard shoulder, but it is effective.

I once saw a whole VIP convoy stream by on the hard shoulder after two Police cars had backed up about 10 miles of motorway traffic.
 
The motorways down South must be very different to those here in Scotland .

Only a tiny minority hereabouts go significantly over 70 , and many do less .

I notice a massive difference in speed between the Manchester area and the south of England. If the motorways are clear in the south the default speed of at least one third of the traffic is over 90mph.
 
The motorways down South must be very different to those here in Scotland .

Only a tiny minority hereabouts go significantly over 70 , and many do less .

I'd say more than 50% of people travel above 70mph on the motorways around here. Typically 80 or so in the 'middle lanes' is the norm whereas the outside lane is generally nearer the 90 mark.

At a guess, aside from lorries, more people travel at 75-80 or so than under 70.

Even modern vans comfortably sit at those sorts of speeds, they normally join in with the rest of traffic rather than limping along at 70 as they may have done in the old days.

I'm sure HGVs would go faster if they could. After all they seem to overtake each other wherever and whenever they can :)
 
Saving fuel, no doubt... :eek:

Only lorries do less than 70mph in the go-faster country of England. Got to keep the economy moving... ;)

I suppose the revenue generated by the speed cameras will help :)
 
I was once driving on the M1 and decided to set the Distronic to 70mph.


I was the slowest person on there.
 

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