I'd be really good at that sport, I can normally judge it so that I can go across in one swoop, I must have hundreds of points by now!
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I think I'd like to call it the "Rep's Gambit"
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Would be interesting where I join the M6 - usually stationary at M42/M6.
Manage this quite regularly at A50Stoke/M6 northbound junction, tight corkscrew slip road on to an uphill section, caution at that junction is more terrifying than "pray, lane1, miss the lorry doing 40, lane 2, watch the undertaking bike, lane 3, wave cheerily at the BMW driver with smoke coming out of their ears, pray"
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Used to do that in the old days - especially when BMW evolved to those silly indicator things ( I had the "gentleman of the road pack") VAG indicators do the same, except that the Skoda takes a little longer to build up a head of steam.
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The Vauxhall has those funny three flash indicators. It has become a challenge to start and complete lane changes in three flashes........
;-)
Edit - you'd be in with a shout in a 2.5 Alfa for example.........
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 15/09/2008 at 20:53
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It's perfectly obvious to one and all from a hundred experiences on both sides that this is a manoeuvre that can be pulled off without offence to man or beast but that, if attempted by a dolt with sufficient doltish commitment, can also cause a multiple-death hundred-vehicle motorway user inconveniencer.
Nothing more to be said.
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I'm a bit confused. If the OP sees someone ahead of him and moves out, how can the car joining (who then floors it) undertake him?
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I'm with Dave on this. I assume he's doing 70 - and before a pedant says, an actual 70.
Anticipating a junction, he's courteously moved in to the middle lane. Flash harry is entering the motorway at speed such that he's doing at least 70 when he hits the inside lane. Dave mean while doing 70 also is alongside ish / bordering on being undertaken at this exact moment of entry.
Seeing that at his current rate of knots Flash Harry is going to rear end a truck doing 56 in the inside lane ahead, he wellies it and nips in front of Daves nose.
Is that the scenario?
Why is it that so many people say speeding is okay if its under what the police will blind eye? I though speeding was an absolute offence?
Someone on another thread has been effectively flamed for doing 97in a 60. Yes thats wrong but give a guy doing 70 a break please.
I get the impression that on here, making progressabove 70 on a motorway is okay providing you are not bang torights on a camera.
I got flamed recently for ineloquently tring to make a point about using the middle lane at 70 (actual!!) and getting overtaken by speeders.
Talk about some peoples double standards.
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I think the fault is in automatically thinking you are being helpful by moving over.
You need to judge the likely speed of the joining car and act appropriately.
If it is slow moving, eg a lorry or a vehicle towing or a man in a hat, then you move over so that he gets a chance to join, meanwhile you overtake him and pull back in when past.
But it is pointless and irritating to move over for a fast car - he doesn't need your help, and is quite capable of making his own judgement either to merge in behind or to put his foot down and go on ahead of you. It is not "undertaking" to move up the filter lane faster than a vehicle already on the motorway.
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Good point Cliff.
Thing is, and I do this, I'm aware that I'm approaching a junction, glance to see any traffic is on the slip, check mirrors etc, then move over to middle lane in anticipation.
The rub is that I dont always find it easy to judge relative speed of the enterer to the motorway.
In balance, its probably down to the guy entering the motorway to judge his speed to match the motorway he's entering unless you can judge for certain what speed he's doing.
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Sorry, still confused. If the OP can see the other car and is able to anticipate him joining, the other car must be in front on the slip road.
If the car joining then has to move out again to pass the slow lorry, the OP hasn't anticipated that happening which seems a bit odd.
DavidH you got flamed not because of speeding but because you seemed to be happy to hog the middle lane and force others to move across three lanes to get past you.
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Highway code says the joiner should be giving way (ha ha), so don't move to the middle lane at all if you don't want to, let them sort it out, and whilst you may end up with a harp and wings at least you won't be in the wrong. Principles, eh?
Joining the motorway. When you join the motorway you will normally approach it from a road on the left (a slip road) or from an adjoining motorway. You should
* give priority to traffic already on the motorway
* check the traffic on the motorway and match your speed to fit safely into the traffic flow in the left-hand lane
* not cross solid white lines that separate lanes or use the hard shoulder
* stay on the slip road if it continues as an extra lane on the motorway
* remain in the left-hand lane long enough to adjust to the speed of traffic before considering overtaking
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Apart from obvious situations (very slow vehicle crawling along, or Ferrari doing 100 plus) the usual situation is that as the slip road begins to appear on the left, you become aware of one or more vehicles on it, obviously wanting to join your carriageway. Some will at this point be ahead of you, others level, or some yet behind.
You have to judge whether the two lines look as though they are going to merge smoothly or not. Often you find someone who clearly knows what he is doing. He has judged your speed, and either going to speed up and pull over ahead of you, or is going to drop back slightly and slip in behind. There is no point in pulling over for either of those.
On the other hand it may be obvious well in advance that he is not going to accelerate nor drop back, but simply keep going. This might be a lorry with little choice, or it might be one of those irritating mimsers (I'm talking Luddite now) who speed up and slow down slightly and then suddenly drift out when they have run out of room. In these cases it makes good sense to pull over well beforehand and leave them behind.
Edited by Cliff Pope on 16/09/2008 at 11:48
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A similar very nasty scenario presented itself to me today on the A1. Admittedly on the non-motorway sections the slip roads can be alarmingly short.
I'm in the inside lane of two, doing about 65, ahead of an articulated lorry, but am myself being overtaken by a stream of cars. An elderly Peugeot diesel appears on the slip ahead of me. He slows and I think he must have summed up the situation and is going to let us pass.
Instead, he ever so slowly carries on and drifts out, hugging the nearside - as if that would help! I brake hard and am scared witless to see the lorry filling my mirror, bearing down on me.
Somehow we all escape.
Further on, overtaking the Peugeot, which has now eventually wound itself up to 60 in an effort to get out of everyone's way, I realise the driver is, like the car, past his best years and has presumably simply failed accurately to gauge speeds and distances.
Edited by ChrisPeugeot on 16/09/2008 at 19:08
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I have to agree with everybody here to some extent. Yes you should judge the joiming traffic speed before deciding to move to the middle lane, which I do. On this occasion, the traffic on the slip road was invisible until the last moment. I had moved to the middle lane mainly to pass a lorry but it coincided well with the slip road. I had traffic behind me and next to me in the outside lane. I was closing on the lorry fairly quickly so wasn't sitting in the middle lane needlessly. Suddenly the guy has come out of the slip road and considering I am doing something approaching 80, flashes by in the left hand lane and goes for a very quickly decreasing gap between myself and lorry. Had I not hit my brakes pretty hard he would have hit me without any doubt at all.
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Sounds like one of those occasions where the other driver's "body language" makes all the difference - spotting where the other guy is on the scale between clueless>ditherer>I fancy myself (and what's more I've got a 16 valve engine)>Vectra on a mission>kneel before my Bavarian superiority.
If you've only got a split second then I guess make a little room/space for him and stay in control of the situation and then decide what you want to do when you've got time on your side.
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