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For many years I have wondered why the normal practice on motorways has evolved differently from that on A roads. There, if a convoy builds up behind a slow vehicle, the leader of the convoy usually overtakes when an opportunity comes. On motorways it is usually the rearmost who goes first. This can be extremely annoying if there are ten or more cars in the convoy. Who started this convention, and why? Or is it just opportunism?
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Well said Andrew. This must be among the most irritating of the many bad driving practices seen on motorways. Let us hope that there might be some more courteous convention evolving wherebye the driver of the first car behind that slow truck, is given the opportunity (if required) to pull out safely.
Regretably, it seems that arrogance and bad driving manners, always give way to courtesy in this situation. A convention is evolving, which I think is welcome, for motorway and dual carriageway drivers, to move out when a slower moving vehicle is joining the road, and this does, I think, add to safety.
Let's hope that something similar could come about, and be put into practice by good drivers, to help in the situation which you describe.
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John Davis wrote:
>
> A convention is evolving, which I think is welcome, for
> motorway and dual carriageway drivers, to move out when a
> slower moving vehicle is joining the road, and this does, I
> think, add to safety.
I agree that this is a good practice and is basicaly an extension of the philosophy of putting space round your vehicle. An unfortunate side effect is when traffic is heavy and ability to move across to lane 2 limited, and the person on the entry slip road believes they have a divine right to a space, ignoring the fact that they are actually crossing a give way line. Of course we all adjust our speed to make space for them don't we....... don't we???
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There is another problem. The driver who plods along in 5th gear, mind in neutral, completely oblivious to the fact that he or she is rapidly gaining on the vehicle in front in the same lane. If the dumb driver is in Lane 1 and a smart driver is approaching the scenario in Lane 2, then the smart driver will, if conditions allow, move to Lane 3 to allow the dumbo to move out and overtake. Unfortunately if the smart driver is already in Lane 3 and the dumbo driver is in Lane 2 he has nowhere to go and doesn't have all day to hang around waiting for the dumbo driver to decide what to do. That's why we get the situation described in this thread.
HJ
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And, as Stuart says, there is a very high proportion of drivers who think giving a turn signal confers the right to pull out no matter how great the speed difference between them and the cars in the next lane. This is particularly irritating when you move to lane 2 to let them out and they decide to move immediately from the slip road to lane 2 because the guy in front isn't accellerating as fast as they'd like. Is it just me whose noticed this behavior to be increasing?
Regards
John
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Er is this the sod you effect acc to your theorem?
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I think the different practices have come about because:
On a single-carriageway, you have oncoming traffic, so it's safest to overtake from the front of the queue because you're not exposed for very long; no-one in their right mind would attempt to overtake the whole queue from right at the back (drivers of big beemers might try).
On a dual-carriageway/motorway, the traffic on the right is coming from behind you, so the gaps appear first at the back of the queue, which is why drivers at the tail-end pull out first.
Of course, whether this is rude or not is a matter for debate; it's certainly irritating.
Regards,
Nick
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