.. RH lane works best. Not only is visability better but it prevents the "straight to lane 3 boys" from overtaking agressively on the slip road..
But don't they just tailgate you instead down/up the slip road? - as, if not more, disconcerting I would think - for me anyway.
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Like most things in life I think it depends on the circumstances. When you get two junctions close together I'd say it was obvious that the left hand lane gave you a greater degree of safety, mainly because lane one of the motorway is looking to cut your path off. I'm thinking M56/M53 junction and the junction for Outlet Village, and I think Knutsford services exit onto the M6 is also on top of another junction.
The left hand lane gives you more time to find a gap and slot in, the right hand lane can mean you have to almost stop to wait for a gap.
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Thanks for your views everyone, I usually drive north of the lake district where traffic density is lower. I will keep in mind that the safer option may be the left lane in heavy traffic, using the hard shoulder as an escape route if things go wrong.
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Right hand lane for me. Taught during advanced driving course for 'see and be seen' purposes. On a personal note, it also lets you get past the mentally challenged who feel it's perfectly ok to join a m'way at 20mph.
Edited by midlifecrisis on 29/02/2008 at 15:58
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I think your right after following a Punto up on to the M57 this morning who seemed quite happy to merge in front of an artic at 40.
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"it also lets you get past the mentally challenged who feel it's perfectly ok to join a m'way at 20mph"
Otherwise known as the folk from Cheshire joining the M56 from the Airport.
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Same for me as MLC. I drive in a manner as to make progress ;-) and I do so without endangering myself and those around me.
>>>>>the mentally challenged who feel it's perfectly ok to join a m'way at 20mph.
MLC - you still get these in the RH lane even when the LH is clear!
M18 to M1 North & South bound - I always use the left hand filter lane here.
1. You have a large hardshoulder to escape to unlike the RH lane.
2. You have a better field of view as you join the M'way.
3. White lines - more than once I have had a 'chevron jumper' both left to right & vice versa here!
Edited by Tron on 29/02/2008 at 16:36
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Wherever possible, I'm always up to m/way speed by the time I'm at the bottom of the slip road. It's easier to slow from 60mph to 50mph if necessary, than it is try and speed up from 30 to 60.
I was stuck behind an old boy in Rover 45 last night who joined at 30, positioning himself in the middle of the slip road, preventing any overtaking. He merrily pulled straight into lane 1 without a care in the world. The artics coming up behind him were non too happy, nor were I and the others stuck behind him who had very few options. What should be a smooth, filter flow was a haphazard and dangerous experience.
Unfortunately I'd just finished work, otherwise we may have been having words. (Although I'm sure he would never have accepted he did anything wrong)
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I hope none of you sliproad outside lane hoggers are the ones that prevent me having a clear view of the motorway be getting in my sight line as I come down the slip road? - surely you can wait until you join the motorway before you start overtaking? Also surely the same rule applies as on any other road - if the inside lane is clear you should be using it......
I accept that there are occassions where you can overtake on a sliproad (the Rover driver above is a good example), but most of the time its surely best to wait??
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the mentally challenged who feel it's perfectly ok to join a m'way at 20mph.
AArgh... I was about to say I didn't really mind which lane I was in on a slip road until you reminded me of them, mlc...
And there are others who just do it blindly instead of trying to slot in between two vehicles in the nearside lane, just pull slowly into the motorway without signalling or looking, total idiocy.
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if there are two lanes on a m/way slip road, then surely the road engineers who have designed and built it have planned for traffic to use.. er two lanes...and the slower traffic would be in the nearside lane and the faster traffic in the off side lane, overtaking the slower traffic....what's wrong with that?
you tend to find that when you get to the actual m/way there are no longer two lanes (unless there are those white cross hatching type things to ensure you stay in that lane), so that all traffic can merge into the main carriageway safely
i see no problem at all with whizzing down the o/s lane and would be irritated if someone wanted that lane to 'mimse' when the nearside lane is free
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Those two lanes merge into one BEFORE joining the motorway - that, to me, means that you should have overtaken the other vehicle well before reaching the bottom of the slip road and not force the driver on the inside lane of the slip road to have to take avoiding action by not being properly prepared to slip into the inside lane of the motorway beacuse you were too concerned in overtaking on the slip road.
Too often I've seen people go shooting down the slip road overaking everything in sight without actually planning on how they are going to join the motorway itself safely.
The slip road is there to get up to the correct speed to join the traffic on the motorway proper, not to start racing/overtaking everyone else - I've no doubt that you are all considerate drivers who would never do that, but regretably there are many that aren't!
TBH if the advanced driving mob think that its better to stay in the outside lane that seems to me to be a decent argument for only having one lane like they do in mainland Europe, that way we wouldn't have the racing and on the odd occassion that you have some slow Rover driver you could always use the hard shoulder in an emergency to get up speed safely.
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slips roads are a nightmare. I believe they are the one piece of road that it is most important to accelerate up to speed on. On the normal type of two lane slip road that most people are talking about here I would tend to merge from the right and would overtake anything that looks like it isn't going to merge at 70mph (or with the traffic flow if lower) only because I want to spend as little time as possible in the vulnerable position of merging where sometimes I have people from the middle lane of the motorway pull into the gap I wanted to merge to or have someone close that gap by moving closer to the vehicle in front (or have a lane swooper overtake me at the last minute and use the gap up). If I have a slow-coach in the left lane of the slip who I couldn't overtake safely and who wants to merge at 50 in front of a lorry I do two things 1) get scared 2) merge behind them. I don't know what else to do short of using the hard shoulder and stopping isn't an option. I've almost been sandwiched a couple of times because of slow mergers, one of those times was where a lorry decided to "teach me a lesson" by not slowing down and almost collided with the back of my car. I don't see why I should have been the object of his fury considering I was practically sitting in the back of the dumb cow in front's range rover at the time with beads of sweat coming out of my forehead. I am thinking of taking an advanced driving course so that I better know how to deal with this kind of thing and save my blood pressure. When I'm actually on the motorway a pet hate is that so many drivers seem to think that I should move over to the middle lane to allow them to merge rather than adjusting their speed. By and large I do move over where it is safe or reasonable to do so just to make everyone's life easier but sometimes I may decide not to if I don't feel it's safe for me to change lanes and maybe just one or two cars are joining, but the amount of times I've found that I have had to swerve as an oblivious driver just pulls out toward the side of my car and not a few of them started gesticulating and swearing.
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Those two lanes merge into one BEFORE joining the motorway
They don't always, you know. There are quite a few places where there's even cross-hatching between the slip-road lanes to make it clear that the outside lane exits into the motorway before the inside one. It isn't always that explicit, but if both slip-road lanes are still there when the slip road joins the motorway, I would expect people in the outside lane to exit as soon as they can, not squeeze into the inside lane to put off the evil moment. Of course there are probably some drivers who do that.
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>...should you need to abort & use the HS
Has anyone here ever done this? Not me, in nearly 20 years.
As for Markoose's slowcoach, if there's really no opportunity to get in front, the thing to do is to anticipate the situation and back right off, changing down if necessary to allow you to pick up speed again quickly. That gets you right away from the problem caused by the slowcoach, and probably allows you to merge some way behind, into the space left by drivers already in lane 1 pulling out to pass him.
The sliproad situations that scare me most (and I'm doing a lot of motorway driving at the moment) are mostly caused by drivers forgetting that the basic rules of safe spacing apply to sliproads too. I tend to be driving at busy times, so I do a lot of it in lane 1 at 60-ish, where I can leave a good clear space in front of me. (Lanes 2 and 3 are frequently nose-to-tail and barely any faster.)
What I find, approaching a junction is one driver tootling down the sliproad without any apparent attempt to assess the speed of the traffic or to pick a safe gap to merge into. This wouldn't be a problem - I could adjust my speed up or down a little to pick the gap for him - if it weren't for the four drivers behind him bunching into a 45mph phalanx and then all expecting to merge in front of me.
And, as I've mentioned here before, whatever the stereotype of the French driver, this problem simply doesn't happen there - not to me, anyway. Perhaps we could do with the equivalent of their Cedez le passage signs at the bottom of our sliproads.
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Keep left, that way those of us with cars that actually accelerate can pass you.
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All part of the bigger picture of "zip merging" which seems to be something which will never, ever catch on. Most drivers are too slow, too fast, too jerky, leave too little space or simply do not want anyone to "get ahead" in any circumstance and would rather join a multiple pile-up than (horror of horrors) give way to the right. Or the left. Or to an older/newer/German car. Or to anyone, ever!
The 10% of us (am I being over optimistic here?) who maintain an intelligent distance, speed up or slow down smoothly to prepare to enter a gap, look round, indicate, remember the different driving dynamics of HGVs, keep an eye out for LHD drivers, move into lane 2 to allow filtering in etc., are, literally, a dying species!
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Ought to be an essential part of the driving test. People who don't accelerate up to nearside-lane motorway speed before signalling clearly and merging neatly between two cooperative vehicles in that lane, unless baulked by idiots in that lane which should be apparent to the tester along with the candidate's behaviour under fire, should carry an automatic fail.
Might have to pay the testers danger money though especially in the M6 region...
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Ought to be an essential part of the driving test.
Thinking further about this, and noting a post in another thread that states with apparent authority that motorway driving as part of the test is a 'non-starter', I wonder why this should be? That post was in reply to one pointing out that there are no motorways in the far northern wastes of our land. What is to prevent driving tests being conducted only where there are motorways? It is often said that a driving licence is a privilege, not a right. It is already much more difficult for some people to get one than for others owing to disparities in luck and natural talent.
The essentials of motorway driving should be included in the driving test. Or perhaps since L-drivers are rightly excluded from motorways, it is time for an official second stage, the green P or something, during which motorway driving can be learned. Jerky, anomalous or irrational behaviour, annoying and expensive on normal roads, can be lethal on motorways owing to the speeds used there.
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The essentials of motorway driving should be included in the driving test...
Yes, vitally important - it's one place where poor skill and/or bad decision making can have a disproportionately catastrophic effect. If the 'no motorways nearby' is the counter argument to this (as mooted) - I suggest that lots of practice on a(n) NSL A-road dual carriageway instead - it shares many of the motorway characteristics & poses similar 'problems'.
I suspect part of the reluctance may be from the driving tuition/testing professionals themselves - I could understand them not being too keen with a nervous driver dicing with the HGVs, repmobiles & white van persons.
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The essentials of motorway driving should be included in the driving test.
They are!
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What, a few hundred yards along a 40-limited urban dual carriageway with traffic lights FT?
Not the same as merging at 60 or 70 with motorway traffic at all.
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You asked about *motorway driving*. The essentials of this are covered in the modern driving test. Use your favourite search engine to see how.
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Yes Michael you're so right. If someone has a much more powerful car than mine and the eyes of an eagle, to swoop down to lane 3, I'm not going to argue with Range Rovers or BMWs. I'll stick to the LH lane of slip road. I only have to look in my mirror, back over my right shoulder and the blind spot, for lane 2 to 1ers. Far safer. I tried fast in RH slip lane once, only to be undertaken and nearly lose a safe merging point, as well as the potential last resort of the hard-shoulder or even stopping in the left, if simply not enough space to safetly merge. Being in the LH lane also allows you more time to back-off and pick up speed if necessary.
goingsilver
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What is this current fetish of new posters dredging up 18 month old threads???
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If they started a new one on the subject of their interest, some long term inmates would give them a hard time for not doing a forum search. They cant win! :-)
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...If they started a new one on the subject of their interest, some long term inmates would give them a hard time for not doing a forum search. They cant win! :-)...
Agreed, and I imagine many new members are not aware of the thread date anyway.
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What is this current fetish of new posters dredging up 18 month old threads???
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I think it's one person using a number of different identities.
Methinks I do detect a conspiracy here.
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>> Those two lanes merge into one BEFORE joining the motorway They don't always you know. There are quite a few places where there's even cross-hatching between the slip-road lanes to make it clear that the outside lane exits into the motorway before the inside one.
I agree but in this case I think that we're talking about the normal slip road - the one you refer to is, in effect, two seperate slip roads by the time it reaches the motorway as the cross hatching are solid white lines so you can't (in theory!) cross them!
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I generally prefer lane 2 (the right hand one) because it gives me control over the road and prevents someone else stuffing me. On occasion when I went in lane 1 (left hand) an idiot would hurtle down lane 2 and then position themselves between me and the motorway, preventing me from merging in. Thankfully such morons are uncommon.
I don't like the idea of continuing along the hard shoulder as you might have someone stopped on it, and sometimes it disappears anyway, as for example a bridge pops up. So best avoided.
Edited by Leif on 03/03/2008 at 15:12
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But using the hard shoulder as an escape road is certainly far better than getting seriously in the way or causing a catastrophic crash. It isn't there for nothing after all.
Anyone who has looked at a motorway hard shoulder will be inhibited against using it except in emergencies. It tends to be strewn very liberally with nasty sharp debris and bits of car and tyre.
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I've seen someone use the hard shoulder before, they were in front of me and I think they'd turned onto the slip road by mistake and wanted to turn around or reverse back out !!! they then tried to enter the motorway at 20mph (there was only one merging lane and I couldn't get past and was filling my pants) and so I was rude and jammed my hand on the horn until they panicked and pulled over onto the hard shoulder. I then floored it and merged semi-respectably... before cutting a car up in the middle lane, swearing at them and then swerving into lane three, where I lost control of the vehicle and got rear-ended but told the insurance company it was their fault. I might have made that last bit up.
I agree with the advice about backing off and then merging into the gap that other traffic will create when overtaking the slow-coach, sounds eminently sensible and I will try this next time. If I never post again it didn't work.
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