Motorway survival tactics

[overrun]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M5dL4DPm-DE

 

Middle lane hogger. Good one.

[barefoot]

I drive the T2 in lane one and I generally find a lorry doing exactly the same speed as me, some are difficult to keep up with so I let them go, others are difficult to stay behind & I pass them but it doesn't take long to find the right one.

Then I potter along - 50 - 60 not too close because it probably won't stop as quick as a 44 tonne truck, using the truck for advance warning of when I need to change lanes etc. As has been said, there's the hard shoulder escape route too, I'm not going to accelerate out of trouble in that am I?

Trouble is, I've been driving it so long, I tend to drive the Porsche the same way!

Drives the fair lady barefoot barmy.

 

That said, on an empty or very quiet motorway, I am happy to tootle along in said Porsche at 90 odd in lane three.

I keep an eye on my mirror and try never to exceed 100 - instant ban.

 

Re lane hogging -- 1

 

Anyone remember a mag called Safer Motoring?

I have a reprint of issue 1 - 1963 and it advises all M1 users to 'stay in that middle lane' - how times have changed.

 

Lane hogging --2

 

Leicester Northbound M1 - J21 - J21a 

 

On this stretch the motorway opens up to 4 lanes, there's a shit load suddenly join from the M69,

Then they're all flying off into the services

Then they're all re-joining from the services

Then it all splits up & folk bog off down the A46/7

 

In the restricted visibility/cumbersome slow fucker that is a T2, I stop where I am as Lane one becomes Lane 2

I maintain that this is safer for the two miles or whatever

but would welcome the views of the AS massive.

[MrDuke]

In the restricted visibility/cumbersome slow fucker that is a T2, I stop where I am as Lane one becomes Lane 2

I maintain that this is safer for the two miles or whatever

but would welcome the views of the AS massive.

 

Indeed it is safer, but holding a lane between 2 junctions due to lots of movement on the inside can't really be compared to someone who inhabits the middle lane for miles on end, with no good reason at all.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Women drivers in Sheffield. Seriously. Yesterday I had to battle through town surrounded by dumb bitches not knowing what lane to be in, swapping lanes at random, not indicating, yapping to passengers and being a bastard menace.

 

Oh, motorways. As Cav says , the cretins who drive within 5ft of a truck and then try to move into the middle lane where they then do 58 mph for 6 minutes overtaking and leave about 300 ft gap before eventually moving back in. Normally some twat with their nose 4 inches from the screen.

[Partridge]

I think there's a lot to be said for keeping at least a two second gap between you and whatever is in front. I try and stick to a four second one.

 

That breathing space has saved my skin more than once when something goes tits up ahead, letting me change my position, get out the way or just brake (and space to give whatever is behind me enough room to stop in time).

 

When it comes to lorries, isn't it just common sense? Don't fuck with something bigger than you is an important life lesson. If I can, I move into the outside lane to get past if it is windy, give them PLENTY of warning that I'm about to pull back in front of them and plenty of space.

 

Plan ahead, look ahead, anticipate and keep and eye on what's around you, don't make a rushed decision. If you need to think twice, don't do it. 

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

 isn't it just common sense? 

 

Sadly, you have hit the nail firmly on the head.

[CreepingJesus]

There's a stretch of motorway near me, where I often do what Barefoot does: the down-and-up by Rosyth on the M90. The slip road up from Rosyth continues up onto the A823 for Dunfermline, so there's folk trying to get from the slip road to lane 1 and vice versa, in the same 300yds. It's best to stay out in lane 2, and hope you escape the insanity!

 

I always leave space for emergency services, BC and his colleagues as well. Camera vans can take their chances...

It's common courtesy to people who are in a tricky situation, and who should also expect to get home at the end of a shift.

If you are stopped on the hard shoulder, of course GTFO and stand up the bank: but remember to turn your wheels that direction too. If your motor gets shunted, it won't run into the traffic.

Don't park under motorway bridges either: a mate of mine got a stern telling off from the traffs, because if it catches fire, all hell lets loose apparently. They'd rather you caught fire away from a bridge!

 

No offense intended L13, and I hope none taken. I know a couple of farm hands who are superb drivers, but the problem is usually that they drive stuff which isn't ever unhooked. Or they haven't a clue where they're going. Like the guy who earnestly asked where London was.

We'd a scaffolder in the other week, who suffered the first issue. Put the pin over the plate thrice in one morning, before the TM showed him the door. It's not worth the risk, if someone's lacking those basic skills and kit.

[sierraman]

In Sheffield the diabolical driving I see tends to be around Meadowhell, where all the morons go to run up a huge unsettleable credit card bill buying those hideous body warmer things that my wife tells me are called Gillets. Invariably in some sort of Audi or Nissan squashqai.

[Split_Pin]

YOU GET CLOSE, I GO SLOW.

 

That's whats on the back of my car.

 

I do 60 ot 65. Quick enough to stay out the way of the big wagons but slow enough to let every other bellend horse it past into oblivon.

 

If that doesn't suit other road users, be prepared for a very long journey looking at the back of my head.

[Pete-M]

Bad driving?

 

Alum Rock, Birmingham is probably the epicentre of rude, inconsiderate, careless and often very dangerous driving. Quite narrow roads, often with speedbumps and more often than not Solihull plated private hire Avensis cabs trying to reach escape velocity. Those guys always use the back roads and rarely use brakes - unless they spot someone they know in which case they'll stop dead in the middle of the street for a chat. More often than not the only indication this is about to happen is a slightly flickering high level brake light as the rest of the rear lights don't work.

 

Bristol City centre runs Alum Rock close but in different ways. Bristol has an atrocious street plan with badly signed roundabouts and multitudes of opportunities for big accidents.

 

Manchester nobody ever gives way or lets anyone out.

 

London drivers are remarkably good provided you know where you're going. If you hesitate in London you'll get nowhere as they sense nervous drivers like a shark senses blood.

 

Liverpool is probably bewildering if you're not used to it but more often than not people will let you out.

 

The Wirral gives driving licenses out as awards for blindly bumbling about taking no notice of what is going on. If you look where you're going or drive safely it's an instant fail. If you don't cause an accident within your first hour of driving in a day they take your licence away.

 

Bath is mainly sitting in traffic with your handbrake on.

 

Swindon is either going at a fine old lick or queuing.

 

Milton Keynes means absolutely full bat between each roundabout then hitting anything that gives way up the arse at 75 mph.

 

York is slow.

 

Hartlepool the pedestrians point and shout "IT'S A CAR!"

 

Norfolk is full of bumbling truckers and people who enjoy overtaking on blind bends.

 

Cardiff drivers are actually quite good but that roundabout on Cowbridge Road tends to get plenty of near misses. The wobbly bit near the castle is always chocka and van drivers appear to think bus lanes include Transit flatbeds.

 

Leeds is bad in some bits, fine in others.

[Cavcraft]

There's only one 'winner' here for bad driving areas: Cheshire Oaks. Probably fair to say in 'normal' times 65% of drivers round there are twats, increasing to about 90%+ near Christmas.

[Pete-M]

Cheshire Oaks is fucking awful.

[MarvinsMom]

 

Hartlepool the pedestrians point and shout "IT'S A CAR!"

 

 

 strange, i always thought that the "residents" of Hartlepool would be too busy grunting, picking fleas off of each other and beating their chests to be even aware what a "car" is!

[Inspector Morose]

+1 for Alum Rock. Driving a bus down there is friggin' lethal. The only way to make any kind of progress was to aim for the centre of the road, main beam on and wind the 680 (North Birmingham Busways Atlantean) up to terrifyingly loud noise levels then just go for it.

[sawdustman]

From my own experience, Bit of telling-yer-grandmother-how-to-suck-eggs really:

-Get to about 56mph on the approach lane, this being the speed all HGVs are all* speed limited to.

-Try and keep 2 car lengths free ahead, one for the lane switching tailgater in a repmobile, and the other for when they shit themselves and dab the brakes every 3 or so seconds.

-Ensure there is a large gap in front when passing any junction concerning Warrington, because every day someone will pass you at upwards of 90mph then cut across 3 lanes onto their sliproad 5 yards short of the chevrons.

-That fucking loud Boom noise you just heard was a probably a blowout on an artic trailer.

-Don't [REDACTED] on the hard shoulder because [REDACTED].

[Andrew353w]

Bad driving?

 

Alum Rock, Birmingham is probably the epicentre of rude, inconsiderate, careless and often very dangerous driving. Quite narrow roads, often with speedbumps and more often than not Solihull plated private hire Avensis cabs trying to reach escape velocity. Those guys always use the back roads and rarely use brakes - unless they spot someone they know in which case they'll stop dead in the middle of the street for a chat. More often than not the only indication this is about to happen is a slightly flickering high level brake light as the rest of the rear lights don't work.

I TOTALLY AGREE! I lived there, in College Road during my university days & was driving a Daf 33 at the time. You're right about the area and the drivers-it was ever thus in the 1970's, too!

[gordonbennet]

Fook me, this thread popped into what loosely passes for  a mind at 5am today, there we all are cruising up the M1, when lo and behold the motorway is closed with diversion via A5 between 16 and 18 for those poxy roadworks.

 

About 1/2 mile from the slip road everything comes to a steady halt, we can see the signs that we're all going down into lane 1 to come off, so we form quite sensibly into 2 lanes.

 

Course the entitled odd one nips down the outside so a bloke in a Volvo S60 does a blocker in the outside lane to stop the cheeky twats queue jumping and holding us all up more.

 

Container artic comes hooning up the third lane overtaking everyone, must be nearly on his limiter, sees the Volvo car there and has to brake so violently that there was an almightly bang which presumably was the load hitting the headboard, then he's flashing his lights and leaning on his horn and jumping up and down in the cab like a wild man, had he got past he'd only have gone another 200 yards anyway.

 

Anyway he carries on hooting and flashing, then we all move about 10 yards, so he tried to force the car beside me (i'm in the inside lane in me lorry loving every moment of this, better than any fucking soap opera) into me, quite where he thought that poor innocent sod was supposed to go i haven't the foggiest.

 

At this matey in the Volvo car gets out, t i thought here we go this truckies going to get a well deserved slapping, but he calmly takes pics of the lorry and driver...trucky surely must realise he's fucked, he's in the third lane and acting like the worlds biggest bell end.

 

 

Eventually the lorry forces his way into the middle lane and we all sit there for the next 20 minutes, and yes i spent most of those 20 ins pissing meself giving me mate 500 yds ahead the full running commentary.

 

 

The reason we were all sitting there?

 

Well my mate was half way up the slip road, Johnny Foreigners had blocked jct 16 roundabout off waiting for the motorway to open at the planned 6am, eventually it was opened at 5.30 and we all sailed off....meant i was half an hour late for me proper porridge and tea and toast at the biscuit factory canteen in Wales.

 

This country seriously needs some proper old school traffic coppers again.

[Albert Ross]

I like to leave a goodly braking distance in my old crate. Laden, it's a bit under 3 tons and it has unservoed drum brakes. What I like is when people overtake me, and fill my braking space, and then drop a few mph, meaning I have to either pass them (Yeah right) or bloody slow down.... I don't have the ability to keep changing speed like normal cars.  SO FUCK OFF AWAY FROM ME YOU CUNTS! Also, the rear is plastered with a sort of Faux Chapter 8 Chevron layout, to deter tailgaters. The thought being, that if it dazzles them, they back off or pass me. (And then get in my braking space..... oh wait now....)

[Parky]

Best lesson I ever had was on my first driving lesson - everyone else on the road is a fucking idiot so allow for that and they probably won't hit you when changing lane or braking for no reason.

 

Nowadays you can add "wont hit you when phoning their mate Claire to talk about TOWIE last night, or reprogramming the SatNav for their mums house" (even though they know where it is)

[beko1987]

I had a mate who was training to be an instructor when I was learning and passed my test. First thing he did when I passed was take me on the mway, taught me a lot! I did carve someone up, but never did it again.

 

I had it tonight, coming from the a404 bypass there's a dedicated slip onto the m40 so you don't have to fuck around at handy x to go norf.

 

Came up to it, indicated in and sped up (as the bypass was slow). Few yards up some twat in a c class casually wafts into the slip. I full beam him and brake a bit, and he does 35mph around the road towards the motorway. When it joins the m40 it becomes l1, and the m40 goes to 3 lanes. Despite this, we are still doing 35mph, the lorries who normally idley indicate to come over to the now l1 shit themselves as they see this twat. I spot a gap further back in l2, so get ready, check the handy x slip is clear, give c class twat a long blast of the horn, move over (across the do not cross chevrons but tbh I didn't care) into the emptyish l2, past dickhead and back into l1.

 

Look behind me, c class dick is doing 60 (I was doing 70 and getting away) in l2 now, he moved straight out.

[bigfella2]

The thing thats starting to really irritate and scare me is this. People texting while driving!!! aaaargh!!!!. Driving while talking on a mobile is bad, but atleast the driver is looking where there going. But the idiots that are texting, with the phone on there laps or resting against the bottom of steering wheel. There really easy to spot , because there not looking through the windscreen, there heads are pointing downwards toward there crotch!!!! Its even more easy to see at this time of year because there stupid little faces are lit up from there phones. I think this is nearly as bad sleeping for a few seconds and waking up, should imagine the accident tell tales will be the same, i.e no skid marks on the road before ploughing into something. Whats so important that you have to text while driving?? Best to keep long, long way aways from these muppets.

[CreepingJesus]

 

 

This country seriously needs some proper old school traffic coppers again.

I've been arguing that for years. All the technology in the world can't assess whether someone's simply being an arsehole, and would benefit from a telling off.

 

I dunno about Hartlepool, but I did go down through Stockton to get to the Morrison's depot one night, around kicking out time. The number of people seemingly gobsmacked by the bendy in the middle big noisy box of many wheels, was alarming.

[MrDuke]

The thing thats starting to really irritate and scare me is this. People texting while driving!!! aaaargh!!!!

 

I blame smartphones for this. Back in the day, you could turn the predictive off and hammer out a whole text one-handed without once having to look at the screen. The worst that could happen in an emergency was dropping the phone so you could grip the wheel better.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Milton Keynes means absolutely full bat between each roundabout then hitting anything that gives way up the arse at 75 mph..

What you have to understand,is that we've had the same basic grid system of roundabouts and dual carriageways since 1980. The population of MK then was about 4,000 people, oh ,and no Police station. As you can imagine as teenagers we treated the place like a racetrack,consequently I and some of my mates know the best line through every roundabout and where the badly placed drains are etc.

Fast forward to 2014 population is 270,000 and many more coming in every day to work or shop,some of these people actually have the temerity to slow down or even stop at roundabouts, I think you'll agree deserving of being hit up the arse at 75 ( it would have been 100 a few years ago).

A Milton Keynes roundabout.

[chaseracer]

...wind the 680 (North Birmingham Busways Atlantean) up to terrifyingly loud noise levels...

 

...but no perceptible increase in actual "velocity", right? 

[Inspector Morose]

Correct. It was the only time I bullied due to my size. If I didn't, I wouldn't get anywhere 'cuz buses r shit innit?'

[Jikovron]

One thing I try to do whence the need for the hard should arises is to get the car as far as possible over onto the grass verge if possible to keep the emergency lane clear .

And also carry Hi vis stuff in the car

Obviously not always possible but ive had hassle free breakdowns as a result as ive had loads of safe room to sort out the smoking coil, river water coolant top up, misshapen tyre etc

 

Apart from that I know nowt, the motorway is as unpredictable as human rationale so its just best to not get complacent with it as its such a chaotic mix of different vehicle characteristics and driver attitudes

[Sudsprint]

My only real rule is to give motorways a miss if there is thick fog cos everyone else seems to have X-ray eyes so they can carry on driving at their usual speed.

 

My most scary drive ever was from the tunnel to Le Touquet in super thick fog. Watching those french drivers flash past me when I could barely even make out the lane markings the fog was so thick was nightmarish. 

[Tetleysmooth]

This happened at the beginning of the week.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-30391284

 

Apparently caused by a silly bollocks car driver who drove straight onto the main carriageway from the hard shoulder, without building his speed up first.

I've seen it happen so many times now. It's happened to me when I've been driving my truck.

I do a lot of London driving, and the standard of driving there is absolutely shocking.

I won't go on.

[PhilA]

Houston, TX.

 

Either get a train or walk or avoid.

 

Imagine being sat in stop-start M25 traffic.

The distance you keep from the car in front in your mind. Now put yourself in a fully laden mk2 Transit (for handling feel, now up the horses to about 200).

 

Now speed EVERYBODY up to 85, including the trucks.

 

Welcome to the beltway. Five lanes wide of this hell.

 

Houston's one of the worst places I've driven in the USA. Apparently Los Angeles is worse.

 

Then realise that there isn't a guard rail to the side of the hard shoulder, just dirt, and if you're lucky, a wire rope central divide with a fairly deep flash flood gulley.

 

Wouldn't take much to be pushed into incoming traffic.

 

Why? Because I'M IN MY SUBURBAN AND I'M INVINCIBLE BECAUSE IT HAS AIRBAG.

 

Very few drivers have actually had to try and bring their behemoth to a halt whilst trying to avoid a collision, everybody wants to be in any damn available gap, left, right.. Doesn't matter, passing lane is a free for all.

 

But it hasn't happened to me yet therefore I'm alright, Jack.

Wake up and smell the coffee. Two ton doesn't like to change speed or direction easily. I've followed a guy in a fairly modern Civic who tried to haul the steering like he was trying to back into a parking space, at 55. Yup- fishtail, 180. He was genuinely surprised at the handling characteristics of the car at that speed. 55 can seem slow in a modern, insulated vehicle but physics still prevail.

 

Only a fool breaks the two second rule.

 

Phil

 

 

 

Footnote edit: I was going somewhere with this but I have a headache and it's late. Forgive how disjointed it is.