An almost audible grunt of approval swept the nation yesterday as the news broke that transport police are introducing on-the-spot fines for motorway offences such as tailgating and – get ready to punch the air, Clarksonistas – middle-lane hoggers.
I am a member of the despised latter species, but I am not, contrary to transport minister Stephen Hammond’s claim, a negligent “menace”. Unlike many, I stick to the motorway speed limit. This means I have to go faster than most vehicles in the inside lane, so I have to overtake using the middle lane. I prefer not to repeatedly do this by weaving in and out from middle to inside and back again, as I suspect this causes more accidents than motorists sticking to their lane.
The author of the above piece of rampant ignorance needs to have his licence removed and to take an extended driving test until he gets the message.
Lane hogs are a menace because they cause the whole flow to slow down. If there is space on the left to cruise at a reasonable speed, then that is where you should be. The middle and outside lanes are for overtaking. If you are not overtaking, you shouldn’t be there. If everyone adopted that principle, the flow would be eased and those who are overtaking can do it more efficiently. However, we have selfish ignorant twats such as our Guardianista demonstrating to the world just why our motorways are so damned clogged.
While I am not especially happy at more laws and more fines, this pillock is deserving of as many fines as they throw at him.
So why the hate? Well, because the demographic that most despises middle-lane hoggers is … middle-lane hoggers. Why does it rile them so to have to overtake in the outside (fast) lane? Because they too like to sit in the middle lane – while driving too fast. Why do they not retire to the slow lane? Because they want to go faster than the limit.
Ah, yes, the old “I’m travelling at the speed limit canard”. It doesn’t matter what speed you are travelling at, the left lane is for cruising. The outer two are for overtaking. There are few things quite so annoying as a driver hogging the middle lane at just below the speed limit – self righteously blocking anyone from passing using that lane. Meanwhile the left lane is empty.
Theoretically, driving at 70mph in the middle lane, no one should need to overtake me. But try it some time, and see how long you last before the car behind you – a likely advocate of these new laws – proceeds to angrily tailgate you (risking another new OTS fine), then sharply swerve around you via the fast lane. How dare you prevent them from breaking the law.
It is not your place to prevent him from breaking the law. Do you have a warrant card? No? Well, get into the left lane and let him get on with breaking the law if that is what he wants to do. It is none of your business. If he gets caught and fined, that is his concern, not yours, you pompous, self-righteous fuckwit.
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Update: From Quentin Wilson.
“You take umbrage because you know they’re muppets who don’t understand how the motorway works,” Willson says. There is a “grammar” to driving on the motorway. You stay left, overtake where necessary and then move into the left-hand lane. That’s what the Highway Code says – it’s a way of allowing the traffic to travel at the optimum speed.
“If they don’t know that there’s going to be lots of other things they don’t know about motorways,” Willson says. “You feel they don’t have the right to travel on this road.”
There’s no “feel” about it. The lackwit who wrote the self-righteous, holier-than-thou, pompous, arrogant, self-important piece in the Guardian should lose his licence immediately.
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Update 2: I see that the fuckwittery and selfishness is not confined to the egregious Guardianista. The Torygraph is also afflicted. Jake Wallis Simons tries to use the libertarian argument for his ignorance, laziness, selfishness and stupidity.
As is always the case with plans that seek to curtail the liberty of citizens, these proposals are one part sensible to four parts sinister. Fines for handbrake turns in built-up areas: sensible. Fines for not giving way at a junction / forcing your way into traffic / using the wrong lane at a roundabout: sinister.
Sinister, too, is the fine for “hogging the middle lane”. What does this mean, exactly? Driving a little too slowly? So overtake! Personally, when I’m on the motorway I like to leave a sizeable distance from the car in front. The idea is to give myself more reaction time if something unexpected happened on the road ahead. Sensible, right? I’m going at 70mph (any slower and I’d move to the slow lane), so what’s the problem? If you can’t bear the sight of a few more metres of open road in front of my bonnet, be my guest and fill it.
As is often the case with faux libertarians, they miss out the crucial bit about adverse effects on others and keep the “I’ll do as I please” bit. Arsehole.
I have long despised journalists because they are staggeringly ignorant of just about everything and spout their ignorance. here, though, they are showing pride in that ignorance and stupidity. They are almost as bad as politicians.
Scum, the lot of ’em.
XX transport police are introducing on-the-spot fines XX
No! They are not…. Transport police are what was once known as “British railway police”. (“British transport police”, BTP, in todays terms, and have been for I do not know HOW long)
Do they mean “Traffic police”? Different thing.
Also, unless the justice system has turned on its head, the police can not decide how to deal with offences.
That is the job of Parliament.
The police can decide to enforce laws in place, but they can not decide to deal with offences where no parliamentary decision exists.
Police are merely the AGENTS of the law
They do NOT MAKE law.
So XX transport police are introducing on-the-spot fines for motorway offences XX Is total bollox.
It’s the Guardian, what did you expect? Well researched accuracy?
I would love to see these middle lane bozos done. Since a change in work I hardly drive, therefore have a small runabout that does me quite well. However, when I do travel on motorways I find it a real annoyance, especially on the slightest of hills as my Kia has very little acceleration. I have no wish to travel along at 60-65 but do not like to use the third lane to overtake on a hill as I know I will slow that stream of traffic while my car gets up to speed. Basically I suffer for thinking of other road users.
I came back from Cardiff a few days back and the M5 was very quiet and I was able to do 70 on the inside for a good mile until I came upon a car in the middle lane doing about 60. Luckily the motorway was clear enough to go round him but the twat just sat there oblivious to the hassle he caused. I did wish I was back in Australia, where you can overtake on the inside as well but I fear that would be too complex for most of the idiots on our roads.
As I am on a rant, a bit OT but still traffic. They have a good idea in Western Australia where their equivalent of our road fund licence is also a third party insurance. It still costs about the same as ours but is easier to police, as only one object to check for and if you are unlucky enough to get rammed you know your damage will be paid for as there is little chance of the driver being uninsured.
I’ll admit to passing on the inside when I meet these knobs.
I’ve been known to do it as well.
All very well and good.
But unless they put a lot more traffic police on the roads it will not make an iota of difference!
In the meantime, how about getting the speed cameras on the speed managed sections of the M25 to work?
@Bucko
So do I, just to show tadpole-garglers like Johnny Sharp what twunts they are. But it wounds my inner Autobahnfahrer to do so.
But Johnny Sharp is not alone. Jake Wallis Simons onanistically trumpets his ignorance and selfishness in the Telegraph. Amusingly, he is shat upon in the comments like a starving, horny coprophile. Which, I suppose, writing crap like that, he might be.
Driving a motorcar on a motorway is not the same as taking a comfy fucking seat on a train and settling down to relax. These imbeciles seem to think that it’s the ‘quiet zone’.
@Stephen Mynett :
(1) Australian drivers are crap* (except the racing ones)
(2) NSW has road tax and third party personal liability rolled up (at least, they used to). No help if he buggers your car and has no damage insurance – is WA different?
* I should know, I am one
Not been in WA for about four years but believe it covered damage as well, although the source of the info was my sister who lived there so she may have got it wrong, luckily I did not have to find out.
Those that sit in lane 2 (or 3) virtuously adhering to the 70 mph limit would do well to ensure that their speedometers are correctly calibrated. One man’s 70mph is another’s 63mph…
Many, many years ago, shortly after the M25 opened, and before it became a parking lot, I teamed up with another driver, zipping past each side of the middle-lane bozo (often trundling along at way less than the limit), crossing over ahead of him/her, and moving onto the next. None seemed to get the message, as we stitched our way anti-clockwise. Okay, I know (and knew) it was not legal, but it was fun!
In my experience of motorway driving, mainly M1 & M5, cars hogging the middle lane are rare. Sometimes they hog the outside lane but the guys in the middle are trucks. The inside lane is frequently a line of trucks and when one truck decides to overtake another it takes ages. They have speed limiters fitted by law for our ‘comfort and convenience’, set to 56mph and the difference in speed between the trucks it tiny.
Is it not the case that a different approach to lanes is needed depending on conditions? In free flowing traffic, keep left except when overtaking, in real congestion, stay in lane as signs say on M25 variable, and in heavy traffic that is moving fairly well (ie what we mostly get) plan ahead and don’t change lane needlessly, it just causes more hazards and confusion. Is this right or am I, err, ‘deeply misguided’ too?
Yes, different approaches are necessary. Sometimes, lane changing is not practicable. However, what these chumps are talking about is staying in the middle lane when it is perfectly possible and desirable to be in the left lane.
Mmm… I don’t think this is as clear cut as you make it sound and I don’t think the police would win a challenge that went to court.
When the M45 first opened my dad took me for a spin in a Jaguar sports coupe. At the time his line was that there was no point in signalling a lane change as “if you can see a car in your mirror you shouldn’t move out”. That made some sense when traffic was light and the car in the mirror might be doing 110 mph (signalling should be done for the car you can’t see as that might be your second mistake). Now, on busy motorways, we have most people barely maintaining “30 mph” safe separations and clowns who think they are doing display team flying with wing-tip manoeuvres. What is the point of the lane bouncing 3 to 2 to 1 to 2 to 3? So you can cut across two lanes with a two foot clearance, idiot.
I’ve met up with middle lane cars on the M6 north of Shap and with no one in sight for miles. Hog maybe but so what? Use the spare lane to pass. Equally I’ve seen the left hand lane mostly empty except for spread out trucks doing 40 mph. If one used ‘safe’ Highway Code overtaking rules the spacing barely makes it right to change lanes. To move over to the left often encourages following drivers to speed up, all be it temporarily, ‘boxing’ in the ‘righteous’. If everybody behaved like a flight of pelicans then there would be no problem, but that is just to say that everyone should drive at constant speed and distance and they might just as well do that in the middle lane.
No, I think this all smacks too much of people trying to drive for other people and the desire for ‘everyone’ to get a clear road (like the caravan tow-er that never sees any congestion when driving at 20 mph). The ‘solution’ is different roads for different vehicle classes (e.g. M6 for cars, M6 Toll for trucks) or, and it will come, constant speed, fixed headway, hands-off control. Meanwhile always remember that the perception of the driver ahead is not necessarily the same as your own.
Of course common sense applies – but I would expect someone travelling on an empty motorway to use it properly and keep left as that is the rule of the road. That they are not inconveniencing anyone at that moment is neither here nor there – it displays a staggering degree of ignorance and they are likely to be a pain in the arse on a busy stretch. Equally, if there is a series of slower moving vehicles on the left then yes, stay in the middle until past them all and then move left.
I agree regarding prosecutions as the situation is so dynamic, getting a conviction would be fraught with arguments about prevailing conditions. The middle lane hog is an obvious beast when you see him – he is using the lane when there is space to be driving at the same speed on the left. So, actually, it is straightforward but common sense is not a common commodity.
I ride a 125cc scooter and sit in the inside lane doing a steady 100 kph, until I have to overtake one of those big things with many scary wheels.
As the scoot can only hit 110 kph on a very good day and as we have very few 3 lane motorways in Scotland, planning is sort of vital. Mirror, big gap, pull out, hope for the best, overcome that monumental bow wave, then get back to the inside lane PDQ.
Being sort of exposed somewhat, I do see and hear what you describe, with that look of grim determination on the face of driver #1 and the fury of the persons in the train behind.
On the other hand I do get slightly miffed at idiots who deliberately slow down to match my speed as they find it highly amusing that a mature rider should be on a motorway on an 11 year old scooter. They’re invariably in 2nd hand Corsa’s with go faster stripes and very flash alloys. Or 12 year old silver BMW 316’s. Two chavs, two broads. Yuck!
Got my eye on a Yamaha X-Max with a 250 engine. Heavy sucker though.
XX Got my eye on a Yamaha X-Max with a 250 engine. Heavy sucker though.XX
Heavy?
Try picking up a V-Max.
Ha! Try picking up an R1150RT.
The fact that they criticize people for breaking the law (ooouuu! over 70mph!!) whilst breaking it themselves does not seem to occur to them.
I bet they’re also the type that will stay at 70mph whatever the conditions…
Once in Germany, I was behind a car in the overtaking lane with the lane on the right empty. We all stayed there indicating to overtake, and because a police car was not far behind, I did not go around it. Lo and behold, after a few 100s meters, the police car went up the right and stopped that car. I do not think I would see that anywhere else.
All this nonsense would go away if we adopted the much more sensible American practice whereby all the lanes are equivalent and you just drive. If some dork in a lane outside of you wants to go slowly, there’s no issue – you just drive on by, in whichever lane you happen to be using. Works for me.
But to pick up on one point, if I’m in the “outside” lane, doing 70 or thereabouts (by GPS, not by speedo!), passing a line of slow trucks – and remember it may be a very long line – am I obliged to pull over and get embroiled in the slow stuff, just so that Mr. Toad in his Beemer (and it’s ALWAYS a Beemer) can proceed at 85 plus? If so, why?
That’s not lane hogging, it’s overtaking. Although, I would usually nip left to let the beemer go by. I’d rather he was in front than hugging my numberplate.