Dover to the Midlands yesterday and the middle laners kept the inside lane clear for me again.

Lovely drive, no nose to tail driving staring at the dazzle of rear fog lamps, hundreds of yards of clear road to next vehicle.

Some time ago the police issued a warning that they would pull over the middle laners - I don't think that has happened as I have forgotten the last time I saw a police car on a motorway.
If drivers persistantly stay in the middle lane they should be prosecuted for Driving without Due Care and Attention.
If they can't change lanes then they should not be driving at all or are they too idle or selfish to bother?

Now some may say that undertaking is illegal but the following is taken from the Highway Code:
"Overtaking on the nearside (left) is legally acceptable if you are driving on a multi-lane carriageway in congested conditions, and the lane to the left is moving at a faster speed than lanes to the right. In these circumstances overtaking on the left is permissible although extra caution is needed for an awareness of other vehicles moving to the faster lane on the left."

When driving on the continent an overtaking car on a multi lane road immediately returns to the nearside lane. Tattoos - Why would you choose to look like the wall of a public toilet?

yes a massive problem affecting the nation, and should be given priority in parliament.

Iain

ps sorry I just feel at the moment there are more prevalent issues to consider, maybe just me

They probably don't want squashing by a left hand drive artic driven by a bloke who bought his license at a portakabin truck stop in Lithuania,
driven 600 miles without stopping on a tampered tach, had a skin full of Trappist beer on the Rotterdam - Hull ferry and is breaking the boredom of his next illegal 14 hour stint by watching porn on his laptop ..... 2009 GS Auto Zermatt Silver - Sold June 21 after 10 years of ownership

2016 Subaru Outback SE 2.0 diesel SE Premium Lineartronic Sold 2024 after 8 years and 80k miles . Best Car I ever owned !

2023 Toyota Hilux invincible X 2.8 Auto .

Nothing I'm aware of in the RTA that specifically states overtaking on the left is illegal.

Extra care should be taken, as the OP suggests, but I am not aware of any offence committed by the specific act of overtaking on the nearside.

MartynB wrote:

They probably don't want squashing by a left hand drive artic driven by a bloke who bought his license at a portakabin truck stop in Lithuania,
driven 600 miles without stopping on a tampered tach, had a skin full of Trappist beer on the Rotterdam - Hull ferry and is breaking the boredom of his next illegal 14 hour stint by watching porn on his laptop .....

If you ever come across any motorcycles in the middle lane, when Lane 1 is free, please bear in mind that the tarmac join between the two lanes can be so badly frost damaged (and Lane 1 can be so heavily rutted by lorry tyres) that swapping back to Land 1 can he suicidal on a bike

But the aforesaid motorcycle is unlikely to be holding up the traffic by plodding along at 55mph in the middle lane.

I don't have an issue with it, there are three lanes, if they want the middle one there are two more, and I will use whichever has the least traffic, no fuss, no impolite waves, just whatever makes my life easier and my journey faster. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

The Road Toad wrote:

Dover to the Midlands yesterday and the middle laners kept the inside lane clear for me again.


When driving on the continent an overtaking car on a multi lane road immediately returns to the nearside lane.

MartynB wrote:

They probably don't want squashing by a left hand drive artic driven by a bloke who bought his license at a portakabin truck stop in Lithuania,
driven 600 miles without stopping on a tampered tach, had a skin full of Trappist beer on the Rotterdam - Hull ferry and is breaking the boredom of his next illegal 14 hour stint by watching porn on his laptop .....

They are a pain.




Watched that guy getting flashed up in my rear view mirror by a slew of cars behind me, he still never moved, some were doing the same thing in lane 3 of a 4 lane motorway the other night, if there is a lane between us I go under them.

The tragedy is they probably don't realise they are doing anything wrong. I was passenger with an 'older' driver who was hogging the middle lane, exasperatedly asked me why people kept flashing him and cutting across the front of him. When I explained and told him you can now get fined for lane hogging he just got a bit annoyed about him being in the wrong. And continued to hog the lane seeing no reason why they couldn't just go round him.  
Hung like Einstein, smart as a horse.

Often when I have flashed someone hogging the middle lane of a 3 lane motorway they reply by gesticulating that there is a third lane where I could overtake and this is followed by two fingers when I do pass them. There is no place on our roads for selfish, inconsiderate and careless drivers such as these serial middle lane hoggers - get them off the road.

J

if there are a large number of consecutive slip roads joining the motorway it's best to sit in the middle lane to allow free flow of traffic onto the inside lane.

Iain

Not if it's holding up traffic on the motorway, something else that seems to be forgotten, is how to join a motorway, people coming up the slip road seem to think they have the right to join and force traffic on the inside lane to slow down to let them in, this causes accidents and hold ups forming at junctions, go into the middle lane by all means but only if it is clear, more often than not it isn't and then you have two lanes slowing down, so then people move over to lane three and slow that down.
Then the whole motorway grinds to a halt for just a handful of cars coming up the slip road.
Use the roads as per the rules and traffic will flow, there is too much ill conceived courtesy, letting one car out and holding up a dozen, give way markings are there for a reason.

Taz , try towing a caravan .. people see it as a challenge to get in front of you . When towing and in lane one , lane two is occupied I slow down a bit to let traffic join the motorway and get ahead of me , there is always some :censored:head who will try and beat me right at the end of the slip road as they don't want to join the motorway way behind me . Do it now ! Your a long time dead !!

If there is nothing behind you then you are at liberty to slow down, if there are cars or lorries behind you then you shouldn't slow down, its becoming the norm and causes more problems. Those coming up the slip road need educating on how to join, sadly you are right that people will accelerate to get in front.