entering a motorway from a slip road, embarrasing moment: Was I an idiot?

FTBSOS

First of all, I hardly use the motorway but something really shocking happened yesterday.

I was trying to join the motorway from the slip road and i built up speed, indicated and tried to get on to the left lane.

As I was travelling down the slip road, the whole of the left lane was clogged up with cars travelling at a speed which made it near impossible to get on with my slow car, I kept moving ahead but there was no way I could of got on. I believe the middle and right lane was clogged with cars also, but not entirely sure, as wasn't paying much attention to those lanes.

Then, i noticed to the left on the slip road, a bunch of cones, which made it impossible to continue down the slip road, so I had to do an emergency stop at the cones.

Took me 2 minutes to get on to the left lane whilst stopped on the slip road,

Was there nothing I could of done in this situation or was I a complete pleb who needs to take some more lessons on joining on to join a motorway?

tanith

It didn't help that there were cones on the slip road but you really should of built up your speed more by the time you were almost at the 'merging with the motorway traffic' point. You should be matching the speed of the cars on the motorway so you can slip in between the traffic...

spacey2012

In reality there should always be sufficient distance between the cars to slot in, but as we drive like 11 year olds at a go-kart track, people want to keep you out so risk their own lives by closing the gap to about a quarter of the distance required to even put your foot on the brake.

Quentin

Maybe if you'd looked ahead you'd have seen the slip road was restricted by the cones, and stopped sooner to give you some road to use to reach a decent speed when you saw a gap in traffic which allowed you to join the motorway.

FTBSOS

Thanks, feel a bit better that it looks like I wasn't entirely at fault. wished i had a camera or something in my car as I would of showed what I meant and 'as it happened'

Rodney_Trotter

Where were you looking coming down the slip road?

FTBSOS

Rodney_Trotter wrote: »

Where were you looking coming down the slip road?

I was looking at my right mirror i would probably say the whole time.....

photome

FTBSOS wrote: »

I was looking at my right mirror i would probably say the whole time.....

MMM what if something had stopped in front of you or there were cones in the road!

You should have been aware of the cones IMO and while it may not have been easy as the Motorway was busy, if you had been going the same speed (or a little quicker) as the cars in the left hand lane you should have been able to slot in

Rodney_Trotter

FTBSOS wrote: »

I was looking at my right mirror i would probably say the whole time.....

Is that careless or dangerous driving?

neilmcl

Quentin wrote: »

Maybe if you'd looked ahead you'd have seen the slip road was restricted by the cones, and stopped sooner to give you some road to use to reach a decent speed when you saw a gap in traffic which allowed you to join the motorway.

And there were no doubt signs earlier indicating that one of the lanes on the slip road was closed, something else the OP missed.

arcon5

You wasn't an idiot, just inexperienced. You did though learn a valuable lesson. It's not uncommon for rear end crashes in these situations.... Especially if somebody is looking for a scam victim.

I suspect you probably would have been let in had you made eye contact with some drivers and showed you was ready and what your intentions was. But you was looking for an established space rather than trying to create a space.

People are less inclined to let you in if you are not prepared or going slow.

I always allow a good few seconds before me and the car in front because of the simple fact you spend a lot of the slip road looking right and behind.

It's a shame leathers aren't required to do some kind of motorway driving under supervision.