driving slow : your views ?

Nearly_Old

nobbysn*ts wrote: »

Fair enough, you get in that position, all I'm saying is I don't seem to, maybe you're very unlucky, maybe I'm not. Who knows. I won't push an overtake if I don't feel it's safe, I won't ever expect anyone to escort me past, and it seems to work for me.

Just to be clear I do not put myself in that position - I am travelling at <=70 and a vehicle travelling at say 50 decides to pull directly (i.e. <30m) out in front of me with no warning. Perhaps I could not put myself in that position my merely following at 50 and only moving out to overtake after the vehicle in front has pulled out???

brat

Nearly_Old wrote: »

Err no - all it means is that I can get the brakes on with ABS when some idiot going at 50 starts to pull out when I'm about 10m behind them. Not a case of them not checking as its obvious that they haven't even looked - see it all the time.

But drivers will only pull out if they are approaching a vehicle in front of them. You can anticipate that and mitigate your overtaking speed. Yes, they would be at fault when the resultant crash is investigated, but I'd rather avoid the collision altogether. It's not too difficult.

matttye

brat wrote: »

But drivers will only pull out if they are approaching a vehicle in front of them. You can anticipate that and mitigate your overtaking speed. Yes, they would be at fault when the resultant crash is investigated, but I'd rather avoid the collision altogether. It's not too difficult.

We're talking about vehicles moving in convoy together, not vehicles approaching other vehicles in front of them.

In any event, I wouldn't hang back and wait to see if someone overtakes, I would just use my horn if it looked like they were going to pull out without seeing me.

brat

matttye wrote: »

What planet are you guys on?? :eek:

No matter what my speed is, the person who is about to overtake should be checking that the overtaking lane is safe to move into before doing so.

There's no possible way of anticipating an overtake when several vehicles are travelling in convoy together at a similar speed.

You should ride a bike. Then you'll learn how to read and anticipate when other drivers are going to pull out on you. Your life depends on it.
Mitigation is key. Give yourself time and space to react.

nobbysn*ts

brat wrote: »

But drivers will only pull out if they are approaching a vehicle in front of them. You can anticipate that and mitigate your overtaking speed. Yes, they would be at fault when the resultant crash is investigated, but I'd rather avoid the collision altogether. It's not too difficult.

Yes. You can see the truck behind. You can see the truck in front of it. If the gap between is closing, I do expect the truck not to merely crash into the one in front, or even to slow down until a car overtaking the truck behind it has caught up. So I'm maybe expecting the truck to pull out. I'm reading the road, and not putting myself in harms way. Maybe others feel they need to prove they are in the right, but I prefer to stay alive. Or maybe car drivers that expect a 40 ton truck to scrub it's speed off, then smartly accelerate into the overtaking lane when a gap appears actually have no concept of how a truck drives?

brat

matttye wrote: »

We're talking about vehicles moving in convoy together, not vehicles approaching other vehicles in front of them.

In any event, I wouldn't hang back and wait to see if someone overtakes, I would just use my horn if it looked like they were going to pull out without seeing me.

In those circumstances a passing speed of more than 10 mph would be unadvisable. That would allow plenty of opportunity to resolve any conflict with a motorist pulling out into a closing space.

nobbysn*ts

matttye wrote: »

We're talking about vehicles moving in convoy together, not vehicles approaching other vehicles in front of them.

In any event, I wouldn't hang back and wait to see if someone overtakes, I would just use my horn if it looked like they were going to pull out without seeing me.

And pray the truck driver has the radio off, and the window open, and you're not in his blind spot.

nobbysn*ts

matttye wrote: »

We're talking about vehicles moving in convoy together, not vehicles approaching other vehicles in front of them.

In any event, I wouldn't hang back and wait to see if someone overtakes, I would just use my horn if it looked like they were going to pull out without seeing me.

Obviously, we overtake differently. What sort of speeds do you overtake at, and what procedure do you use to overtake?

Nearly_Old

brat wrote: »

But drivers will only pull out if they are approaching a vehicle in front of them. You can anticipate that and mitigate your overtaking speed. Yes, they would be at fault when the resultant crash is investigated, but I'd rather avoid the collision altogether. It's not too difficult.

If only - but its not a nice perfect world. If there are two single vehicles with a gap between them then yes it is easy to judge if the gap is constant or closing and take appropriate action. However there is a local service area that has a large truck park so at certain times there are long convoys (i.e. >10 trucks) travelling nose to tail. Now on the 3-lane sections it isn't too bad as to be safe you can, if you want to, move over to Lane 3 until you've got past them all but on the 2-lane sections it isn't that clear cut. Another post suggests keeping the speed differential down to <=10mph - at certain times this would result in a very siginificant queue and that inceases the accident risk.

Nearly_Old

brat wrote: »

I was meaning the gatso type camera (as distinct from the specs average speed ones). Gatsos (or similar) are not used on the motorway network anymore, probably due to the fallout from TRL595. But there is no reason to suppose that the effects that caused gatsos to be unsafe on the motorway should somehow disappear when used on an A road.

Gatsos were only ever a temporary measure as their effect is very limited. In an attempt to reduce the severity of accidents the area I managed used blue Police "Speed Check Area" signs and at first these were actually very effective. Unfortunately the HA (Highways Agency) said that these could only be used if the Police actually did some speed enforcement. We then lobbied the HA to be allowed to use Gatsos when we had contra-flow working until the first SPECS systems got type approval. The aim was to try and reduce speeds when in contra-flow and later to provide some protection to the workforce.

One unexpected by-product was that when questions were raised by people having received a NIP, I was not there, its actually my wife's car, etc the number of straying wives was twice that of straying husbands!