"Hogging the middle lane"

Barneysmom

Disabled_Rights_For_Me wrote: »

People on this forum is FULL of people who do what is right for them. I don't mind if people think of me as a "troll", that is the choice of people reading my posts.


My post was asking what is wrong with it? If there is something genuinely wrong with it then I will have to move over to the other side. I don't think my badge allows me to do what I want but I do think its fair to use it to show my disability when someone has a go at me.


It is no different to someone saying they are a hero if they have been in the army when they want to be treated a little less aggressively.


Why does it annoy people? What is wrong with doing the limit in the middle lane. I do not stay in the middle lane if a lane is closed though.


I don't want to be hated on here, I do want to understand.

Tell you what, you stay in the middle lane. That's fine. I will ram you.


I haven't a clue what you mean re people who have been in the army but it sounds like an insult to our servicemen and women to me. In that case, I'll ram you for them too.


Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

forgotmyname

Me thinks (aprilia TROLL)

PenguinJim

SG27 wrote: »

What I do is overtake then pull in front of them and slam my brakes on. !!!!!! them up a bit

Absolutely shocking. Your brake lights give it away. Just move in front of them and let your car roll to a complete stop instead. And always - always - claim extra compensation for whiplash.

Car_54

muckybutt wrote: »

Really ? so the Police can fine and give you points for something that you say is legal to do ? MUPPET ! it has been an offence since July 2013

On the spot fixed penalties and points CAN and ARE issued for careless driving for middle lane hogging.

Rubbish.

The only thing that changed in July 2013 was that the police were given the power to issue FPNs for careless driving.

"Middle lane hogging" may be seen as evidence of careless/inconsiderate driving - that did not change in 2013. But it is still not an offence in itself.

marlot

Both sides are partially right. The law change was to fixed penalty notices, but there was a clear government expectation that the police would use it to tackle "less serious careless driving offences" such as tailgating and blocking lanes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-penalties-to-tackle-tailgating-and-middle-lane-hogging

Iceweasel

fred246 wrote: »

There are so many vehicles on motorways whose speed is limited to less that 70MPH. You have to have a quiet motorway to make it worth going into the inside line. How can people complain about middle lane hoggers? Just move to the right and overtake. By staying in the middle lane you are helping people who have to join the motorway. If you are doing 70MPH in the middle lane only emergency vehicles and criminals will be overtaking.

That's all well and good - but with over-reading speedos many of the self-righteous types who block the middle lane are actually driving at speeds as low as 64mph, and so think that those who seek to pass are exceeding the limit.

Anyone with a calibrated speedo and/or a Sat-Nav soon discovers that.

roddydogs

Please let this thread die the death it deserves, same old posts over & over. You speedo probably over reads, yada yada repeat 900 times.

Retrogamer

Aretnap wrote: »

Middle lane hogging is more likely to come under the umbrella of inconsiderate driving than careless driving - the same section of the Road Traffic Act but a slightly different offence.

Now, inconsiderate driving is only an offence if someone is actually inconvenienced by it - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/3ZA

Driving in the middle lane for no good reason at, say, 60mph is clearly likely to cause inconvenience to drivers who want to pass you at higher speed. However if you're doing it at 70mph it does raise the mildly interesting legal question of whether you can inconvenience people by preventing them from doing something which they're not allowed to do anyway.

(I don't know the answer BTW, just suggesting that the question is perhaps not as clear cut as some people would like to think).

I guess a lot of other people think similar. The problem with that is that when people set their cruise control to 70mph and just sit vegetating in the middle lane they're not usually doing 70mph due to the inaccuracy of the speedo in most cars.

If someone was cruising in the middle lane at a true 70mph when other lanes are clear that wouldn't bother me so much, but i'd rather they used the inside lane so that it discourages other drivers from copying them.

A few times i've made more progress in the inside lane because you have people all in the outside lane thinking it's faster doing 50mph, then you have people passing them in the middle lane at 60mph because it's less congested then you get people like me passing them in all in the inside lane because it's clear and no one is using it.

marlot

fred246 wrote: »

There are so many vehicles on motorways whose speed is limited to less that 70MPH. You have to have a quiet motorway to make it worth going into the inside line. How can people complain about middle lane hoggers? Just move to the right and overtake. By staying in the middle lane you are helping people who have to join the motorway. If you are doing 70MPH in the middle lane only emergency vehicles and criminals will be overtaking.

>> You have to have a quiet motorway to make it worth going into the inside line.
Not so. The rule of thumb given to me by a police instructor was move over if you'll be in the lane for 10 seconds or more.

>> Just move to the right and overtake.
There are often queues of people waiting to go past the selfish middle lane hoggers

>> By staying in the middle lane you are helping people who have to join the motorway.
So you'll inconvenience people for 10 miles, just to make it easier for others over 100 yards!!!

>> If you are doing 70MPH in the middle lane only emergency vehicles and criminals will be overtaking
Not so - all car speedos over-read, so your righteous attitude means you'll be holding up legitimate overtakers in the lane.

What happens when your speed drops? Did you know that not all vehicles are allowed to use lane 3? Many people hogging lane 2 never seem to use their mirrors so are unaware of the problems they are causing.

By limiting the motorway to one overtaking lane (instead of two), they severely congest the roads too.

>>criminals will be overtaking
YOU are the criminal for hogging the middle lane. The Government made it clear that this is now regarded as careless driving and subject to a fixed penalty notice.

harveybobbles

The only time I will sit in the middle lane when the motorway is pretty empty is when its hammering it down with rain - this is only becuase if how worn lane one usually is and holds much more water and would happily argue this with any Plod.