"Hogging the middle lane"

Reggie_Rebel

I'm wondering that if the OP has such trouble with driving correctly on motorways is it time to surrender your licence?

prowla

Is the blue badge for being mentally challenged?

Tilt

Disabled_Rights_For_Me wrote: »

There have been some useful posts on here that explain why middle lane usage can be annoying. The reason I tend to stay in the middle lane is because of when people join the motorway from the left they are often (or I find them often) distracting or intimidating. They are sometimes going at speeds faster than I am, even when I am driving at the speed limit.

Hmm, so even if the is a 10 mile gap between junctions where traffic joins the motorway, you still remain in the middle lane then? Hopefully sooner or later a police officer will pull you over and educate you.

Disabled_Rights_For_Me wrote: »

Caravans or towing cars should not really be affected by me if I am already doing the speed limit because they will be breaking the law if they drive over 70 miles an hour.

Actually they are limited to 60 mph and so are HGV's. Coaches however, can still do 70 mph but are not permitted to use lane 3 (if over 7.5 tons). A coach can take a while to achieve it's optimum speed (and they are restricted so should not be able to speed) so if some idiot is sat un-necessarily in the middle lane doing say, 55 then the coach has no choice but to loose it's progress thus delaying the passengers on board.

BUT why am I bothering to explain this when you could simply refer to rules 264 to 266 of the highway code? When doing so you will note that rule 264 is actually supported by legislation making it illegal to "hog" the middle lane.

Retrogamer

It's sad that a trolling thread has reached 4 pages long.
As long as we keep feeding them, they'll always hang around wanting fed.

Iceweasel

Disabled_Rights_For_Me wrote: »

I am not mentally impaired and I think that is unnecessarily insulting.

Your posts say otherwise.

Time for a hard think about how you present yourself.

Go back and read them all carefully.

dacouch

Disabled_Rights_For_Me wrote: »

There have been some useful posts on here that explain why middle lane usage can be annoying. The reason I tend to stay in the middle lane is because of when people join the motorway from the left they are often (or I find them often) distracting or intimidating. They are sometimes going at speeds faster than I am, even when I am driving at the speed limit.


Caravans or towing cars should not really be affected by me if I am already doing the speed limit because they will be breaking the law if they drive over 70 miles an hour.

I managed to catch you on the petrol station CCTV when you popped in for fuel earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vupgBykQnko

matttye

Car_54 wrote: »

He (or she) may well be a troll and/or an imbecile, but it's not illegal.

Yes it is, if the manner of the driving inconveniences another person. It's 'inconsiderate driving' contrary to Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences_guidance_on_prosecuting_cases_of_bad_driving/#a31

"This offence is appropriate when the driving amounts to a clear act of incompetence, selfishness, impatience or aggressiveness in addition to some other inconvenience to road users. The following examples are typical of actions likely to be regarded as inconsiderate driving:

unnecessarily remaining in an overtaking lane;"

Joe_Horner

matttye wrote: »

Yes it is, if the manner of the driving inconveniences another person. It's 'inconsiderate driving' contrary to Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences_guidance_on_prosecuting_cases_of_bad_driving/#a31

"This offence is appropriate when the driving amounts to a clear act of incompetence, selfishness, impatience or aggressiveness in addition to some other inconvenience to road users. The following examples are typical of actions likely to be regarded as inconsiderate driving:

unnecessarily remaining in an overtaking lane;"

The problem with that definition is that you can hardly say that making someone move into the third lane on a quiet motorway is "inconveniencing" them.

Or, if you do consider making someone change lane to be "inconveniencing" them, then the person who comes up behind an MLM, flashes their lights (potentially aggressive), comes up too close (incompetent and aggressive) and forces the MLM to move left so that they can pass in the centre rather than moving over to L3 is also guilty by the same definition.

matttye

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).

Completely different area of law but the same should apply broadly across the entire law.

See the case of R v Smith [2011] EWCA Crim 66. The defendants' lawyers tried to argue that they could not rob someone of illegal drugs as the victim could not be said to 'own' something that is illegal to possess, and one of the ingredients of theft (which is one of the ingredients of robbery) is that the property taken must belong to someone/something.

The Court of Appeal threw out the appeal and said the conviction should stand.

So if you can steal illegally owned property from someone, then by the same logic I would say you can inconvenience someone doing something illegal on the roads. I'm not sure if the courts have ever taken a view on it but I'm sure they will have.

Also, without going into it that much, different speedos are clocked differently so one speedo might be clocked higher than another and they could be inconvenienced by the middle lane hogger.

Iceweasel

As far as I can tell the offence is 'Careless Driving' - because the Government says so.

Here is the Press Release from gov.uk -

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

If the UK Government says that Middle Lane Hogging comes under the heading of Careless Driving why are we disagreeing with it and trying to find a different crime to accuse the hogger of?

It's made quite clear here too:

Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, as amended by the Road Traffic Act 1991, creates offences of driving without due care and attention and driving without reasonable consideration on a road or public place.

It states:
3 If a person drives a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road or public place, he is guilty of an offence.

The thing that changed in 2013 was that it could be a fixed penalty offence, rather than one that meant a court appearance - so making it easier for the police - i.e. less paperwork.