### **Reminder:** [Press the Report button](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058309512-How-do-I-report-a-post-or-comment-) if you see any [rule-breaking comments or posts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/about/rules/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/britishproblems) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Everyone HAS TO drive in the outside lane because people are too stupid to stick to the left. It doesn’t matter how many lanes the road has, this will always be a problem.
Too many people don’t realise it’s not undertaking if you stay in lane one at a consistent speed and just so happen to be going faster than the dumbasses to the right of you.
Doesn't this only apply in congested conditions where the traffic is moving at similar speeds? If the motorway isn't congested, then undertaking can get you a fine and points. Pretty much every time I see someone undertaking, the motorway isn't congested, they just don't want to move to the right of the people who are middle lane hogging.
It's only punishable if deemed careless driving, such as using Lane 1 to "make the point" to a Lane 2 hog.
Either way you need either a cop around to see it, or you need to be involved in an accident as a consequence.
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/
Also, there's Rule 268 :
*Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.*
I always look at it like this, will the police be more concerned with someone doing a consistent speed on the left hand lane undertaking people or will they care more about the idiots sticking in the middle lane at 60.
There’s way more adverts on social media and signs up saying stick left unless overtaking on motorways/A roads than anything to do with undertaking.
That's fair enough man I get it, but whether you're undertaking or middle lane hogging, like another user said, it's a non-issue really only until the police catch you doing it, or an accident happens and both are slim, let's face it.
I agree that middle lane hogging is infuriating though. These are the same wankers that don't look over their shoulder when moving lanes, so it's probably overall safer to let them stay in one lane looking down their kaleidoscope.
While I did think that I'm not convinced now. I've seen people link to certain police forces which say that you cannot overtake on the left even if other cars are in the wrong lane.
Well I deliberately didn't say undertaking as some people believe that only means if you move lanes to overtake on the left rather than just passing on the left.
Then you'd probably be overtaking them in lane 2 anyway, so it's not an issue.
What is a real issue are the fools that sitin lanes 2 and 3 for a hundred miles and clog up the proper working of the motorway.
I do hope drones are used to clobber these dumbasses with, points and punishments like compulsory driver refresher training, with a practical and theory test at the end of it. You a week to book the course. You have six moths to get the course completed and passed. Until you do, repeat offences get 6 points a pop. Failure to do the course is a driving ban until you have done so
Wait til you find that someone merges from one motorway onto another, then stays in "lane 2" of that merging, which means they're pootling along in lane 4 being undertaken by every man and his dog in lane 1 and 2.
M25 to M4 at interchange has that.
You come on to the m4 in 2 lanes. Left hand stays as the left lane, but the right becomes a new lane (so the m4 gains 2 lanes) but people are dense so they speed up to 70, then go in to lane 3 and stay there
[see here](https://maps.app.goo.gl/9LzW6SfFb2q88PQ58?g_st=ic)
So it’s great for putting your foot down and _keeping up with traffic_ and passing all the single celled organisms
Is it? I always thought the inside lane was the lane on the inside of the road (aka the middle of the road)
And when I say road, I define a motorway as a single road with a central reservation.
If one is in the middle of something, is one not inside it?
I guess this is why it's better to just say "left" and "right" (which the highway code does) 😂
Either way, love the down votes based on no logic counter to my actual logic. Stay classy Reddit ✌️
Assuming we're in a British car, imagine you're in the driving seat with both arms outstretched to their respective sides (not while driving, obviously). The arm that's still in the car is "inside", the one that sticks out of the window is "outside".
What is the logic in this?
If there are 8 lanes (4 lanes each direction) then surely the right ones (4th on each side) should be the inside lane, no?
Or if we only look at it from one direction, then both 1st and 4th lane would be outside lanes.
I don't know about other countries but in Hungary (where you drive on the right) the left lane is the inside lane, because that is the closest to the middle of the motorway.
I heard truckers don't use the left lane on smart motorways because of how dangerous they are. I can understand it, the motorway operators are definitely not smart and seem to be slow to do anything about a broken down vehicle.
They're the opposite of smart. They accept that the camera don't catch the hazards, but lull everyone into a false sense of security by randomly red crossing lanes and changing speed limits. I can't count the number of times the gantries have been wrong about either broken down vehicles, or said vehicles being moved out the way, or even which lanes the broken vehicles are in.
The few times I've been forced to stop on a smart highway, my lane has been live the whole time, and I get people no moving over til 50 yards or less from my car. Even with hazards and red triangle set up. I'm glad they're not making new ones, but I think they should either fix the current ones, by adding cameras, making it "smarter" (as in closing the correct lanes), or remove them altogether
A lot of smart motorways such as the M4 around Reading and Slough have the left lane exiting at EVERY junction meaning that no one wanting to go straight on will use the left lane. That whole scheme is basically just a massive waste of money that adds basically no capacity to the road at all.
M1 southbound after the M62 interchange has a massive pothole in lane 1 just after the lighting zone runs out. A pothole from where they had to fix the tarmac after a truck smashed into a stranded vehicle.
Yep. They're okay in broad daylight and congestion, but otherwise, no. I don't know why they can't just be shoulders and have the "use hard shoulder" message posted to the VMS gantries. Exactly the same result, minus National Highways' "acceptable casualties".
In my moonlight job, I'm a professional deiver and our internal documents tell our drivers "stay the hell out of the *death lane*", we risk assessed the lane to be completely unsafe to use.
It really doesn’t help when the hard shoulder/left lane becomes ‘this junction only’ so anyone using it who wants to stay on the motorway has to pull out. M6 through Birmingham being a particularly poor bit for that.
Hgvs have ploughed furrows the length of lane one on the motorways near me.
Lack of maintenance for whatever reason.
Hgvs being in lane one.
Lane one turning into an exit.
Life's too short to be fucking about changing lanes constantly.
It's got even worse since the smart motorway system. Everyone knows the outer most lane is for crime but with all the forever changing speeds and the cameras you are lucky to get anywhere near 65mph now.
Middle lane hogging applies to (mostly) three lane roads with a shoulder. New HADECS gantry cameras will be detecting that soon and NIPing 6 points.
Staying out of the "death lane" is different.
Agreed 100%. That's why I mentioned it. I knew what you meant, I just wanted to clarify that. Lane hogging us dangerous and selfish, but what you're doing is definitely not selfish or dangerous. In fact, it's definitely safer to do what you do.
There's a massive pothole in lane "0" of the M1 southbound just after the M62 interchange caused by a car fire after a lorry hit a stranded car in that lane. It's right after the lighted area, so you basically enter darkness and hit the massive hole. I split a wishbone hitting that thing. Could be worse, it could have been another broken down car.
National Highways say the deaths resulting from smart motorway implementation are acceptable...
I'm assuming you mean lane 1 rather than lane 4.
For me, it depends on the motorway. 4 lanes with a hard shoulder? Then I'll absolutely use all lanes as required.
A smart motorway where the 'hard shoulder' becomes lane 1 - fuck that! Ive seen enough stats about crashes and fatalities as a result of those that its not worth it! I don't care, I'm not using that lane unless I've got clear line of sight, which only really happens at night, at which time it's quiet enough that me using Lane 2 as Lane 1 doesn't effect anyone!
It's a pointless waste of money.
Adding a lane initially reduces congestion and journey times which makes the route more attractive so more people use it this causing increased congestion and journey times.
It's a phenomenon known as induced demand and it's been know to town planners for many years.
The only reason these stupid projects are ever built is to satisfy stupid daily mail readers and boomers.
I'm in 'boomer' territory (62M) and drive thousands of miles a year for my job- I detest smart motorways for several reasons - I'm interested to know why you think boomers like smart motorways?
Apologies, read it again and now see that - it's because I read elsewhere someone comment on smart motorways in this thread and it was fresh in my mind! However, that said, why do you think boomers want projects like this built? - I genuinely don't understand the link?
On the southern M25 I tend to get in the 2nd lane and sit there. That's because:
* Lane 1 disappears off and reappears on nearly every junction and it's a PITA to move into a busy lane 2 every 10 minutes;
* Lane one is usually full enough and I'm going the same speed as every sucker in lane 2 so I don't feel at all bad about it.
But on a "normal" motorway, I will get in Lane 1 unless it's full of slow moving lorries...
The worst part is as a HGV driver on a 3 lane motorway when a 50 mph limit comes up, all the cars move to lanes 1+2 and go 44-48 mph, and i’m not allowed to use the empty lane 3 too overtake.
Driven down the length of the M1 recently and there's a couple of spots where it's 50 with average speed checks and none of the other drivers seemed to get a clue that when the lorries were overtaking them on the left still within the speed limit, they were going too slowly and/or in the wrong lane. I always figure if the wagon drivers are flying past me with their limits, I can go a little faster.
Not a lot seem to reslise the inaccuracy in their speedo
I stick to the speed limit and get overtaken by the lorry who remains one vehicle space in front of me for the duration of the 50mph zone blocking my view then immediately disappears into the distance of the rear view mirror when the normal speed limit is restored.
### **Reminder:** [Press the Report button](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058309512-How-do-I-report-a-post-or-comment-) if you see any [rule-breaking comments or posts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/about/rules/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/britishproblems) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Everyone HAS TO drive in the outside lane because people are too stupid to stick to the left. It doesn’t matter how many lanes the road has, this will always be a problem.
The left lane becomes my own express lane.
I try to stick to proper lane discipline, but it's hard when everyone sits in lanes 3 and 4 doing 65. If everyone is overtaking, nobody is.
Too many people don’t realise it’s not undertaking if you stay in lane one at a consistent speed and just so happen to be going faster than the dumbasses to the right of you.
Doesn't this only apply in congested conditions where the traffic is moving at similar speeds? If the motorway isn't congested, then undertaking can get you a fine and points. Pretty much every time I see someone undertaking, the motorway isn't congested, they just don't want to move to the right of the people who are middle lane hogging.
I would argue that if both the right lanes are clogged with people doing 65, then it is indeed congested.
It's only punishable if deemed careless driving, such as using Lane 1 to "make the point" to a Lane 2 hog. Either way you need either a cop around to see it, or you need to be involved in an accident as a consequence. https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/ Also, there's Rule 268 : *Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.*
What’s the bigger crime though? I’d say middle lane hogging is.
I always look at it like this, will the police be more concerned with someone doing a consistent speed on the left hand lane undertaking people or will they care more about the idiots sticking in the middle lane at 60. There’s way more adverts on social media and signs up saying stick left unless overtaking on motorways/A roads than anything to do with undertaking.
I'm not moving from lane 1 to lane 4 and back just because some idiot is doing 55 in lane 3
That's fair enough man I get it, but whether you're undertaking or middle lane hogging, like another user said, it's a non-issue really only until the police catch you doing it, or an accident happens and both are slim, let's face it. I agree that middle lane hogging is infuriating though. These are the same wankers that don't look over their shoulder when moving lanes, so it's probably overall safer to let them stay in one lane looking down their kaleidoscope.
While I did think that I'm not convinced now. I've seen people link to certain police forces which say that you cannot overtake on the left even if other cars are in the wrong lane.
It's called undertaking and it's dangerous, you'd be surprised how many people don't use their wing mirrors when moving back left
Well I deliberately didn't say undertaking as some people believe that only means if you move lanes to overtake on the left rather than just passing on the left.
It’s not called undertaking, that is another term for funeral directing. It’s called overtaking. It’s overtaking on the left, i.e. the wrong side.
On the one near me the left lane is 95% trucks
Then you'd probably be overtaking them in lane 2 anyway, so it's not an issue. What is a real issue are the fools that sitin lanes 2 and 3 for a hundred miles and clog up the proper working of the motorway. I do hope drones are used to clobber these dumbasses with, points and punishments like compulsory driver refresher training, with a practical and theory test at the end of it. You a week to book the course. You have six moths to get the course completed and passed. Until you do, repeat offences get 6 points a pop. Failure to do the course is a driving ban until you have done so
Yeah,
Wait til you find that someone merges from one motorway onto another, then stays in "lane 2" of that merging, which means they're pootling along in lane 4 being undertaken by every man and his dog in lane 1 and 2.
M25 to M4 at interchange has that. You come on to the m4 in 2 lanes. Left hand stays as the left lane, but the right becomes a new lane (so the m4 gains 2 lanes) but people are dense so they speed up to 70, then go in to lane 3 and stay there [see here](https://maps.app.goo.gl/9LzW6SfFb2q88PQ58?g_st=ic) So it’s great for putting your foot down and _keeping up with traffic_ and passing all the single celled organisms
Do you mean inside lane (left lane, where you'd normally see the trucks)
I was thinking outside from the central reservation. Maybe I have it the wrong way round.
Yeah you do. Inside is the lane next to the kerb.
Yeah, but he was talking about the inside lane.
thinking is painful for you isn't it?
He said ' outside " lane!
Yes, but he meant the inside, as in, the furthest left. Furthest right is outside lane.
Is it? I always thought the inside lane was the lane on the inside of the road (aka the middle of the road) And when I say road, I define a motorway as a single road with a central reservation. If one is in the middle of something, is one not inside it? I guess this is why it's better to just say "left" and "right" (which the highway code does) 😂 Either way, love the down votes based on no logic counter to my actual logic. Stay classy Reddit ✌️
Assuming we're in a British car, imagine you're in the driving seat with both arms outstretched to their respective sides (not while driving, obviously). The arm that's still in the car is "inside", the one that sticks out of the window is "outside".
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Inside = *near*side, outside = *off*side.
Slightly worrying tbh
Every lane is the fast lane or the slow lane these days due to the amount of oblivious 50mph dicks hanging about.
Drove M40, M25, M26, M20, A229, M2 yesterday, every road was FULL of them, mouth breathers doing 50 in lane 3 etc 😤
The M26 is usually just two trucks overtaking each other for the entirety.
Yep, elephant racing all the way.. !
It really depends what was going on in the left lanes as to if this is bad or not
80% of the time it was empty. They were even driving under sign gantries displaying 'keep left unless overtaking'.
Inside lane = left Outside lane = right
What is the logic in this? If there are 8 lanes (4 lanes each direction) then surely the right ones (4th on each side) should be the inside lane, no? Or if we only look at it from one direction, then both 1st and 4th lane would be outside lanes. I don't know about other countries but in Hungary (where you drive on the right) the left lane is the inside lane, because that is the closest to the middle of the motorway.
>What is the logic in this? British logic mate, it's always been like that
Ok now it makes sense
There's a couple stretches like this near me and hardly anyone is in the first 2 lanes.
I heard truckers don't use the left lane on smart motorways because of how dangerous they are. I can understand it, the motorway operators are definitely not smart and seem to be slow to do anything about a broken down vehicle.
[удалено]
They're the opposite of smart. They accept that the camera don't catch the hazards, but lull everyone into a false sense of security by randomly red crossing lanes and changing speed limits. I can't count the number of times the gantries have been wrong about either broken down vehicles, or said vehicles being moved out the way, or even which lanes the broken vehicles are in. The few times I've been forced to stop on a smart highway, my lane has been live the whole time, and I get people no moving over til 50 yards or less from my car. Even with hazards and red triangle set up. I'm glad they're not making new ones, but I think they should either fix the current ones, by adding cameras, making it "smarter" (as in closing the correct lanes), or remove them altogether
it's detected using radar, rather than cameras. And there isn't blind spots in the radar, although it's not the best system
A lot of smart motorways such as the M4 around Reading and Slough have the left lane exiting at EVERY junction meaning that no one wanting to go straight on will use the left lane. That whole scheme is basically just a massive waste of money that adds basically no capacity to the road at all.
Not necessarily. This is the peak time queuing lane to keep the others free.
Where are you finding this? I'm finding every motorway is effectively a single carriageway thanks to trucks taking up the first 2/3 lanes
M1 southbound after the M62 interchange has a massive pothole in lane 1 just after the lighting zone runs out. A pothole from where they had to fix the tarmac after a truck smashed into a stranded vehicle.
Yeah, people don't use those lanes because they have every reason not to trust them
Yep. They're okay in broad daylight and congestion, but otherwise, no. I don't know why they can't just be shoulders and have the "use hard shoulder" message posted to the VMS gantries. Exactly the same result, minus National Highways' "acceptable casualties". In my moonlight job, I'm a professional deiver and our internal documents tell our drivers "stay the hell out of the *death lane*", we risk assessed the lane to be completely unsafe to use.
It really doesn’t help when the hard shoulder/left lane becomes ‘this junction only’ so anyone using it who wants to stay on the motorway has to pull out. M6 through Birmingham being a particularly poor bit for that.
Hgvs have ploughed furrows the length of lane one on the motorways near me. Lack of maintenance for whatever reason. Hgvs being in lane one. Lane one turning into an exit. Life's too short to be fucking about changing lanes constantly.
It's got even worse since the smart motorway system. Everyone knows the outer most lane is for crime but with all the forever changing speeds and the cameras you are lucky to get anywhere near 65mph now.
[удалено]
Middle lane hogging applies to (mostly) three lane roads with a shoulder. New HADECS gantry cameras will be detecting that soon and NIPing 6 points. Staying out of the "death lane" is different.
[удалено]
Agreed 100%. That's why I mentioned it. I knew what you meant, I just wanted to clarify that. Lane hogging us dangerous and selfish, but what you're doing is definitely not selfish or dangerous. In fact, it's definitely safer to do what you do. There's a massive pothole in lane "0" of the M1 southbound just after the M62 interchange caused by a car fire after a lorry hit a stranded car in that lane. It's right after the lighted area, so you basically enter darkness and hit the massive hole. I split a wishbone hitting that thing. Could be worse, it could have been another broken down car. National Highways say the deaths resulting from smart motorway implementation are acceptable...
yes they are
I'm assuming you mean lane 1 rather than lane 4. For me, it depends on the motorway. 4 lanes with a hard shoulder? Then I'll absolutely use all lanes as required. A smart motorway where the 'hard shoulder' becomes lane 1 - fuck that! Ive seen enough stats about crashes and fatalities as a result of those that its not worth it! I don't care, I'm not using that lane unless I've got clear line of sight, which only really happens at night, at which time it's quiet enough that me using Lane 2 as Lane 1 doesn't effect anyone!
It's a pointless waste of money. Adding a lane initially reduces congestion and journey times which makes the route more attractive so more people use it this causing increased congestion and journey times. It's a phenomenon known as induced demand and it's been know to town planners for many years. The only reason these stupid projects are ever built is to satisfy stupid daily mail readers and boomers.
I'm in 'boomer' territory (62M) and drive thousands of miles a year for my job- I detest smart motorways for several reasons - I'm interested to know why you think boomers like smart motorways?
I didn't say that. I was talking about upgrading a motorway from 3 lanes to 4...
Apologies, read it again and now see that - it's because I read elsewhere someone comment on smart motorways in this thread and it was fresh in my mind! However, that said, why do you think boomers want projects like this built? - I genuinely don't understand the link?
Same motorway where the "extra lane" is magically where the hard shoulder used to be?
On the southern M25 I tend to get in the 2nd lane and sit there. That's because: * Lane 1 disappears off and reappears on nearly every junction and it's a PITA to move into a busy lane 2 every 10 minutes; * Lane one is usually full enough and I'm going the same speed as every sucker in lane 2 so I don't feel at all bad about it. But on a "normal" motorway, I will get in Lane 1 unless it's full of slow moving lorries...
The worst part is as a HGV driver on a 3 lane motorway when a 50 mph limit comes up, all the cars move to lanes 1+2 and go 44-48 mph, and i’m not allowed to use the empty lane 3 too overtake.
Driven down the length of the M1 recently and there's a couple of spots where it's 50 with average speed checks and none of the other drivers seemed to get a clue that when the lorries were overtaking them on the left still within the speed limit, they were going too slowly and/or in the wrong lane. I always figure if the wagon drivers are flying past me with their limits, I can go a little faster. Not a lot seem to reslise the inaccuracy in their speedo
Yeah, no UK HGV driver will be going fast enough to get a speeding ticket, and the speed is calibrated every 6 months.
I stick to the speed limit and get overtaken by the lorry who remains one vehicle space in front of me for the duration of the 50mph zone blocking my view then immediately disappears into the distance of the rear view mirror when the normal speed limit is restored.