# New laws on motorway lane discipline



## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

One of the new laws that came in today was the penalty of £100 and 3 points for hogging the middle lane of the motorway, or the outside lane of a dual carriageway. What I don't understand is this. If I'm driving down the middle lane of the motorway at, say, 70mph (but probably more like 75) will I get fined for "careless driving" for not letting someone behind pass?

I tend to drive down the motorway at about 80mph and the problem with pulling into the left hand lane is that people crawl up behind you at about 81mph and you end up having to brake behind slow moving traffic - so you get stuck in the slow lane. 

If the motorway's empty then there's no problem - I'll drive in the left hand lane as far as possible - but most of the time there's traffic.


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## Pugwash69 (Jun 12, 2012)

I imagine it's discretionary, so if you're hogging the middle and causing a tailback.
Over in Spain drivers were very eager to get back into the right hand lane after an overtake, even if it meant pulling back out 2 seconds later to overtake again. I don't know how strict their laws are for that? It looked frankly stupid to keep pulling back in.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> One of the new laws that came in today was the penalty of £100 and 3 points for hogging the middle lane of the motorway, or the outside lane of a dual carriageway. What I don't understand is this. If I'm driving down the middle lane of the motorway at, say, 70mph (but probably more like 75) will I get fined for "careless driving" for not letting someone behind pass?
> 
> I tend to drive down the motorway at about 80mph and the problem with pulling into the left hand lane is that people crawl up behind you at about 81mph and you end up having to brake behind slow moving traffic - so you get stuck in the slow lane.
> 
> If the motorway's empty then there's no problem - I'll drive in the left hand lane as far as possible - but most of the time there's traffic.


Plan ahead better. There's no excuse for braking in a situation like that.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Having to pull over when not overtaking will improve traffic flow and make drivers more aware of other vehicles around them. Contrast that with falling asleep in the middle lane because there's nothing to do.


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## Dave v (Jul 21, 2013)

Long over due


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## IC_HOTT (May 29, 2010)

Pale Rider said:


> One of the new laws that came in today was the penalty of £100 and 3 points for hogging the middle lane of the motorway, or the outside lane of a dual carriageway. What I don't understand is this. If I'm driving down the middle lane of the motorway at, say, 70mph (but probably more like 75) will I get fined for "careless driving" for not letting someone behind pass?
> 
> I tend to drive down the motorway at about 80mph and the problem with pulling into the left hand lane is that people crawl up behind you at about 81mph and you end up having to brake behind slow moving traffic - so you get stuck in the slow lane.
> 
> If the motorway's empty then there's no problem - I'll drive in the left hand lane as far as possible - but most of the time there's traffic.


You're missing the point of the rule and what is meant by hogging :wink:

It's to stop the ignorant pillocks who sit at eg 55-65 in the middle lane and NOT overtaking anything in the left lane and not moving across into the left lane themselves because they cant be bothered or perhaps they think its for trucks . . . 
If you do 70-80 you should be ok and surely you must come up to them all the time - but they don't move [smiley=bigcry.gif]

What amazes me is that they are more likely to be older drivers who you would 'like to think' would know better or be more aware, like you and me :?


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## Hark (Aug 23, 2007)

People sit there at 70 as well.

I can't see this being enforced tbh, I think it's more a torie headline grabber as with 90% of their policies.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

grasmere said:


> You're missing the point of the rule and what is meant by hogging :wink:
> 
> It's to stop the ignorant pillocks who sit at eg 55-65 in the middle lane and NOT overtaking anything in the left lane and not moving across into the left lane themselves because they cant be bothered or perhaps they think its for trucks . . .
> If you do 70-80 you should be ok and surely you must come up to them all the time - but they don't move [smiley=bigcry.gif]
> ...


I think you're missing the point too, as this has absolutely nothing to do with the speed you're doing. If you're not overtaking, move over. That's all there is to it.


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

Its all very subjective though, I mean when is it middle lane hogging and when is it thinking ahead ie, not pulling back into the left lane because there is a slow moving vehicle 70, 100 or 150 yds ahead that you know will require you to pull back out again.


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## Hark (Aug 23, 2007)

Doubt your car sees much of those inner lanes anyway Matt.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

I'm sure a lot of this is to do with the fact they're considering raising motorway speed limits and this is a problem which needs to be addressed if they're going to do that. Much as I'd like to think it will work I'm sure there are far too many motorway users with deeply engrained bad habits.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Matt B said:


> Its all very subjective though, I mean when is it middle lane hogging and when is it thinking ahead ie, not pulling back into the left lane because there is a slow moving vehicle 70, 100 or 150 yds ahead that you know will require you to pull back out again.


Sure, you can think of a borderline situation where it's debatable whether you should pull over or not but the situation is not static on the road and it will soon become obvious if someone is consistently hogging a lane when they have had plenty of opportunity to pull over. You'd only have to watch them for a while for it to become obvious. They are the ones who are going to get pulled over by the police if they enforce the law.

Perhaps we should give them a hand by flashing them if they fail to notice they have someone behind them before they get blue lights flagged at them :wink:


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

Hark said:


> Doubt your car sees much of those inner lanes anyway Matt.


Lol - u would be surprised ha ha. The noise out of it at a static 70 mph is a lot more pleasant than say 85


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Matt B said:


> Its all very subjective though, I mean when is it middle lane hogging and when is it thinking ahead ie, not pulling back into the left lane because there is a slow moving vehicle 70, 100 or 150 yds ahead that you know will require you to pull back out again.


There's no strict rule. You just use common sense. It's all to do with the difference in speed between you and the cars to your left and the size of the gaps between them. I don't think there's any real confusion in most peoples minds though - People make excuses because really they just don't want to give up their 'place' in the traffic in their lane.

I work on the principle that I shouldn't be in an overtaking lane for more than 10 seconds without overtaking something.


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

John-H said:


> Matt B said:
> 
> 
> > Its all very subjective though, I mean when is it middle lane hogging and when is it thinking ahead ie, not pulling back into the left lane because there is a slow moving vehicle 70, 100 or 150 yds ahead that you know will require you to pull back out again.
> ...


I wasn't trying to be a smart arse but I was just reinforcing the fact it will be hard to police.

The only other point worth raising is the surface quality in most inside lanes is appalling. The tramlines from all those HGV's make some stretches of the motorways I use every day a complete no go zone. The tt is bad in them but the Beemer is worse with the fat back wheels. Some money is needed on our infrastructure for sure


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

Spandex said:


> Matt B said:
> 
> 
> > Its all very subjective though, I mean when is it middle lane hogging and when is it thinking ahead ie, not pulling back into the left lane because there is a slow moving vehicle 70, 100 or 150 yds ahead that you know will require you to pull back out again.
> ...


It's not an excuse, i am merely stating that its based on judgement and its a fact that relative speed and distance is not easily judged in the same way by individuals.

You use a ten second rule where I would happily sit for 20 seconds if it removed the requirement to change lane twice, it's about personal differences all brought about by driving experience


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Matt B said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > Matt B said:
> ...


That's exactly what I tonight you meant Matt 

Yes, some lorry pounded stretches can get quite bad before they resurface.


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## mullum (Sep 16, 2011)

What about the ones who block the right hand lane on a dual carriageway - no cars whatsoever in the left lane - but they just block cars on purpose. It's as if to say "I'm doing the legal limit of 70mph so you have no right to overtake".
I've seen them leave no other option than for people to attempt an undertake - but then they indicate to move left (preventing the undertake - but not actually making the move).
These new laws are great and all, but generally on the road - I just don't see the intelligence required for them to make a difference. One way to reduce the amount of traffic out there would be to just increase the skill level required to pass a test. And regular retesting.
Elitist, yes. Expensive, yes. But when you consider how much skill and concentration is required out there, it's frightening to think about the drivers around you.


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

I also think where you live has a big bearing on your own experiences. If I lived anywhere near the m25 I think I would have a very different opinion lol.

I have a 60 odd mile a day commute and have been working in the same place for 20 years so I do the same commute. You get very used to the patterns of both traffic and driver behaviour.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Matt B said:


> It's not an excuse, i am merely stating that its based on judgement and its a fact that relative speed and distance is not easily judged in the same way by individuals.
> 
> You use a ten second rule where I would happily sit for 20 seconds if it removed the requirement to change lane twice, it's about personal differences all brought about by driving experience


They should be easily judged by everyone the same. It's what they do with that information that can vary, but hopefully the Police will now sort that out so that the people who think changing lanes is a chore will learn to do it more often so the motorways are a little more free flowing for everyone.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

It can be very frustrating on dual carriageways when you get a long crocodile of cars sat behind a slow leader hogging the outside lane because there's a lorry to overtake half a mile down the road and them and everyone else can't be bothered changing lanes. I sit in the left lane at the tail end of the queue with half a mile of stopping distance until I reach the lorry. Usually there's a space to pull into often because at some point they've all slammed on the brakes and dropped behind because they are too bunched up and when they speed up again they create gaps. Often I make better progress this way and it's safer.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

mullum said:


> These new laws are great and all, but generally on the road - I just don't see the intelligence required for them to make a difference. One way to reduce the amount of traffic out there would be to just increase the skill level required to pass a test. And regular retesting.
> Elitist, yes. Expensive, yes. But when you consider how much skill and concentration is required out there, it's frightening to think about the drivers around you.


I don't think you're being elitist but I don't think retesting is the answer either unless it's a test in motorway driving conditions.

At the heart of the problem lies the fact that most drivers have never had any instruction in motorway driving. Some drivers have the intelligence to read the Highway Code and adopt sensible driving practices but many very clearly don't.

'L' drivers are banned on motorways and I wouldn't advocate that being changed, but I think there's a case for a two part driving test with the requirement to pass a motorway test after people have passed the normal test. It would take a fair few years but there should be a noticeable improvement eventually in overall standards.

I've just driven down the M6 in torrential pouring rain with the wipers struggling to clear the screen and the lane discipline and general safety awareness of many drivers is just frightening - no lights at all and still tailgating!


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## pas_55 (May 9, 2002)

[/quote]
Police will now sort that out so that the people who think changing lanes is a chore will learn to do it more often so the motorways are a little more free flowing for everyone.[/quote]

What police all I see on the motorways are 'traffic officers'


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## NotFromSomerset (Nov 11, 2012)

Hope they send police out in force and nick as many people as they can in the next month so people actually pay attention to this law.

Dunno why there isn't a motorway theory and test. I've met people who genuinely think inside lane on motorway is only for lorries because they've never been told otherwise


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

pas_55 said:


> What police all I see on the motorways are 'traffic officers'


Very true. Sadly it's more likely to be an unmarked traffic patrol car which hands out the tickets for these offences. Marked police traffic cars are a rarity on our roads now, never mind the motorways.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

I was giving a neighbour of mine some directions recently and I told him to look out for the 300 yard marker right after the mway services as that was where he had to come off the mway. He said "What's a 300 yard marker?"

He's only been driving about 25 years mind you!

Scary!


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Dave v said:


> Long over due


+1
A law since times immortal in my birth country Germany.


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## Chris Woods (May 12, 2013)

I drove from Cardiff to London and back this morning , before the journey I was against the new law as it seemed harsh and excessive ,

After the journey I'm now all for it , if there's space to move in , you move in , whatever lane your in ...lost count of the amount of cocks I had to overtake from the inside lane , moving right out the the outside then back again because they were too lazy and inconsiderate to move over from the middle lane .... Ahhhh


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Spandex said:


> People make excuses because really they just don't want to give up their 'place' in the traffic in their lane.


What I find amusing and amazing at the same time is the following scenario:

three lane motorway. I'm in the middle lane overtaking a long line of traffic; the third lane is empty. Behind me sits another driver (in the middle lane - same as me). Once I've overtaken x number of vehicles I move into the inside lane. The car behind me speeds up and overtakes me.

Why did that driver not move into the third lane to overtake me before? Strange


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## Chris Woods (May 12, 2013)

NotFromSomerset said:


> Hope they send police out in force and nick as many people as they can in the next month so people actually pay attention to this law.
> 
> Dunno why there isn't a motorway theory and test. I've met people who genuinely think inside lane on motorway is only for lorries because they've never been told otherwise


I knew a girl who thought the inside lane was 70mph, middle 80mph and outside 90mph ...... :/


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Did she ever pass her driving test? :roll:


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## Chris Woods (May 12, 2013)

Yeah , this was after she had passed ,she' d been driving about 6 months at the time lol


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

I think this is a bad law and will lead to a lot of problems - if they bother to enforce it that is.

The problem is that they're making a single rule and the conditions on motorways vary so much that you can't make a single rule. On a crowded motorway, for example, it's people changing lanes that CAUSE accidents. It's more sensible for people to try and stay in one lane as far as possible, without blocking traffic. It's arguably better, on crowded motorways, for everyone to stay in lane and undertake if necessary.

On an empty motorway the law makes sense, but on an empty motorway there isn't a problem anyway.

The other thing is that the outside lane should be treated a bit differently from the other lanes. The outside lane should be an overtaking lane only - as far as possible. For cars that are doing 70mph (or more) it's safer for them to stay in the middle lane, rather than ducking in and out of the slow lane. For lorries it's safer for them to stay in the inside lane as far as possible. It's safer.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> I think this is a bad law and will lead to a lot of problems - if they bother to enforce it that is.


I think we have a lot of problems at the moment which this law is trying to address.



Pale Rider said:


> The problem is that they're making a single rule and the conditions on motorways vary so much that you can't make a single rule.


There are plenty of "single rules" that work perfectly well on motorways; speed limit, no parking, only drive in one direction, don't drive on the hard shoulder, keep a safe stopping distance, don't reverse to an exit you've missed, etc.



Pale Rider said:


> On a crowded motorway, for example, it's people changing lanes that CAUSE accidents. It's more sensible for people to try and stay in one lane as far as possible, without blocking traffic. It's arguably better, on crowded motorways, for everyone to stay in lane and undertake if necessary.
> On an empty motorway the law makes sense, but on an empty motorway there isn't a problem anyway.


But if people are doing different speeds and they stay in the same lane they will block others or be blocked - that's why it's necessary to change lanes. What you are advocating leads to tailgating and congestion.

On an empty motorway there's plenty of room, so you agree it's not a problem to keep left. On a densely crowded motorway there is no space to change lanes and if there is no space you are still overtaking so are not required to change lanes - so what's the problem? For motorway conditions with in between congestion, if there's space to keep left and let others past then use it - such practice and consideration leads to more awareness and better judgement of speed and distance, as well as more courtesy and consideration and less congestion.

If you really think changing lanes leads people to have accidents then such people are not very good at it for lack of practice and need to improve - it's a necessary skill on a three lane motorway. If people kept left when not overtaking then people overtaking wouldn't need to change lanes to get past them - Now, who do you think it's safer to be changing lanes - the faster or the slower cars? That's right, the slower traffic should pull over - obviously.



Pale Rider said:


> The other thing is that the outside lane should be treated a bit differently from the other lanes. The outside lane should be an overtaking lane only - as far as possible.


According to the highway code it already is but many people don't seem to know this and stay in it regardless.



Pale Rider said:


> For cars that are doing 70mph (or more) it's safer for them to stay in the middle lane, rather than ducking in and out of the slow lane.


Ah yes, the other reason why people stay in the overtaking lane - because of inconsiderate middle lane hoggers....



Pale Rider said:


> For lorries it's safer for them to stay in the inside lane as far as possible. It's safer.


... who think the left lane is only for lorries :lol:


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

Pale Rider, if you check the Highway Code, both the middle and outside lanes are for overtaking. That's why this new law has been introduced, to teach people to pull back to the inside lane once they've overtaken another vehicle.

It's common sense really, something which is sadly lacking in many drivers.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> I think this is a bad law and will lead to a lot of problems - if they bother to enforce it that is.
> 
> The problem is that they're making a single rule and the conditions on motorways vary so much that you can't make a single rule. On a crowded motorway, for example, it's people changing lanes that CAUSE accidents. It's more sensible for people to try and stay in one lane as far as possible, without blocking traffic. It's arguably better, on crowded motorways, for everyone to stay in lane and undertake if necessary.
> 
> ...


Have to say, I disagree with pretty much every part of this. Anyone driving like that deserves to get fined/points. Hopefully that will eventually encourage them to learn how to drive properly on a motorway. If not, they should leave the motorway to the rest of us who are happy to use the lanes correctly.


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## peter-ss (Sep 3, 2008)

A3DFU said:


> Dave v said:
> 
> 
> > Long over due
> ...


We certainly noticed, when Driving across Germany, that people really do make good progress unlike over here where you invariably end up with three lanes of traffic travelling at nearly the same speed.

It's also interesting that in Germany the motorway cameras are used to speed people up whereas at home they're used to slow people down!


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

You've missed the point of what I was saying. I can see I'll have to put it more simply.

"Hogging the middle lane" can be a very reasonable thing to do in certain traffic conditions. If I'm going down a motorway at 70mph (or, usually, more like 80mph) in the middle lane and it's the usual situation with some slow moving traffic (less than 70) in the inside lane, I'm not very keen on moving over unless there's a pretty big gap in in the inside lane - the reason being that, if I do this, some tw*t will creep up at 81mph and block me in so I end up having to brake.

I personally try to avoid doing this to other people. I try to overtake quickly and not hang about in their blind spot - it's a matter of self-preservation - and if I see they're going to get blocked I move out to the outside lane. Not many people do this though.

Far from being dangerous it's actually sensible to avoid changing lanes on motorways frequently - especially in crowded conditions. That's why, on these 50mph limits by roadworks they tell people to "stay in lane". It's safer.

If I'm going down the motorway at 80mph in the middle lane I intend to remain there - unless the outside lane is blocked with overtaking traffic and the inside lane is empty.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

peter-ss said:


> We certainly noticed, when Driving across Germany, that people really do make good progress unlike over here where you invariably end up with three lanes of traffic travelling at nearly the same speed.


Duh! The situation is slightly different on German autobahns. If they have a speed limit at all it's much higher than here. The reason that we get the "bunching" that makes lane changing so dangerous is because most people are travelling at roughly the same speed (i.e. 70-80).

Attempting to make people move into the slow lane at 70mph (or more) is seriously dangerous and will lead to many more accidents - if anybody took any notice of the law that is. Fortunately it will be ignored like all the rest of the laws that rely on police enforcement. Too much like hard work for plod - they prefer sitting in the police station surfing the internet.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

:lol: I think you should stop using the spade as you are getting too deep. :wink:


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> :lol: I think you should stop using the spade as you are getting too deep. :wink:


Nothing but clichés as usual. You guys just don't understand the question - let alone know the answer. A bit like the govt.

I'll give you a really simple example. Imagine a normal motorway situation with average traffic. The inside lane is fairly sparsely filled with traffic mainly doing 70mph or less - sometimes a lot less if it's uphill. The middle lane has more traffic, most of which is doing between 70 and 80mph. The outside lane has less traffic than the middle lane mostly just overtaking at between 80 and 90mph, with the occasional chancer doing much more.

So I'm driving down the motorway with the cruise control set at 79 mph, on the grounds that if I go through a speed trap they'll probably not bother to fine me - seems to have worked so far. Now I'm a bit loath to drive in the inside lane unless it's empty for a long distance so I tend to stick to the middle lane. But there's somebody behind me who's driving at exactly the same speed as me. He could overtake in the outside lane but he's probably a bit wary of going over 80mph - for the same reason that I am - and he doesn't want to get flashed by the real speeders in the outside lane so he follows, a little closer than is advisable.

I see a longish gap in the inside lane so I pull over. The bloke behind now accelerates to about 0.5mph quicker than I'm going. I can see that at the tiny closing speed of his car I'm now going to get blocked behind a lorry. I have two choices: to slow down and let him pass or speed up and leave him behind. I'm buggered if I'm going to slow down so I speed up to about 90mph and pull out then re-engage cruise.

And then I stick to the middle lane. If the tw*t wants to overtake he'll have to be a bit more sensible about it.

That's the main reason why people tend to sit in the middle lane and it's entirely reasonable. And I'd very much like to see the police try to charge me with "careless driving" for doing 80mph in the middle lane - all they can do is fine me for breaking the limit, so the new law is an irrelevance.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

You are trying to say that two wrongs make a right. Do you not think that the bloke behind you might be frustrated that you won't pull over and let him pass? Perhaps that's why you experience people blocking you in because they are getting their own back :roll:

Seriously, people need to be more considerate when driving and hopefully people well eventually learn. The motorway was noticeably better today with people piling back in. Well see what it's like tomorrow.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> You've missed the point of what I was saying. I can see I'll have to put it more simply.
> 
> "Hogging the middle lane" can be a very reasonable thing to do in certain traffic conditions. If I'm going down a motorway at 70mph (or, usually, more like 80mph) in the middle lane and it's the usual situation with some slow moving traffic (less than 70) in the inside lane, I'm not very keen on moving over unless there's a pretty big gap in in the inside lane - the reason being that, if I do this, some tw*t will creep up at 81mph and block me in so I end up having to brake.


Your decision to move back into the left lane should have nothing to do with what other drivers may or may not do. If you're not overtaking something (and won't be overtaking something for the next 10 seconds or so), you need to move over. However, if the motorway is genuinely crowded, then there won't be any gaps worth pulling back into anyway, so you can continue overtaking them in lane 2. Remember, this isn't about being in the middle lane for a long time, it's about being there when you don't need to be.


Pale Rider said:


> I personally try to avoid doing this to other people. I try to overtake quickly and not hang about in their blind spot - it's a matter of self-preservation - and if I see they're going to get blocked I move out to the outside lane. Not many people do this though.
> 
> Far from being dangerous it's actually sensible to avoid changing lanes on motorways frequently - especially in crowded conditions. That's why, on these 50mph limits by roadworks they tell people to "stay in lane". It's safer.


No, they say "stay in lane" when there's a 50mph limit because everyone will be doing roughly the same speed across all the lanes so overtaking is not possible. You'll notice they don't put up "stay in lane" signs every time the motorway gets a bit busy. This is because they want people to use the lanes correctly to ensure traffic flows efficiently.


Pale Rider said:


> If I'm going down the motorway at 80mph in the middle lane I intend to remain there - unless the outside lane is blocked with overtaking traffic and the inside lane is empty.


Then you're part of the problem. Perhaps you should consider the fact that one of the major causes of the 'crowded conditions' which you believe are so dangerous is people not making efficient use of all the lanes. By leaving massive gaps in the inside lane, you and all the other people like you are reducing the amount of space for everyone, and forcing everyone closer together. If you think you're making it safer for anyone, you're kidding yourself.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> I see a longish gap in the inside lane so I pull over. The bloke behind now accelerates to about 0.5mph quicker than I'm going. I can see that at the tiny closing speed of his car I'm now going to get blocked behind a lorry. I have two choices: to slow down and let him pass or speed up and leave him behind. I'm buggered if I'm going to slow down so I speed up to about 90mph and pull out then re-engage cruise.
> 
> And then I stick to the middle lane. If the tw*t wants to overtake he'll have to be a bit more sensible about it.
> 
> That's the main reason why people tend to sit in the middle lane and it's entirely reasonable. And I'd very much like to see the police try to charge me with "careless driving" for doing 80mph in the middle lane - all they can do is fine me for breaking the limit, so the new law is an irrelevance.


So this is about your convenience, not any notion of 'proper' driving technique or etiquette.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> You are trying to say that two wrongs make a right. Do you not think that the bloke behind you might be frustrated that you won't pull over and let him pass? Perhaps that's why you experience people blocking you in because they are getting their own back :roll:


More clichés, I see. He was perfectly able to pass me - in the outside lane, as I explained. All he had to do was pull out and accelerate. When I come up behind people in the middle lane I don't expect them to get out of my way if the outside lane is clear.

What you people don't seem to understand - and it's pretty fundamental - is that lane changing is potentially dangerous. It's much SAFER to stay in one lane and to limit lane changing to the minimum. It's interesting that the new safety equipment on the latest cars includes scanning devices to keep you in one lane. If you want to change lane it physically resists unless you turn it off, which is too complex to do on the move - or hit the indicator in which case it will eventually let you change lane.

I'd like to see the actual wording of this asinine "law". I suspect it's going to be one of those daft laws that just never get used because they've been dreamed up by a politician who has no understanding of how the law works.


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## mullum (Sep 16, 2011)

This is what I mean. If this is how some people see road etiquette - we stand no chance.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

LOL. All this contention!

The new legislation only introduces a FP Ticket option for these offences. You could always be reported (summonsed) for these offences. If I have any reservations at all about this it's that issue of the ticket will involve a judgement call on the part of the individual officer. It's always open to you of course to contest the matter at court and presumably there will be video footage of your alleged transgression to assist the court.

I can see both sides of this argument and some people are taking this too literally. I've seen drivers very recently (since the news of this legislation in fact} hopping in and out of the left hand lane overtaking cars with minimum gaps in between them rather than overtake all the slower vehicles and then pull back into the left lane. Whichever way you look at it, a lane change is a potentially hazardous manoeuvre and carrying it to extremes is not in the spirit of this legislation.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> It's interesting that the new safety equipment on the latest cars includes scanning devices to keep you in one lane. If you want to change lane it physically resists unless you turn it off, which is too complex to do on the move - or hit the indicator in which case it will eventually let you change lane.


That safety equipment is there to stop you accidentally *drifting* out of your lane, it's not there to encourage you to stay in the same lane. :roll: 


igotone said:


> Whichever way you look at it, a lane change is a potentially hazardous manoeuvre and carrying it to extremes is not in the spirit of this legislation.


But no one on this thread has suggested excessive lane changing. Just pulling back in if the gap is large enough (and how large that gap has to be is up to the individual driver, within reason). I think we're all aware (apart from Pale Rider maybe) that this is a change in the potential punishment, not a new law.

Yes, changing lanes increases your personal risk for that brief moment in time, but for every lane change you avoid, you force someone else to make one to go round you. Also, by not changing lanes you're increasing congestion by reducing the amount of usable space on the road, which increases risk for everyone.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider said:


> On a crowded motorway, for example, it's people changing lanes that CAUSE accidents.


Actually; no they don't. They only cause accidents if they are not aware of what's going on around them i.e. not using mirrors as they should.

I've done my driving test in Germany in 1971 and we were taught that in addition to using/checking mirrors you must look over your shoulder to check the dead sport before you change lane. I do it to this day and it should be something that is taught in this country!

Driving in the "leftest" lane possible/available frees up the middle/right lane for faster drivers / overtaking and this is how it should be to help ease of traffic flow.


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## mullum (Sep 16, 2011)

Spandex said:


> Yes, changing lanes increases your personal risk for that brief moment in time, but for every lane change you avoid, you force someone else to make one to go round you. Also, by not changing lanes you're increasing congestion by reducing the amount of usable space on the road, which increases risk for everyone.


Nail on the nutshell !


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## Smeds (Oct 28, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> I see a longish gap in the inside lane so I pull over. The bloke behind now accelerates to about 0.5mph quicker than I'm going. I can see that at the tiny closing speed of his car I'm now going to get blocked behind a lorry. I have two choices: to slow down and let him pass or speed up and leave him behind. I'm buggered if I'm going to slow down so I speed up to about 90mph and pull out then re-engage cruise.


Or you could indicate to let him know you'd like to change lanes?


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## mullum (Sep 16, 2011)

Sometimes I allow myself to get blocked in by other cars in the way he describes - because I feel better knowing that I'm doing the right thing by following the etiquette which is beneficial to all, rather than just to myself. I take some pride in knowing that I'm one of the (seemingly) few of those on the road who actually know the score. And anyway, further down the road I know I can make up time - and almost always do.


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## Smeds (Oct 28, 2009)

mullum said:


> Sometimes I allow myself to get blocked in by other cars in the way he describes - because I feel better knowing that I'm doing the right thing by following the etiquette which is beneficial to all, rather than just to myself. I take some pride in knowing that I'm one of the (seemingly) few of those on the road who actually know the score. And anyway, further down the road I know I can make up time - and almost always do.


You're not alone, I find it helps me relax and not get too worked up about rushing.


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## Chris Woods (May 12, 2013)

A3DFU said:


> I've done my driving test in Germany in 1971 and we were taught that in addition to using/checking mirrors you must look over your shoulder to check the dead sport before you change lane. I do it to this day and it should be something that is taught in this country!
> .


I took my driving test in the uk in 2008 and they do teach you to check your blind spot . You find idiots rely on their mirrors too much and are too lazy to look over thier shoulder .

+I was born in Germany and have driven there , their driving standard is a lot higher


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > You are trying to say that two wrongs make a right. Do you not think that the bloke behind you might be frustrated that you won't pull over and let him pass? Perhaps that's why you experience people blocking you in because they are getting their own back :roll:
> ...


Let me put it another way then. What you are describing is bad driving. You are saying that because someone else may drive badly without consideration and block you in, you instead are going to drive badly without consideration and block him and everyone following instead.

Does a community thrive by cooperation and courtesy or selfishness and lack of consideration? Does being behind a wheel make it different?


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Chris Woods said:


> I was born in Germany and have driven there , their driving standard is a lot higher


Thank you Chris for saying so.

In 2004 I lead a cruise from the UK all the way to Györ in Hungary to the TT assembly line. We spent two weeks abroad driving some fantastic roads. On our return to England one of the people on the trip said: _"after two weeks of excellent motoring we're now back in England where everyone sits in the outside lane letting no one pass"_


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> Yes, changing lanes increases your personal risk for that brief moment in time, but for every lane change you avoid, you force someone else to make one to go round you.


Not true - you haven't thought this through very clearly. If you stick in the same lane people only have to change lane if they want to overtake you. If you move into the inside lane whenever there is a gap (regardless of whether there's a car behind you or not) you end up increasing the number of lane changes. This is bound to cause more accidents.

The point that igotone makes is what I've been trying to get across. This law change is not as simple as it seems at first sight. It has the potential, if taken literally (and who knows how individual police will interpret it), to mean that there will be a lot of pointless lane changing - and inevitably more accidents.

The other thing that you guys (and the govt) have overlooked is the gap you should leave before pulling back in front of a car you've overtaken. Most people get about 20' in front and then pull across. However, if you look at the Highway Code it says that you should leave a 2 second gap (in good weather - much more in the wet). At 70mph this equates to a gap of over 200' which is a long way. If you pull in before establishing this distance you're turning the car you pull in front of into an involuntary tail-gater.

I'm imagining myself in a situation where I'm going down the motorway at 70mph in the middle lane with a cop on my tail (almost always following too closely) and I'm waiting until I can establish a 200' gap on the inside lane before I pull over to let him pass. What's the betting I'd get pulled over for "lane hogging". 200' is a long way - you see examples of it on some sections of motorway in the form of chevrons that are 100' apart. You're told to keep 2 chevrons back from the car in front, but it's very rare that people keep to anywhere near that.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

A3DFU said:


> In 2004 I lead a cruise from the UK all the way to Györ in Hungary to the TT assembly line. We spent two weeks abroad driving some fantastic roads. On our return to England one of the people on the trip said: _"after two weeks of excellent motoring we're now back in England where everyone sits in the outside lane letting no one pass"_


That's a different matter. I agree entirely that the outside lane should be used for overtaking only. I just don't think the same is true of the middle lane unless you're driving at less than 70mph. I know the Highway Code makes no distinction here but it hasn't really kept up with changing road conditions - i.e. massive congestion where lane changing is dangerous.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider,

it is because of people like you that the new motorway regulation had to be brought in; people who think they have a right to keep a certain place in a line of traffic, preventing other drivers to overtake them!
Seems to me that today's society is all about 'me, me, me' and common courtesy towards other people has gone out of the window :?


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, changing lanes increases your personal risk for that brief moment in time, but for every lane change you avoid, you force someone else to make one to go round you.
> ...


Hold on a second. You're saying that anyone who wants to overtake you has to change lanes to do it? So why is it you feel you don't have to follow those rules yourself? Why are you allowed to pick a lane and stick to it, but other people have to pull out, go round you, then pull back in again? Or are you saying they can pull into the outside lane and just sit there, because it's safer than pulling back into the middle lane, then pulling out again to overtake the next car? It seems like we might run out of lanes very quickly there...



Pale Rider said:


> The point that igotone makes is what I've been trying to get across. This law change is not as simple as it seems at first sight. It has the potential, if taken literally (and who knows how individual police will interpret it), to mean that there will be a lot of pointless lane changing - and inevitably more accidents.
> 
> The other thing that you guys (and the govt) have overlooked is the gap you should leave before pulling back in front of a car you've overtaken. Most people get about 20' in front and then pull across. However, if you look at the Highway Code it says that you should leave a 2 second gap (in good weather - much more in the wet). At 70mph this equates to a gap of over 200' which is a long way. If you pull in before establishing this distance you're turning the car you pull in front of into an involuntary tail-gater.
> 
> I'm imagining myself in a situation where I'm going down the motorway at 70mph in the middle lane with a cop on my tail (almost always following too closely) and I'm waiting until I can establish a 200' gap on the inside lane before I pull over to let him pass. What's the betting I'd get pulled over for "lane hogging". 200' is a long way - you see examples of it on some sections of motorway in the form of chevrons that are 100' apart. You're told to keep 2 chevrons back from the car in front, but it's very rare that people keep to anywhere near that.


Ok, *the law has not changed*. The only thing that has changed is the Police now have the *option* to issue an on the spot penalty for it. The law has been the same for a very long time with no one complaining about it - in fact, most people completely agree with the law and are very frustrated with the morons who refuse to follow it and in doing so effectively turn every three lane motorway into a two lane motorway with a special, half empty lorry lane on the side.

So, for the love of god, please try to use the motorways in the way in which they were designed. If you feel that changing lanes is too risky, then I'd ask that you sign up to an advanced driving course where they can show you how to do it safely.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Spandex said:


> So, for the love of god, please try to use the motorways in the way in which they were designed. If you feel that changing lanes is too risky, then I'd ask that you sign up to an advanced driving course where they can show you how to do it safely.


+1


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Amen to that. Today on the first week day, on the way to work, I found the motorway to contain a mixture of people pulling over but with some still defiantly staying in the middle and outside lanes attempting to form crocodiles when there was plenty of room for them to spend the next 30 seconds or even a couple of minutes in the lanes(s) to their left. It was more congested in general and on busy sections clearly there was not much space to pull over into, so fair enough, but on the quieter stretches it was free flowing with most people keeping left apart from the odd one or two. Generally it seems to be more civilised. I hope some learning is going on.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> Ok, *the law has not changed*. The only thing that has changed is the Police now have the *option* to issue an on the spot penalty for it. The law has been the same for a very long time with no one complaining about it - in fact, most people completely agree with the law and are very frustrated with the morons who refuse to follow it and in doing so effectively turn every three lane motorway into a two lane motorway with a special, half empty lorry lane on the side.


Wrong again. The law has changed. The police have been given the right to issue a fixed penalty for "middle lane hogging" (although this is not defined anywhere as far as I can see). This is a change of the law which occurred last week - maybe you missed it. They've also been given the powers to prosecute drivers for "middle lane hogging" as a defined offence under the category of "careless driving". Careless driving is a fairly serious motoring offence and will result in a pretty hefty insurance loading. Previously they would have had to bring a charge of careless driving and have to prove that driving in the middle lane was causing danger to other road users, which would be tricky. They no longer have to prove this.



 Spandex said:


> So, for the love of god, please try to use the motorways in the way in which they were designed. If you feel that changing lanes is too risky, then I'd ask that you sign up to an advanced driving course where they can show you how to do it safely.


I don't think that motorways were "designed" to be used in any specific way but, if they were, the rules have changed over the years. It used to be the slow lane, the middle lane and the fast lane. If you were going fast you drove in the outside lane - I remember driving a Lotus Elan Sprint down the M4 for about 100 miles at about 120mph all the way in the "fast" lane. It would have been very dangerous to use any other lane.

When the 70mph limit was introduced (which has caused most of the current frustration on motorways) it subtly changed to slow lane, middle lane and overtaking lane. But it was still accepted that the middle lane was OK to use if you were doing 70mph (or more). The outside lane was redesignated for overtaking only.

Over the years the traffic congestion has got so severe on most motorways that there are times when all the lanes travel at the same speed and there is no particular reason to be in one or the other.

The government now seem to be trying to legislate a change in usage, such that BOTH the middle and outside lanes are overtaking lanes only, which may reflect literally what's now in the Highway Code but was never the way that motorways were used - and flies in the face of the dangers of constantly changing lanes on our over-crowded motorways.

I guess it'll just die a death like all these daft laws from attention-seeking Ministers of Transport appropriately introduce in August - the silly season. The police will use it to prosecute a few people they don't like and eventually meet with a legal challenge that will be upheld - and that'll be the end of it.


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

Pale Rider said:


> I don't think that motorways were "designed" to be used in any specific way but, if they were, the rules have changed over the years. It used to be the slow lane, the middle lane and the fast lane. If you were going fast you drove in the outside lane - I remember driving a Lotus Elan Sprint down the M4 for about 100 miles at about 120mph all the way in the "fast" lane. It would have been very dangerous to use any other lane.
> 
> When the 70mph limit was introduced (which has caused most of the current frustration on motorways) it subtly changed to slow lane, middle lane and overtaking lane. But it was still accepted that the middle lane was OK to use if you were doing 70mph (or more). The outside lane was redesignated for overtaking only.


Slow, middle and fast lanes? AFAIK they've never been officially designated like that.
The current Highway code refers to lanes as 'the left-hand lane', the right-hand lane', a lane on your left' etc. 
Police typically refer to the lanes as 'Lane 1 Lane 2, Lane 3', etc

You must have been lucky to get away with the 120mph dash along the M4:
70mph speed limit introduced: 1965
Lotus Elan Sprint introduced: 1971


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> Wrong again. The law has changed. The police have been given the right to issue a fixed penalty for "middle lane hogging" (although this is not defined anywhere as far as I can see). This is a change of the law which occurred last week - maybe you missed it. They've also been given the powers to prosecute drivers for "middle lane hogging" as a defined offence under the category of "careless driving". Careless driving is a fairly serious motoring offence and will result in a pretty hefty insurance loading. Previously they would have had to bring a charge of careless driving and have to prove that driving in the middle lane was causing danger to other road users, which would be tricky. They no longer have to prove this.


The law hasn't changed. The offence is (and always has been) 'driving without due care and attention. Up until now though, the courts would have had to decide on the conviction/punishment, which meant the Police generally would have just let motorists off because it wasn't worth the hassle. Now, however, the Police can issue FPNs for lesser careless driving offences so hopefully they'll deal with middle lane hogs rather than letting them off.


Pale Rider said:


> I don't think that motorways were "designed" to be used in any specific way but, if they were, the rules have changed over the years. It used to be the slow lane, the middle lane and the fast lane. If you were going fast you drove in the outside lane - I remember driving a Lotus Elan Sprint down the M4 for about 100 miles at about 120mph all the way in the "fast" lane. It would have been very dangerous to use any other lane.
> 
> When the 70mph limit was introduced (which has caused most of the current frustration on motorways) it subtly changed to slow lane, middle lane and overtaking lane. But it was still accepted that the middle lane was OK to use if you were doing 70mph (or more). The outside lane was redesignated for overtaking only.
> 
> ...


It has never, ever been the 'slow lane, middle lane and fast lane'. Misconceptions like this are what perpetuate the bad behaviour we see nowadays on the motorways. All lanes apart from the inside lane are, and have always been overtaking lanes.

You admit that the highway code has always described every lane except the left-hand one as 'overtaking lanes', so where are all these 'definitions' you talk about coming from? I've never met anyone else who describes the middle lane as "OK to use if you were doing 70mph (or more)". You may have convinced yourself this is the commonly accepted usage, but take it from me, most people who pass you sitting in the middle lane aren't particularly happy with you.


Pale Rider said:


> I guess it'll just die a death like all these daft laws from attention-seeking Ministers of Transport appropriately introduce in August - the silly season. The police will use it to prosecute a few people they don't like and eventually meet with a legal challenge that will be upheld - and that'll be the end of it.


As I've said, it's not a new law, so won't be 'dying a death' any time soon. Not following the rules of the road can be considered 'driving without due care and attention', even if there is no specific law against what you're doing.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> The law hasn't changed. The offence is (and always has been) 'driving without due care and attention. Up until now though, the courts would have had to decide on the conviction/punishment, which meant the Police generally would have just let motorists off because it wasn't worth the hassle. Now, however, the Police can issue FPNs for lesser careless driving offences so hopefully they'll deal with middle lane hogs rather than letting them off.


It's "new legislation" - look up the words if you don't understand. It was introduced on 16/8.

I'd be very interested if you can come up with a single case of someone being prosecuted for driving in the middle lane of the motorway before this new law. The police can prosecute someone for anything they like under the heading "careless driving" but it's never been used for driving in the middle lane for the simple reason that it would have been slung out of court.



Spandex said:


> You admit that the highway code has always described every lane except the left-hand one as 'overtaking lanes', so where are all these 'definitions' you talk about coming from? I've never met anyone else who describes the middle lane as "OK to use if you were doing 70mph (or more)".


You can't seem to get a single thing right, Spandex. The Highway Code doesn't refer to "overtaking lanes" at all. It just refers to the "left hand lane" and the "right hand lane" and, relating to lane discipline, it says that you should basically always drive in the left hand lane unless you're overtaking. The Highway Code has been carefully rewritten to avoid using any words that might indicate how to use the lanes. Terms such as "slow lane", "fast lane" and "overtaking lane" are not "definitions" - they're just the way people tend to refer to the lanes. They change over time.

It would be very interesting to run the HC's idea of how the motorway should be used through the DfT's traffic modelling software to see what effect it had on traffic flow. It would be an utter mess with everybody trying to return to the inside lane.


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## Hoggy (May 8, 2002)

Hi, To me Hogging a lane is staying in a lane longer than necessary if there is no other lane to allow overtaking.
If there are only 2 lanes,then get back into inside lane as soon as safely possible, but if 3 lanes then use that to overtake any slower traffic in the 2nd lane.
Hogging is staying in outside lane, longer than necessary.If there are 3 lanes then staying in 2nd lane if travelling faster than 1st lane is not Hogging. 
Hogging :lol: Ooops, I mean Hoggy. .. [smiley=argue.gif]


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> It's "new legislation" - look up the words if you don't understand. It was introduced on 16/8.
> 
> I'd be very interested if you can come up with a single case of someone being prosecuted for driving in the middle lane of the motorway before this new law. The police can prosecute someone for anything they like under the heading "careless driving" but it's never been used for driving in the middle lane for the simple reason that it would have been slung out of court.


You've stated that it's a *new law*, and that it specifically mentions 'middle lane hogging' (or words to that effect). I'd like you to post a link to this new law. I suspect all you'll find is a change to allow Police to issue an FPN for an existing law, and no explicit mention of anything to do with the middle lane.


Pale Rider said:


> You can't seem to get a single thing right, Spandex. The Highway Code doesn't refer to "overtaking lanes" at all. It just refers to the "left hand lane" and the "right hand lane" and, relating to lane discipline, it says that you should basically always drive in the left hand lane unless you're overtaking. The Highway Code has been carefully rewritten to avoid using any words that might indicate how to use the lanes. Terms such as "slow lane", "fast lane" and "overtaking lane" are not "definitions" - they're just the way people tend to refer to the lanes. They change over time.


As I'm sure you were aware, I wasn't quoting verbatim from the highway code. The HC states that any right hand lanes are only for overtaking, which I think is perfectly in line with my description of the them as 'overtaking lanes'. What I can't understand is why you're arguing the toss over mine and the HCs description, when neither of them agree with you anyway.


Pale Rider said:


> It would be very interesting to run the HC's idea of how the motorway should be used through the DfT's traffic modelling software to see what effect it had on traffic flow. It would be an utter mess with everybody trying to return to the inside lane.


Most people won't be 'trying' to return to the inside lane. They'll just do it. I think it's only you and a minority of other drivers who have an issue with changing lanes.

As someone who is advocating driving in a way that's counter to the highway code, driving in a way that's technically illegal and driving in a way that goes against what the majority of road users understand as 'correct' lane discipline, I'd say it's actually *you* who can't seem to get a single thing right. Just how many people have to tell you you're doing it wrong before you sort yourself out?


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## Skeee (Jun 9, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> It would be very interesting to run the HC's idea of how the motorway should be used through the DfT's traffic modelling software to see what effect it had on traffic flow.
> *It would be an utter mess with everybody trying to return to the inside lane.*


 Surely, the sooner a vehicle moves back into the middle, or inside, lane, the sooner a faster moving vehicle behind can pass, thus improving traffic flow? Well that's certainly my experience of motorway driving.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Well I used the M56 both ways today: between 4pm and 5pm in the direction of Chester and just after 8pm in the direction of M'Cr. Both times there was no change to the usual middle lane hogging. 
On the later journey it was perhaps worse in that there were just two cars (mine was one of them) in the inside lane, some cars in the middle lane and the majority of cars in the outside lane. I think we should start driving on the right hand side :roll:


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

Bloody hell - I leave this thread alone for 5 mins and it all gets a bit OTT.

I drove to work today on the same motorway I have used for 20 years and guess what ....... Everything was exactly the same as last week. Oh well never mind.

And Dani, lookin over your shoulder isn't just a German thing, I got taught that too and I learned in good old west Lancashire.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

I saw an unmarked police stop coming home. Perhaps related. There is hope :wink:

There was a spontaneous campaign of blowing horns when you saw a driver on their phone to embarrass their conversation. I don't witness this now as far less people use their phone. Perhaps flashing would serve a similar purpose for hoggers and get the message across?


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Matt B said:


> And Dani, lookin over your shoulder isn't just a German thing, I got taught that too and I learned in good old west Lancashire.


It's just that I'm never seeing it in this country :?


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Let's cut to the nub of the argument, which everyone is avoiding for some reason (and which the law avoids too).

Why does the law make no mention of the speed the "lane hog" is traveling at? Doesn't this seem perverse? If the law was intended to prevent a vehicle traveling in the middle/outside lane at less than 70mph for an unreasonable distance, I'd say there was some logic in it. It would allow action to be taken against the lorries that spend miles overtaking each other at 60mph causing the outside lane to get blocked and backing up traffic down the whole motorway.

However, I see absolutely no logical reason for the law to be attempting to funnel ALL traffic, regardless of speed, into the inside lane. It's obviously dangerous to have fast traffic driving in a lane which also carries slow moving traffic. And why should someone who is traveling above the speed limit have to leave two outside lanes free for other people to overtake in?

I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when the collection of attention-seeking politicians and dozy overpaid civil servants drafted this law. There must be a reason why they left out the 70 mph speed limit. Fortunately I read in the rags that the police regard the "lane hogging" rule to be unenforceable. If they try and ticket me for it I'll opt for a court hearing and make them try to prove I was driving "carelessly" - call their bluff.


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## Skeee (Jun 9, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> ............................................................................................. Fortunately I read in the rags that the police regard the "lane hogging" rule to be unenforceable. ..............................................................................................


 Why not, take two time stamped photos? If it shows your car with the nearside lane empty for a long period (over half a minute perhaps?) or even video, then would that not be simple to enforce?

Surely must work out cheaper than spending millions having to construct a fourth lane just because some numptys drive inconsiderately?


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> Let's cut to the nub of the argument, which everyone is avoiding for some reason (and which the law avoids too).
> 
> Why does the law make no mention of the speed the "lane hog" is traveling at? Doesn't this seem perverse? If the law was intended to prevent a vehicle traveling in the middle/outside lane at less than 70mph for an unreasonable distance, I'd say there was some logic in it. It would allow action to be taken against the lorries that spend miles overtaking each other at 60mph causing the outside lane to get blocked and backing up traffic down the whole motorway.
> 
> ...


The law isn't trying to encourage people to drive in the left lane regardless of speed and crash into each other as you seem to imply, what a ridiculous notion! - Obviously it depends on relative speed and how big a gap there is to your left. If the gap is only big enough to immediately have to get out of again then there's no point in going in it unless you intend to slow down and match the speed. If however, your relative speed is such that you could spend a reasonable amount of time in there before catching up the car in front, leaving enough time to safely indicate and overtake again, whilst also allowing a faster vehicle(s) to get past you, then you should allow them past - not block them and cause congestion.

How long have you been driving and how long have you disagreed with the highway code? It's an interesting and brave stance you are taking, disagreeing with everybody here, the highway code, the law, and admitting to driving 120 mph when in a 70 limit on a public forum etc (clearly winding us up). Debate is what a forum is all about and you've started a good thread discussing safety and driving courtesy. If you do fight it in court please let us know.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> Let's cut to the nub of the argument, which everyone is avoiding for some reason (and which the law avoids too).
> 
> Why does the law make no mention of the speed the "lane hog" is traveling at? Doesn't this seem perverse? If the law was intended to prevent a vehicle traveling in the middle/outside lane at less than 70mph for an unreasonable distance, I'd say there was some logic in it. It would allow action to be taken against the lorries that spend miles overtaking each other at 60mph causing the outside lane to get blocked and backing up traffic down the whole motorway.
> 
> ...


They don't mention speed because speed is irrelevant. The rules on lane use are there to ensure the motorway is used efficiently regardless of the speeds or relative speeds of the cars on it. It's up to the drivers to ensure they follow those rules whilst maintaining safe distances and ensuring lane changes are carried out safely.

Also, what speed would they mention? Would they say it's ok to be in lane 2 if you're doing 70mph or over, like you claim? Surely the national speed limit is 70mph, so they can't say that. So what then?

I'm still unclear what law you think they've recently drafted. You will notice from this page on gov.uk that they only discuss changes to the penalties for careless driving:

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

You'll also notice that the penalty changes apply to 'careless driving' offences as a whole, rather than singling out poor lane discipline and tailgating specifically - in fact, middle lane hogging is only mentioned a couple of times in the article and is simply given as an example of the things which come under (and have always come under) the offence of careless driving.

So, were you to 'have your day' in court, they wouldn't be relying on a newly drafted law, as you'd have already refused to pay the penalty. You'd be faced with proving that you weren't driving 'carelessly', which I imagine is quite difficult to do when the evidence would show you clearly and deliberately flouting the highway code. Have a look here at the CPS guidance on driving without due care and attention:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/...ance_on_prosecuting_cases_of_bad_driving/#a30



> The offence of driving without due care and attention (careless driving) under section 3 of the RTA 1988 is committed when the defendants driving falls below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver - section 3ZA(2) of the RTA 1988.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Good luck telling the court that you understand the highway code, but have decided that you know better.


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Pale Rider, you are clearly entirely on your own here, and I would have thought that in itself would be reason enough to reconsider your position. However maybe a bit of advice from a *police officer* might change your mind.

Firstly, Spandex is completely correct - it is *not* a new law. The only change is that the existing law can now be enforced by way of a FPN. Agreed, it would have been very uncommon for lane hoggers to have been prosecuted previously. That was not because of some evidential difficulty but simply because processing summons files is time-consuming and an officer can only do so many in a working week, and sadly there are plenty of more serious offences to take up that capacity. The purpose of FPNs is to allow the police to process a larger volume of offences within the time they have and this change therefore brings existing offences that otherwise had to be over-looked back into the equation. The change has come about because it is recognised this matter is an increasing problem having a significant impact on the efficiency of our motorway network and now needs to be dealt with. Providing FPNs as a means to do it allows the police to deal with the matter more efficiently - particularly necessary given the extensive cuts to police budgets and decreasing numbers of officers.

Secondly, I've heard this argument about 'changing lanes increasing risk' many times and it's just a load of rubbish. If you can't change lanes safely whenever you need to then surrender your driving licence because you're simply declaring yourself to be unsafe on the road. Everybody should be perfectly capable of changing lanes without presenting *any* danger to themself or anyone else, and if people did it more often they'd be more skilled at it. There is no doubt that many middle lane hoggers do it precisely because they are frightened of changing lanes. I agree that should be addressed by introducing a secondary motorway test following the initial pass.I believe Quentin Wilson is currently heading a campaign to get this introduced, and I support it.

Finally, you seem convinced that people disagree with you simply because they are incapable of understanding your argument. No, _everybody_ understands what you are saying - they just disagree with you. I drive in *precisely* the manner that you describe and do a considerable amount of motorway mileage in this way. Yes, I agree that as you progress with your cruise control set at 79 you do occasionally get people creeping up alongside you. When using cruise control the skill of it is to always be watching what is going on around you, both infront and behind, and to plan well in advance to avoid having to disengage cruise. If I see that someone is coming up at a speed likely to block me in as I'm due to need to pull out I simply pull out that bit earlier, ahead of them. If there is a third lane they can go past if they want. If there isn't I don't mind slowing them down because they're speeding anyway. Once I've overtaken and I judge the gap between the next obstruction is still not enough to allow the person behind to get past before I reach it I will stay in the second lane until there is enough of a gap for them to get by. So you see, I do understand your argument - *but you're still wrong*.

What you describe is an attitude of 'I may as well always stay in the middle lane unless there is a very large gap' - when your mindset should be that you will _always_ pull over unless there is a good reason why you shouldn't. I clearly recognise the issue you raise and I can tell you it occurs only infrequently in my experince - it is not the almost constant issue that you seem to be professing. I can easily drive 300 miles and experience it only once or twice. I don't see it as a 'reason' - I think you're just using it as an 'excuse'.

We should all be looking to get into the nearside whenever we can. That doesn't mean constantly switching lanes, ducking in and out of tiny gaps. As a guide I don't pull in until I can see both headlights of the car I've overtaken in my rear view mirror - that tends to ensure I'm not too close to them. Also I'll stay out if I judge I'd be pulling in for less than 10 seconds or, indeed, if I judge traffic approaching from behind is liable to leave me blocked in. My advanced police driving instructor told me to think of it as though there was an elastic band fastened to the nearside of the car always wanting to pull you back in so that staying out longer than necessary was putting excessive strain on it - only stretch that elastic out when you need to.

Very many lane hoggers are actually just being dozy and are in lane 2 because they simply haven't thought about pulling over. It's a matter of discipline and thinking about what you're doing. Make lane 1 your default, objective position - the position you _most_ want to be in - and the majority of the time you'll find yourself where you should be.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> Firstly, Spandex is completely correct - it is *not* a new law. The only change is that the existing law can now be enforced by way of a FPN.


So what is the "existing law" that can be used to prosecute people who drive at 70mph in the middle lane? Maybe you could provide me with a link to this law. That would possibly move the discussion along.



Mark Davies said:


> Secondly, I've heard this argument about 'changing lanes increasing risk' many times and it's just a load of rubbish. If you can't change lanes safely whenever you need to then surrender your driving licence because you're simply declaring yourself to be unsafe on the road.


That's crap. Changing lanes inherently increases risk. I've seen lots of near accidents on motorways when people have pulled out when there's a car in their blind spot in the process of overtaking. Of course it's bad driving - lack of awareness of what's going on around them - but people make mistakes, whether through tiredness, carelessness or whatever. Any law which makes people change lanes more than necessary will cause more accidents. That's the way "risk" works.



Mark Davies said:


> Finally, you seem convinced that people disagree with you simply because they are incapable of understanding your argument. No, _everybody_ understands what you are saying - they just disagree with you. I drive in *precisely* the manner that you describe and do a considerable amount of motorway mileage in this way. Yes, I agree that as you progress with your cruise control set at 79 you do occasionally get people creeping up alongside you. When using cruise control the skill of it is to always be watching what is going on around you, both infront and behind, and to plan well in advance to avoid having to disengage cruise. If I see that someone is coming up at a speed likely to block me in as I'm due to need to pull out I simply pull out that bit earlier, ahead of them. If there is a third lane they can go past if they want. If there isn't I don't mind slowing them down because they're speeding anyway.


There seem to be a few contradictions here. If you're pulling into the inside lane at 79mph to let people pass you more easily, aren't you facilitating the breaking of the law? Then you say you don't mind pulling out in front of him if you're going to get boxed in because "they're speeding anyway". So why did you pull over into the inside lane in the first place? What you say doesn't make much sense.



Mark Davies said:


> We should all be looking to get into the nearside whenever we can.


That's where I disagree. I don't think someone driving down the motorway at 80mph should be "looking to get in the nearside lane" - I think people who are driving at less than 70mph should be "looking to get the nearside lane". I drive on the motorway at the fastest speed I think I can get away with (which seems to be 80mph) and I try to change lanes as little as possible. I see absolutely no logical reason why I should pull into the inside lane to allow past those who are chancing their arm. If you're going to drive down a motorway at over 80mph then you're going to get held up every now and then - tough!


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Are you over taking something, no?
Get in the inside lane then.

How much simpler could it be...

I've heard many arguments from people that drive in whatever lane they want, most are just flippant "because I can" or "because theres nothing behind me" and so on.

There is a valid point about avoiding the inside lane in certain places though, where the M1 breaks off for the M6 for instance, the ruts chuck my car about a bit there, money needs to be spent on resurfacing and so on.

Now, as a flip and a hand up, there are times I'll drive in the middle lane and only really under once circumstance.
If the motorway is empty for a decent distance and I'm "making progress".
The reason for this being I'm in the middle, if anything comes at me, animals and the likes from the other carriage way or from off the verge I have more room to move.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> So what is the "existing law" that can be used to prosecute people who drive at 70mph in the middle lane? Maybe you could provide me with a link to this law. That would possibly move the discussion along.


Firstly, this is not about "driving at 70mph in the middle lane". This is about driving at any speed in the middle lane when you could safely have pulled back into the left hand lane, i.e. when you are no longer overtaking anything.

The existing law is C. 2 Section 3 of the 1988 Road Traffic Act (including section 3ZA):



> *3 Careless, and inconsiderate, driving.*
> 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 place, he is guilty of an offence.
> 
> *3ZA Meaning of careless, or inconsiderate, driving*
> ...


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/3
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/3ZA

Examples of 'careless driving' offences given in other documentation (such as the CPS page I linked to previously) would be undertaking on the inside, driving inappropriately close to another vehicle, etc. Poor lane discipline would also be treated as an offence under this law, as described in the gov.uk press release I linked to previously.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider,

I was going to say it but Mark actually did say it before me: if you find changing lanes on the motorway is too dangerous for you then you are not fit to drive on motorways. 
You probably didn't understand that Mark is a police officer? If you can't accept advice from him regarding traffic regulations then I predict that at some time in the future you'll get into trouble with the law.

Lane changes on motorways are very safe: check, indicate, check again including the blind spot and then manoeuvre. What's so difficult about that?


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

While we've got an officer here..

Say I'm driving in the inside lane, doing 70, traffic in the middle lane is travelling slower than me, am I meant to go all the way to the outside lane or can I simply stay in the lane I'm in.

I usually just stay in my lane as "undertaking" and "passing on the inside" are two different things, undertaking requires changing lanes where passing on the inside doesn't.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Here's a page on a website for a legal firm that specialises in motoring offences. It was written before the introduction of the new FPN (as it makes no mention of it and only refers to the old penalties):

http://www.londonmotoringlawyer.co.uk/motoring-offences/driving-without-due-care-and-attention/

They give 'poor lane discipline' as an example of careless driving. They also point out something that I've seen mentioned on other legal websites - that the highway code, although not law itself, is often used by the courts as a means of judging what we should expect of a competent and careful driver.


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## MGauky (Jun 25, 2013)

A3DFU said:


> You probably didn't understand that Mark is a police officer? If you can't accept advice from him regarding traffic regulations then I predict that at some time in the future you'll get into trouble with the law.


end of !! :lol: :lol:


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

Firstly, I used the M6 Toll road yesterday for the first time since the introduction of the new legislation. This motorway is notoriously free of traffic, due in no small part to the excessively high cost of using it (IMHO). "Middle lane hogging" was just as prevalent as ever, as far as I've seen so far there has been no change to peoples driving behaviour.

Secondly, I can't believe that Pale Rider, in spite of all the advice and reasoned argument to the contrary (including that from an experienced police officer), is still sticking with his belief that he is right in his interpretation of the correct way to drive on the motorway. Unbelievable, and therein lies the problem!


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

MGauky said:


> A3DFU said:
> 
> 
> > You probably didn't understand that Mark is a police officer? If you can't accept advice from him regarding traffic regulations then I predict that at some time in the future you'll get into trouble with the law.
> ...


I doubt it. Pale Rider will bring up more arguments why changing lanes should be avoided because it is dangerous in his opinion :roll:


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> ]
> Firstly, this is not about "driving at 70mph in the middle lane". This is about driving at any speed in the middle lane when you could safely have pulled back into the left hand lane, i.e. when you are no longer overtaking anything.
> 
> Examples of 'careless driving' offences given in other documentation (such as the CPS page I linked to previously) would be undertaking on the inside, driving inappropriately close to another vehicle, etc. Poor lane discipline would also be treated as an offence under this law, as described in the gov.uk press release I linked to previously.


Maybe you should read the existing law you linked to, Spandex. The guidance relating to "poor lane discipline" comes under "Driving without reasonable consideration" not driving without due care. It goes on to say:

"_The offence of driving without reasonable consideration under section 3 of the RTA 1988 is committed *only* when other persons are inconvenienced by the manner of the defendants driving, see section 3ZA(4) RTA 1988." _

So I'd be really amused to hear prosecution council arguing that "persons are inconvenienced" by someone driving at 70mph in the middle lane. The only possible inconvenience is that they are slightly hindered in breaking the law by doing more than 70mph. You don't seriously think that anyone could get a conviction on this, do you?

I read in the FT that this law had been altered on 16/8. If it hasn't then there's patently no point in the CPS attempting to prosecute anyone driving in the middle lane for however long they like - provided that they're not doing less than 70mph. That's why the speed is a relevant factor. The CPS would never be able to use this old law to get a prosecution, which is probably why they never have.

BTW, I'm perfectly well aware that "mark Davies" is (or claims to be) a policeman which is why I asked him about the new law. That's the only advice I would ever seek from a policeman. They usually don't bother to obey the law themselves and they don't actually do much to try to catch criminals or prevent criminal activity nowadays - but they do at least usually know the law.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> Maybe you should read the existing law you linked to, Spandex. The guidance relating to "poor lane discipline" comes under "Driving without reasonable consideration" not driving without due care.


I've read the laws I linked to. Where does it say that the guidance relating to "poor lane discipline" comes under "Driving without reasonable consideration"?

<edit>Scratch that. When you said "existing law", you actually meant the CPS page, not the actual law. Unfortunately this isjust a list of examples - the fact that sitting in the middle lane can inconvenience other drivers doesn't preclude it from also being an example of careless driving. It could result in either charge, depending on the circumstances.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue any more. You seem to be trying to claim that the government, the Police and the various lawyers they employ have made a spectacular rookie mistake and got the two charges mixed up, creating something totally unprosecutable. It's not helping your credibility much.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Trig said:


> While we've got an officer here..
> 
> Say I'm driving in the inside lane, doing 70, traffic in the middle lane is travelling slower than me, am I meant to go all the way to the outside lane or can I simply stay in the lane I'm in.
> 
> I usually just stay in my lane as "undertaking" and "passing on the inside" are two different things, undertaking requires changing lanes where passing on the inside doesn't.


Mark can confirm but we had an accident investigator on here a while ago who cited a prosecution of a motorist who changed to the left lane on a dual carriageway and knocked a biker off who was passing on the inside. The car driver was guilty of failing their duty of care. The biker was in no way guilty of contribution as he had been in that lane for some time and had witnesses. Apparently the section of the RTA covering undertaking was repealed in 1972 (I think without looking up the statutory instrument) to remove the offence - a recognition of more crowded roads and it being ridiculous to cross three lanes twice on a motorway to get round a middle lane hogger - as long as you don't change lanes to immediately and deliberately undertake. The highway code allows left passing of slower moving traffic but precludes dodging to the inside to do so. Of course the hogger shouldn't be there....

_



"The offence of driving without reasonable consideration under section 3 of the RTA 1988 is committed only when other persons are inconvenienced by the manner of the defendants driving, see section 3ZA(4) RTA 1988."

Click to expand...

_Pale Rider, I predict you are going to hear that soon in a setting more formal than this. As I said, let us know 

Mark, some good tips there. I especially like the one with the elastic band - such a good image to keep in mind. I'm sure I've heard it before and the complete opposite of some idiots who have theirs tired to the central reservation!


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

John-H said:


> I especially like the one with the elastic band - such a good image to keep in mind.


Yes, a great analogy


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## JNmercury00 (May 22, 2007)

this thread

Why do people make life so much harder than it needs to be?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

" pale rider " ?.. well i dont know about that, but he is a very " pale " driver,,, yes we all know there are drivers like that on the road :? and it is very interesting to see / read one actually trying to justify or explain their behavour :roll: ,,,,,,,, obviously, like most other posters on here i dissagree / take issue with most everything he says,, without going throo all of them the obvious ones he keeps refering to are speed and dangers of changing lane and cant seem to get into his reckoning that neither have any validity, and it has been pointed out to him if he can not change lane safely on a busy motorway then he really shouldnt be there, nor does it matter what speed that he or others are doing ,,,,, i have just come back from a week in Beirut 8) where the majority of roads , large and small, have no lane markings at all ( if there are traffic lights then mostly they are ignored ! ) and rule of thumb is that you just do what the hell you like !!!  ,, it is great, if there is a space and you want it then you go for it, some times with judicial use of the horn  ,, if you dont want it you leave it for someone who does, and yes there are many people who just wander along anywhere on the road, like our " pale rider ", seemingly oblivous to everyone elses needs..., although there are many old bashed up cars i did not see a single accident all the time i was there . where as when i got back home and headed up the M1 i saw 3 accidents before i had done 250 miles and another one later on,, with varying degrees of seriousness  ,, pale rider,, dont bring your caravan up here next holiday,, plzz [smiley=book2.gif]


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

And to top it all off he's now questioning whether Mark Davies is what he says he is and has a cheap shot about the Police not catching criminals. Very original (I won't mention the fact that he's completely ill informed, misguided, bigoted.......)!


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## t'mill (Jul 31, 2012)

Pale Rider said:


> they don't actually do much to try to catch criminals or prevent criminal activity nowadays


Maybe they're too busy dealing with middle lane hoggers incapable of education to find the time :roll:


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

well actually i think the police have been found lacking on this issue,,, can i ask , has anyone here ever been, or seen , or heard of any " pale rider " being pulled over and " spoken to " about lane hogging ( or not having lights on or just in general being a damned prattish selfish incompitant on the road ),, i feel if the police had taken a more proactive stance then perhaps this issue would have improved with out the need for this obviously politically motivated ( although much needed ) move.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

JNmercury00 said:


> this thread
> 
> Why do people make life so much harder than it needs to be?


Because of people like Pale Rider. Years ago I listened to a radio program that picked up the exact same topic only that the driver told the reporter that he would happily drive at 70 mph in the outside lane even when there were loads of cars behind him and the inside lane was empty. He carried on that this was perfectly fine and legal because he was driving at the national speed limit. I wonder if it was Pale Rider, ,,, :roll:


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## JNmercury00 (May 22, 2007)

A3DFU said:


> JNmercury00 said:
> 
> 
> > this thread
> ...


It's a simple law, if you aren't overtaking then get over, not hard to understand. I think pale rider might be on a wind up with you lot.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

JNmercury00 said:


> A3DFU said:
> 
> 
> > JNmercury00 said:
> ...


I had the same thought already.

The guy on the radio program didn't try to wind anyone up though. You could hear in his voice that he was serious


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> I've read the laws I linked to. Where does it say that the guidance relating to "poor lane discipline" comes under "Driving without reasonable consideration"?
> 
> <edit>Scratch that. When you said "existing law", you actually meant the CPS page, not the actual law. Unfortunately this isjust a list of examples - the fact that sitting in the middle lane can inconvenience other drivers doesn't preclude it from also being an example of careless driving. It could result in either charge, depending on the circumstances.
> 
> I'm not sure what you're trying to argue any more.


I was simply pointing out that there is no mention of lane discipline in the existing laws for careless driving. The only mention of it is in the CPS guidance notes and it comes under the "Driving without reasonable consideration" section, which involves offences that are subjective - i.e. there isn't any black and white standard that can be laid down, such as there is in the case of tail-gating. In these cases the police have to prove that someone was inconvenienced by the defendant's behaviour which is going to be very difficult in the case of someone driving at 70mph in the middle lane. This is obviously why the police are saying that the offence is unenforceable. The police can try to hand out an FPN but if the driver refuses to accept it, the CPS won't bother to prosecute. So it's basically a bluff - a typical politician's fudge.

However, my main argument is that attempting to force all traffic into the inside lane is not a sensible use of a 3 lane motorway. Basically the optimal use of the motorway is entirely dependent on the amount of traffic - and you can see this on various flow modelling programs.

Consider the two extremes: In the case of a motorway with little traffic the Highway Codes recommendations work quite well - and that's the way people tend to behave anyway. In the case of a very busy motorway (e.g. M25 or M1 at rush hour) all the lanes are full and people stay in one lane and the lanes move independently of each other (and undertaking is happening all the time). The interesting bit is the case in between these two extremes. As you gradually increase the traffic volume it rapidly becomes pointless for the faster traffic to keep ducking into the inside lane/lanes - exactly where this occurs depends on how you specify the gap you need to leave between traffic (the HC says 2 seconds but in practice no one leaves anything like that), but happens quite quickly.

Coincidentally, the policeman pointed up the main problem with cars pulling in and out of the inside lane when he said that, if a car was going to block him in when he was driving at 70mph in the inside lane, he would pull out - "who cares if he has to slow down - he's speeding anyway" was the gist of what he said. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that causes traffic jams, and can also cause accidents. What happens is that the driver has to slow down causing those behind him to also slow down. One of the queue of traffic behind this driver will then pull out into the outside lane and cause someone to have to slow down in that lane also. What happens after that is quite interesting to watch on models. You end up with all lanes slowing down and this wave on congestion tends to build up (depending on the traffic density) and a wave of congestion then tends to flow backwards down the motorway for miles - potentially causing traffic to come to a complete halt.

Policemen may know the law, but they know nothing about traffic flow. It would be far better for this guy to stick in the middle lane rather than cause people to have to make sudden changes of speed.


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

Pale Rider said:


> Policemen may know the law, but they know nothing about traffic flow. It would be far better for this guy to stick in the middle lane rather than cause people to have to make sudden changes of speed.


Are you seriously suggesting that traffic officers (police, not the plastic coppers we see a lot of on our motorways nowadays), don't know anything about traffic flow? They deal with it everyday, of course they know about traffic flow.

And I would suggest that everyone who drives with the same attitude as you, and stay in the middle or outside lanes when it's perfectly safe to pull over into the inside lane, are the ones causing the congestion, not the sensible people who pull over as they are supposed to.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider said:


> However, my main argument is that attempting to force all traffic into the inside lane is not a sensible use of a 3 lane motorway.


Unbelievable!

How the hell can you be saying that the new regulation is forcing all traffic into the inside lane? The RTO is


> unnecessarily remaining in an overtaking lane


If there is enough room in a lane left to the one you are driving in move into that space. That's all it says.


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

A3DFU said:


> Pale Rider said:
> 
> 
> > However, my main argument is that attempting to force all traffic into the inside lane is not a sensible use of a 3 lane motorway.
> ...


Dani, I think we're all wasting our breath, he obviously isn't going to see anyone's argument other than his own.

In spite of the fact that he is the only person taking this stance, he sticks blindly to his belief that he is correct and the rest of us are all wrong. Save your breath.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> I was simply pointing out that there is no mention of lane discipline in the existing laws for careless driving. The only mention of it is in the CPS guidance notes and it comes under the "Driving without reasonable consideration" section, which involves offences that are subjective - i.e. there isn't any black and white standard that can be laid down, such as there is in the case of tail-gating. In these cases the police have to prove that someone was inconvenienced by the defendant's behaviour which is going to be very difficult in the case of someone driving at 70mph in the middle lane. This is obviously why the police are saying that the offence is unenforceable. The police can try to hand out an FPN but if the driver refuses to accept it, the CPS won't bother to prosecute. So it's basically a bluff - a typical politician's fudge.


There's no mention of ANY specific situations in the laws for careless driving (or for inconsiderate driving, for that matter). It's a catch-all for anything which falls below the standard we can reasonably expect from a careful and considerate driver. The guidance I linked to was written before the new penalties were made available though, but it's clear that the new guidance will be to prosecute middle lane hogs for careless driving, so your point about proving someone was inconvenienced are irrelevant.



Pale Rider said:


> However, my main argument is that attempting to force all traffic into the inside lane is not a sensible use of a 3 lane motorway. Basically the optimal use of the motorway is entirely dependent on the amount of traffic - and you can see this on various flow modelling programs.


I can see it where, exactly? You can't suddenly claim that you've had scientific evidence all along without giving us some links to it. I'm genuinely interested because, tragically, I find that stuff fascinating.



Pale Rider said:


> Consider the two extremes: In the case of a motorway with little traffic the Highway Codes recommendations work quite well - and that's the way people tend to behave anyway. In the case of a very busy motorway (e.g. M25 or M1 at rush hour) all the lanes are full and people stay in one lane and the lanes move independently of each other (and undertaking is happening all the time). The interesting bit is the case in between these two extremes. As you gradually increase the traffic volume it rapidly becomes pointless for the faster traffic to keep ducking into the inside lane/lanes - exactly where this occurs depends on how you specify the gap you need to leave between traffic (the HC says 2 seconds but in practice no one leaves anything like that), but happens quite quickly.


Why does it 'rapidly become pointless'? You can't just make a statement like that without backing it up. What you're still not addressing is the fundamental point that large gaps are 'wasted' space, and therefore less cars can fit on the motorway while those gaps exist. If enough people drive like you (and you're advocating everyone do it, remember, because you're saying it's common sense and safer) then you ensure that in all but the most overcrowded conditions, large gaps will exist on the inside lane.



Pale Rider said:


> Coincidentally, the policeman pointed up the main problem with cars pulling in and out of the inside lane when he said that, if a car was going to block him in when he was driving at 70mph in the inside lane, he would pull out - "who cares if he has to slow down - he's speeding anyway" was the gist of what he said. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that causes traffic jams, and can also cause accidents. What happens is that the driver has to slow down causing those behind him to also slow down. One of the queue of traffic behind this driver will then pull out into the outside lane and cause someone to have to slow down in that lane also. What happens after that is quite interesting to watch on models. You end up with all lanes slowing down and this wave on congestion tends to build up (depending on the traffic density) and a wave of congestion then tends to flow backwards down the motorway for miles - potentially causing traffic to come to a complete halt.


Don't you mean 'alleged Policeman'? This is not what causes jams or accidents. Drivers should be able to regulate their speed based on what is happening around them without using their brakes. Were I driving along in the middle lane and Mark pulled out ahead because he wanted to overtake, but at a lower speed than me, it would be up to me to recognise this well in advance (and I'd have plenty of time because Mark would have pulled out a safe and considerate distance ahead of me) and ease off the accelerator. The car behind me would ease off too slightly (but less than me, because the sensible gap they left acts as a buffer) and the car behind that may not even have to slow down at all, because Mark will pull back in to the left lane and we'll all carry on our merry way.

Following your logic though, Mark would never have been in the left lane in the first place. He'd be driving along in the middle lane regardless of gaps in the left lane and we'd all have to move out to overtake, one after the other, to go round him. As I've said, your method doesn't reduce lane changes, it just reduces *your* lane changes. All the other ones have to happen to go round you.



Pale Rider said:


> Policemen may know the law, but they know nothing about traffic flow. It would be far better for this guy to stick in the middle lane rather than cause people to have to make sudden changes of speed.


Can I ask what you do for a living?


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Oh dear oh dear - I really can't believe this thread.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pulling out in front of a car in the outside lane which is obviously speeding as long as you signal your intentions and do so in good time leaving enough room for the speeding vehicle to brake - not leaving sufficient distance would be obviously dangerous and downright foolhardy.

Moving over for a vehicle which is obviously speeding is not encouraging a speeding offence - it's not your job to police the motorway and people who steadfastly sit in the outside lane at 70 mph are an absolute menace, just causing frustration and anger for drivers behind. Pull over and let them pass - it's their decision and their licence if they get caught. I don't think Mark was talking about pulling over for speeders in a marked police car!


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

igotone said:


> There is absolutely nothing wrong with pulling out in front of a car in the outside lane which is obviously speeding as long as you signal your intentions and do so in good time leaving enough room for the speeding vehicle to brake - not leaving sufficient distance would be obviously dangerous and downright foolhardy.


Personally, I think if you cause them to brake, you shouldn't have pulled out. Obviously if they choose to maintain their speed and wait till the last second, you can't help that, but you should only pull out if you leave enough space for them to match your speed without braking. If you can't do that, wait for them to pass before looking to pull out.

Braking on the motorway is a pet hate of mine. It (combined with insufficient gaps between vehicles) is what causes traffic jams - particularly those 'shockwave' jams that propagate backwards up the motorway. The ones that you eventually get to the other side of and can't see what could have caused it.

Brakes are for stopping. The accelerator is for speeding up and slowing down.


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Pale Rider, let's just clarify a few things.

Firstly you will remember I said instances where I'm likely to be blocked in by someone creeping past me are not common - in particular I suggested 2 or 3 times in a 300 mile journey. So when I'm talking about pulling out ahead of someone and potentially holding them up to do it I'm not talking about affecting anyone other than that individual car, and as briefly as possible - exactly as Spandex has described above. You however are talking about almost permanently remaining in lane 2 and saying as you're doing at least 70 mph you can't possibly be deemed to be causing inconvenience to anyone unless they are attempting to break the speed limit.

Well, let's educate you in matters of 'traffic flow'. Been through one of those motorway tailbacks where you've been sat in a great long queue for an hour and then get to the end of it and there's absolutely nothing there? Ever wondered how they come about? They are created by a cumulative braking effect. Someone at the front brakes a little, causing the person behind to brake too, but they brake a little bit more. The person behind them brakes more than the one ahead and so on and so on until people quarter of a mile behind have to come to a standstill. Before you know it there's a two mile tailback. And why does the person at the front need to brake when there's no accident or anything else there? Well of course it is because they can no longer make progress at the speed they were at because the lanes are all full, and as often as not they are full unnecessarily because people won't pull over to the nearside lanes when they are able to do so!

So if you are sat there doing your 79mph convinced that you cannot possibly be causing inconvenience to anybody but those trying to break the law you are quite wrong - you are causing immense inconvenience to those 2 miles behind you who far from speeding are in fact stood still on the motorway - but are there because your behaviour is making other motorists brake to line up in the queue to get past you in lane 3.

Too many people fail to appreciate that when they are on the road they are not individuals - they are part of a complex and living system and that their individual behaviour has an impact in some way on almost everyone around them. The only way to minimise the impact is to follow all the rules which are designed for the safety and convenience of everyone, making as much progress as safety and the law allow - but instead all too often people are selfishly only thinking about themselves.

Secondly you are right, as a law it is virtually unenforceable - but again that has nothing whatsoever to do with any failing of the law itself. It is simply because budget cuts have forced the police to almost entirely withdraw from roads policing in order to concentrate their dwindling resources on crime and other matters. That's why you hardly ever see motorway police patrols any more and if there's nobody there to observe lane hogging then there's nobody to give you a ticket, and of course the HATOs currently don't have any powers to issue FPNs. But I'm sure that will come before long.

Finally, let's get to the dangers of lane changing. Yes, accidents do occur when people change lanes and do it badly. But *you* are making the argument that you want to minimise the amount of lane changing *you* do, because it is risky. The point I am making is that there is no risk in lane changing if done properly - it is perfectly easy to change lanes in absolute safety. If however *you* think *you* can't do it without presenting an increased risk to yourself and others then you're probably right, you shouldn't be doing it - in fact you shouldn't really be on the road at all. But as I presume you're not actually advocating that you are an unsafe driver, as I said initially, it makes your argument senseless. Anyone who claims to be a safe driver _cannot_ then claim they should minimise lane changing on the grounds of safety. If you are safe then you are safe, and that encompasses changing lanes on a motorway - it's as simple as that. I'm perfectly confident that I can change lanes on a motorway all day long without presenting any risk to anybody. Aren't you?


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

John, as I understand it you are right about being able to pass traffic using a nearside lane but the Highway Code specifies that this is acceptable in circumstances of 'slow moving traffic'. Whether that means passing any car slower than you is debatable but as always these things are open to interpretation by the court. Certainly you shouldn't be changing lanes to do it as the same section of the Code also says you should stay in lane in those traffic conditions. So, if you're doing 80mph and see someone in lane 3 ahead of you travelling at 70mph and you are in lane 2 can you simply pass them staying in lane 2? Well as we have already seen, undertaking is not specifically an offence, so the offence in question would be inconsiderate driving or driving without due care - the yardstick for which is what a reasonable person would do and generally the courts would refer to the Highway Code to determine that. As the Code states circumstances where this is permissible and so doesn't specifically prohibit it I would suggest that as long as it is done safely and with care you would be unlikely to commit an offence - apart from speeding, of course!

I do it only rarely, generally only where it appears to be someone deliberately 'planted' in lane 3 and where there is plenty of room around them - ideally where I can pass in lane 1. You need to be careful that they're not just being dozy and are in lane 3 only because they are not concentrating. The danger is they suddenly realise where they are and pull over without properly checking their nearside mirror, not expecting anyone to be there. It's always better to try and pass where people expect it, to their offside.

This also applies in those circumstances where there is a long queue in lane 3, backed-up waiting to get through the restriction caused by lanes 1 and 2 being blocked by slower traffic. Yes, the Code allows you to progress in lane 2, passing the slower traffic in lane 3. But it needs to be done with some caution as people are always liable to pull out of lane 3 to make better progress in lane 2 (which would potentially be an offence on their part).


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Spandex said:


> Personally, I think if you cause them to brake, you shouldn't have pulled out. Obviously if they choose to maintain their speed and wait till the last second, you can't help that, but you should only pull out if you leave enough space for them to match your speed without braking. If you can't do that, wait for them to pass before looking to pull out.


Obviously before you pull out you'll have taken into consideration the distance away of the speeding vehicle and it's estimated speed. As long as you're not causing violent braking on the part of the other driver it's a perfectly acceptable manoeuvre and certainly not at odds with the motorway driving instruction I received. It's a judgement call involving a little common sense.



> Braking on the motorway is a pet hate of mine. It (combined with insufficient gaps between vehicles) is what causes traffic jams - particularly those 'shockwave' jams that propagate backwards up the motorway. The ones that you eventually get to the other side of and can't see what could have caused it.


It may be a pet hate of yours, but that doesn't make you right. I'll dab my brakes repeatedly - usually as a warning to the tool behind who's about 4 feet off my back bumper - that I'm about to slow down. If you'd dealt with some of the horrendous multiple pile ups we get on our motorways you would too.



> Brakes are for stopping. The accelerator is for speeding up and slowing down.


Come on mate -we've all heard that one, it isn't carved in stone.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Ok Pale Rider, I don't have time for extensive searching right now, but I did find a BBC article about the effect of 'middle lane hogging'. Now, I don't trust a random BBC journalist to know anything about traffic flow, but they do have quotes from Benjamin Heydecker, professor of transport studies at University College London, where he explains that middle lane hogging increases congestion (not by as much as some claim, admittedly). He also says that they force unnecessary lane changes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22784983


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> Pale Rider, let's just clarify a few things.
> 
> Firstly you will remember I said instances where I'm likely to be blocked in by someone creeping past me are not common - in particular I suggested 2 or 3 times in a 300 mile journey. So when I'm talking about pulling out ahead of someone and potentially holding them up to do it I'm not talking about affecting anyone other than that individual car, and as briefly as possible - exactly as Spandex has described above. You however are talking about almost permanently remaining in lane 2 and saying as you're doing at least 70 mph you can't possibly be deemed to be causing inconvenience to anyone unless they are attempting to break the speed limit.
> 
> ...


Mark, a very well written, reasoned argument which makes a lot of sense, even to someone as "fick" as me.

Let's see how our esteemed fellow forumer tries to pick holes in your logic.


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

It's fair to say that PaleRider isn't going to change his ways, he's clearly been driving for years longer than the rest of us and knows best due to his large and varied experiance..

MOD EDIT: Image removed

At the end of the day we all know his sort, he is the exact target of this FPN/Political issue but refuses to see what/where he is going wrong..


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

igotone said:


> It may be a pet hate of yours, but that doesn't make you right. I'll dab my brakes repeatedly - usually as a warning to the tool behind who's about 4 feet off my back bumper - that I'm about to slow down. If you'd dealt with some of the horrendous multiple pile ups we get on our motorways you would too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What you do when someone tailgates you isn't the point. That's an exceptional circumstance.

The point is, braking combined with insufficient gaps is what causes the shockwave traffic jams that increase in severity as they move backwards. The person braking at the front will have no idea what they've caused, because the effects increase as they move back up the motorway. In their rear view mirror, they can just see minor speed changes in the cars behind them (reasonable braking, they probably think), but a few minutes later and a mile or so back up the motorway, people end up braking excessively hard.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Spandex said:


> What you do when someone tailgates you isn't the point. That's an exceptional circumstance.


You must drive on different motorways to me - I find tailgating pretty much endemic.



> The point is, braking combined with insufficient gaps is what causes the shockwave traffic jams that increase in severity as they move backwards. The person braking at the front will have no idea what they've caused, because the effects increase as they move back up the motorway. In their rear view mirror, they can just see minor speed changes in the cars behind them (reasonable braking, they probably think), but a few minutes later and a mile or so back up the motorway, people end up braking excessively hard.


I've got no argument with that but the problem is caused by the tailgater initially. We've gone way off the original topic, but tailgating is certainly the most prevalent and potentially dangerous example of bad motorway driving.


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Oh lets not get started on tailgaters ffs, PaleRider will join in and say he tailgates to stop people pulling out into a gap thats not big enough and that he does it to stop them pulling out and then braking hard having just moved out into his "braking distance gap" or some random crap like that :lol:


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

Trig said:


> Oh lets not get started on tailgaters ffs, PaleRider will join in and say he tailgates to stop people pulling out into a gap thats not big enough and that he does it to stop them pulling out and then braking hard having just moved out into his "braking distance gap" or some random crap like that :lol:


 :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

The way to deal with tailgaters is simply to let them past. I think Spandex is also right on this one - the ubiquitous 'brake test' of showing some brake lights is not going to resolve the problem. It just raises blood pressure, has the potential to precipitate an accident and will generally result in the sort of tailbacks we have described.

As someone said earlier, it's not the job of the individual driver to police the roads. Attempts to do so almost always only increase the danger to everyone in the vicinity. Let people get on with whatever they are doing and if they are being dangerous just get out of the way and allow them to put as much space between you and them as possible.

Agreed, when on a busy motorway you may not always have the option to readily pull over if the lane to your nearside is busy, but even so you should try and do it as soon as you safely can and in the meantime slowly reduce your speed and increase the gap between you and the car in front so that you can minimise your need to brake hard, which would result inevitably in a rear-end shunt by the moron behind you. And yes, that may well mean someone from the middle lane pulls out ahead of you, but then that also leaves you the gap to pull into yourself, allowing the moron to pass. He's now the problem of the person who pulled out in front of you and perhaps they deserve to have to deal with him. Once he's passed you can pull out again and help everyone else by keeping a sensible distance behind him.

Okay, you can say that you're assisting someone to drive badly, but the important thing is you're getting home alive and so are the people who were around you. It may well be he goes on to kill himself further down the road, but that's his fault. There's nothing you can do to prevent it. He's a moron - you can't change that - and he will just force his way past you one way or another regardless of what you do. So the sensible option is to just let him go. It doesn't have to be an affront to your masculinity - it's not a war.


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Assisting someone to drive badly is the flip side of getting out of some cocknuggets way though as I see it.
Sometimes letting them go be a cock elsewhere is the best cause of action.


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

Trig said:


> It's fair to say that PaleRider isn't going to change his ways, he's clearly been driving for years longer than the rest of us and knows best due to his large and varied experiance..
> 
> MOD EDIT: Image removed
> 
> At the end of the day we all know his sort, he is the exact target of this FPN/Political issue but refuses to see what/where he is going wrong..


As the father of a disabled daughter I find this picture far more offensive than anything pale rider has said. 
It's disgusting and I think it should be removed from this site. 
Please think about the shite you are putting up on here


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Mark Davies said:


> John, as I understand it you are right about being able to pass traffic using a nearside lane but the Highway Code specifies that this is acceptable in circumstances of 'slow moving traffic'. Whether that means passing any car slower than you is debatable but as always these things are open to interpretation by the court. Certainly you shouldn't be changing lanes to do it as the same section of the Code also says you should stay in lane in those traffic conditions. So, if you're doing 80mph and see someone in lane 3 ahead of you travelling at 70mph and you are in lane 2 can you simply pass them staying in lane 2? Well as we have already seen, undertaking is not specifically an offence, so the offence in question would be inconsiderate driving or driving without due care - the yardstick for which is what a reasonable person would do and generally the courts would refer to the Highway Code to determine that. As the Code states circumstances where this is permissible and so doesn't specifically prohibit it I would suggest that as long as it is done safely and with care you would be unlikely to commit an offence - apart from speeding, of course!
> 
> I do it only rarely, generally only where it appears to be someone deliberately 'planted' in lane 3 and where there is plenty of room around them - ideally where I can pass in lane 1. You need to be careful that they're not just being dozy and are in lane 3 only because they are not concentrating. The danger is they suddenly realise where they are and pull over without properly checking their nearside mirror, not expecting anyone to be there. It's always better to try and pass where people expect it, to their offside.
> 
> This also applies in those circumstances where there is a long queue in lane 3, backed-up waiting to get through the restriction caused by lanes 1 and 2 being blocked by slower traffic. Yes, the Code allows you to progress in lane 2, passing the slower traffic in lane 3. But it needs to be done with some caution as people are always liable to pull out of lane 3 to make better progress in lane 2 (which would potentially be an offence on their part).


Agreed Mark. Yes it does need to be done with caution and it's usually better if possible to pass on the right because you can only change lanes to the right to overtake and indicating and moving out makes you more noticeable too. Particularly if you indicate well prior to making the move. What if the third lane is blocked or there isn't a lane to the right? It's debatable perhaps what is meant by "slow moving traffic" from one solitary middle lane hogger to a line of queuing traffic but it depends on circumstances and what's reasonable like you say. So too is attachment of blame for an accident involving these circumstances. The accident investigator gave example of a motorcycle passing on the let and being knocked off by a car changing lanes and the car driver being blamed for not checking his lane change was clear - so no longer automatic blame for passing on the left as some people still think.

Most traffic I've passed on the left has been in a queue. I've passed quite a lot of people in the third lane when I've been in the first lane too, along with the situation where the lane to my right suddenly brakes because they are too bunched up - I like my stopping distance and often there is a huge space in lane one or the left lane of a dual carriageway. I wouldn't change to lane one to go round someone but I might go into lane one, because there's space and stay there deliberately having looked ahead and seen congestion (so I choose the safer space) and if lanes two and three later brake suddenly and slow I might end up being ahead indirectly. I have passed a few single cars in the middle lane with caution when it appears safe but I'd avoid hazards where possible.

I suppose if you came across Pale Rider you'd be very safe passing on the left :wink:


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Trig said:


> MOD EDIT: Image removed


A badly chosen picture and "joke" Trig. I know a couple of lovely people with medical conditions :?

Perhaps you want to delete the picture? If so, I'll delete my quoted picture so there is no reference to it.

Ah, already done. Thanks mods!


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

Matt B said:


> Trig said:
> 
> 
> > It's fair to say that PaleRider isn't going to change his ways, he's clearly been driving for years longer than the rest of us and knows best due to his large and varied experiance..
> ...


Agree; I was dismayed to see someone post that; glad it's now been removed.


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## Matt B (Apr 8, 2007)

Thanks to the mods for swift action. Now you can all get back to the important business of arguing about lane discipline


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Mark Davies said:


> The way to deal with tailgaters is simply to let them past. I think Spandex is also right on this one - the ubiquitous 'brake test' of showing some brake lights is not going to resolve the problem. It just raises blood pressure, has the potential to precipitate an accident and will generally result in the sort of tailbacks we have described.


This is the problem with discussing these things in a vacuum and not in the real world. Just how do you let a tailgater past when you're stuck in the outside lane and there's no gap on the left?


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

igotone said:


> Mark Davies said:
> 
> 
> > The way to deal with tailgaters is simply to let them past. I think Spandex is also right on this one - the ubiquitous 'brake test' of showing some brake lights is not going to resolve the problem. It just raises blood pressure, has the potential to precipitate an accident and will generally result in the sort of tailbacks we have described.
> ...


I think Mark covered that further down:


Mark Davies said:


> Agreed, when on a busy motorway you may not always have the option to readily pull over if the lane to your nearside is busy, but even so you should try and do it as soon as you safely can and in the meantime slowly reduce your speed and increase the gap between you and the car in front so that you can minimise your need to brake hard, which would result inevitably in a rear-end shunt by the moron behind you.


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Apologies to all offended, not my intention.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

So it might be some considerable distance before i'm able to pull over and let this loon past. In the meantime I'm going to slowly reduce speed which is likely to get Mr Loon even closer on my arse content in the knowledge that if he actually does shunt me the damage is likely to be less? I don't think so!

I always leave enough room in front to be able stop if the vehicle in front pulls a full balls -out emergency stop - any lesser distance is too close. By dabbing my brake pedal just sufficient to trigger the brake lights makes me the one liable to raise blood pressures in this situation? That's just a ludicrous assertion when I know full well that even moderate braking on my part accompanied by the slightest loss of concentration on the part of the dimwit behind is going to have him in my boot at the very least . Tailgaters often do get the message and drop back a little, athough not always - that's tailgaters for you though.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

igotone said:


> So it might be some considerable distance before i'm able to pull over and let this loon past. In the meantime I'm going to slowly reduce speed which is likely to get Mr Loon even closer on my arse content in the knowledge that if he actually does shunt me the damage is likely to be less? I don't think so!
> 
> I always leave enough room in front to be able stop if the vehicle in front pulls a full balls -out emergency stop - any lesser distance is too close. By dabbing my brake pedal just sufficient to trigger the brake lights makes me the one liable to raise blood pressures in this situation? That's just a ludicrous assertion when I know full well that even moderate braking on my part accompanied by the slightest loss of concentration on the part of the dimwit behind is going to have him in my boot at the very least . Tailgaters often do get the message and drop back a little, athough not always - that's tailgaters for you though.


If someone is tailgating, they're already as close to you as they want to be (otherwise they'd be closer, right?). If you slow down gradually, they're unlikely to move even closer to you - and in my experience they don't.

Dabbing on the brakes might be fine for your blood pressure, but will surely aggravate them. Most people will take that as the equivalent of 'squaring up to them'. In their eyes, you're effectively trying to have a pop at them and a lot of people (especially the sort of idiot who drives up someones arse at 70mph) will feel like they have to have a pop back.

Not to mention the fact that by dabbing on your brakes, you're forcing them to brake (as they're too close to risk not doing so) which begins that chain reaction back up the motorway, potentially resulting in stationary traffic 2 miles back and possibly an accident.

<edit>By the way, we're not talking about dropping down to 50mph to teach them a lesson... Just reduce your speed ever so slightly to slowly build up the buffer in front of you. The gap you left originally may have been enough to allow for your reaction times and braking, but probably isn't enough now you have to allow for the idiot behinds reaction times too.


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## Dave v (Jul 21, 2013)

Trig said:


> Apologies to all offended, not my intention.


Top man for publicly apologising, that's not meant to be patronising btw.


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Dave v said:


> Trig said:
> 
> 
> > Apologies to all offended, not my intention.
> ...


Hey if I offend people here or in RL I have no issues putting my hand up chap, one of the things that makes me so awesome :lol:


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## Dave v (Jul 21, 2013)

Trig said:


> Dave v said:
> 
> 
> > Trig said:
> ...


Bang on dude, shit happens and we're all guilty at times.

As for being awesome, don't know about that- been listening to your parents to much! :lol:


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> Ok Pale Rider, I don't have time for extensive searching right now, but I did find a BBC article about the effect of 'middle lane hogging'. Now, I don't trust a random BBC journalist to know anything about traffic flow, but they do have quotes from Benjamin Heydecker, professor of transport studies at University College London, where he explains that middle lane hogging increases congestion (not by as much as some claim, admittedly). He also says that they force unnecessary lane changes.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22784983


What he actually says is:

"_But the extent to which lane hoggers cause congestion is controversial. Benjamin Heydecker, professor of transport studies at University College London, has looked at the impact of hoggers on congestion. "We expected to find a big reduction in capacity. But the answer was surprisingly small.

People who say that middle-lane hoggers cut carrying capacity by a third are wrong, he says.

It may be that they're looking at a three-lane motorway and assuming that the middle lane is out of action. That would be true if the lane hoggers were stationary. But they are still moving relatively fast.

They [the hoggers] are moving, so if the traffic is concentrating behind them you still have flow._"

It would be good to know how he modelled this. The interesting bit, which gives a clue, is the final sentence where he talks about "traffic concentrating behind them (the hogger)". It's one of the more obvious facts about traffic flow that a motorway can usually handle more traffic (and therefore reduce congestion) if the traffic moves faster - the less time that each car spends on the motorway the less congestion. So I'm guessing that he's assuming that the "middle lane hogger" is holding up traffic. In this case it will increase congestion, but my case has always been that driving down the middle lane at the legal limit (or more) only inconveniences those who are breaking the law.

Of course, if the intention is to reduce congestion, the best way of enabling a motorway to carry more traffic is to increase the speed limits. However this only works if there are no significant bottlenecks - such as the exit/entry points to motorways. Often these are the main determinants of the maximum flow on a motorway and the behaviour of the motorists, within reason, makes little difference. It's a bit like computers - I spent many years working as a contract programmer until I decided trading was more profitable - where people often think that they can speed up a process by getting a faster computer, only to find that it makes no difference because the limiting factor is something else, like I/O.


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Dave v said:


> Bang on dude, shit happens and we're all guilty at times.
> 
> As for being awesome, don't know about that- been listening to your parents to much! :lol:


No, I never listen to my parents, 36 now so that ship sailed a long time ago :lol:


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> What he actually says is:
> 
> "_But the extent to which lane hoggers cause congestion is controversial. Benjamin Heydecker, professor of transport studies at University College London, has looked at the impact of hoggers on congestion. "We expected to find a big reduction in capacity. But the answer was surprisingly small.
> 
> ...


Yes, I know that's what he said. It's in the article I linked to. It seems to back up what we're saying and completely disagree with what you're saying. Unless of course you want to make up stuff about how he came to his conclusions, then dismiss them based on that made up stuff...


Pale Rider said:


> It would be good to know how he modelled this. The interesting bit, which gives a clue, is the final sentence where he talks about "traffic concentrating behind them (the hogger)". It's one of the more obvious facts about traffic flow that a motorway can usually handle more traffic (and therefore reduce congestion) if the traffic moves faster - the less time that each car spends on the motorway the less congestion. So I'm guessing that he's assuming that the "middle lane hogger" is holding up traffic. In this case it will increase congestion, but my case has always been that driving down the middle lane at the legal limit (or more) only inconveniences those who are breaking the law.


Ah yes, of course that's what you want to do. No matter what is put in front of you, you simply disagree with it, but so far have failed to present anything in the way of evidence (other than your own opinion) yourself. When faced with quotes from a subject matter expert, you just make assumptions about how he came to his conclusions, then dismiss his argument based on those assumptions.

So,out of interest, is there any evidence we can present to you that you won't simply dismiss?


Pale Rider said:


> Of course, if the intention is to reduce congestion, the best way of enabling a motorway to carry more traffic is to increase the speed limits. However this only works if there are no significant bottlenecks - such as the exit/entry points to motorways. Often these are the main determinants of the maximum flow on a motorway and the behaviour of the motorists, within reason, makes little difference. It's a bit like computers - I spent many years working as a contract programmer until I decided trading was more profitable - where people often think that they can speed up a process by getting a faster computer, only to find that it makes no difference because the limiting factor is something else, like I/O.


You're trying to distract from the point. There may well be any number of things that would reduce congestion, but this isn't a hypothetical question. The speed limit *is* 70mph and middle lane hogging *increases* congestion. So, it makes sense not to do it, right?

You said earlier that Policemen don't know anything about traffic flow... Are traders well known for their motorway traffic flow knowledge? :wink:


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## Danny1 (Sep 2, 2010)

10 pages of this cr*p hahahaha,

Just stay left when possible and you wont get pulled, the law is there so adhere to it or risk getting a ticket simples,

P.S. Get something better to do with your spare time guys, this is getting a little silly


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

I look forward to what funny things Pale Rider is going to say next. Don't spoil the comedy roll :lol:


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## JNmercury00 (May 22, 2007)

You guys that are still trying to convince pale rider are fools plain and simple. Keep going and you might win the special Olympics :roll:


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

so whose fault is it that these " pale riders " have been getting away with disrupting our highways with their inconsiderate , dangerous, and ok, maybe ignorant behavour for so long when everybody else knows that theirs is not the way to do things,,, who has had the ability to do anything about it,, sure " we " motorists can try to educate these baffons by some small measures, like for example , when overtaking a " pale rider " sitting at 79 in the middle lane we can then move into the correct left lane in front of them , hopefully to show by example that that is where they should be,, or just , as is done in some other " less developed " countries just give them a good old blast of the horn,, but no,,they wont learn or listen,,, so who then could or should have taken up the batton and tried to help the situation,,, as i asked in an earlier post, not surprisingly there were no responses,,, who has ever heard of any one being " spoken to " by the loooong arm of the plod,, no one,, so why not,, why have they never done anything,, they are keen enough to pull over anyone who is " bold " enough to take the enitiative and clear a little space for them selves , but no, never pull the person who is causing the hold ups,, but if you speed up or change lanes to get round the " pale rider " then hey ho they will have you !!!!!!!!!!!


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## peter-ss (Sep 3, 2008)

A3DFU said:


> Years ago I listened to a radio program that picked up the exact same topic only that the driver told the reporter that he would happily drive at 70 mph in the outside lane even when there were loads of cars behind him and the inside lane was empty. He carried on that this was perfectly fine and legal because he was driving at the national speed limit.


I wonder if that person now drives a silver Golf?


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

:lol: :lol: :lol: Exactly Peter!

People like that would be sooooo poor in Germany because they simply wouldn't get away with that sort of nonsense! About time things change in this country but as Mark said, the police hasn't got the financial resources to enforce the traffic law.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

A beautiful and touching video Peter, especially with the gentle soundtrack. Lovely to think that despite the pressures of modern day life, some people are still able to switch off and drift into their own lovely universe without a care in the world ... for anyone but themselves :roll:

Now this is true: A few years back I was driving up a quiet M56 and came across a Pale Rider in the middle lane. This was at a time when I didn't know much better and presumed I would have to go round him. The thing was I had a police Range Rover some distance behind me also in lane one. So I made it very obvious to make a point, by slowing down in lane one as I came up to him, Indicated and changed to lane two, indicated and changed to lane three, moved past and clear,indicated left, changed to lane two, then lane one etc.

I waited to see what happened and saw the police Range Rover also slow and indicate then pull behind him in lane two just as I had done but instead of continuing round the obstruction he waited ... and waited ,,, and waited. Nothing happened... for a good few seconds. The driver was obviously oblivious or thought nothing of it. After a good deal of patience the police Range Rover let rip - all wailing srirens blasting out and lit up like a Christmas tree!

The car, which was a Fiesta, visibly shook in shock as the guy presumably woke up with a start then quickly moved over out of the way .... folowed by the police Range Rover, now pulling him over to have a word. Result! :lol:

P,S, I won't tell you about the guy in a Trilby in the middle lane who for a laugh I overtook then slowed to let him overtake me and ended up circling round him three times in a similar manner with careful indication and positioning etc before more traffic came up and put an end to my nonsense. He was also oblivious under his hat.


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Lets hope this will become the norm now; I mean that bad driving results in police officers have words with the bad driver


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

mmmmm,, interesting,,, i wonder how much it cost the taxpayer for them to do that,,, apparently , according to some,, they cant afford to do that any more, due to something,, i am not quite sure what !!! [smiley=bigcry.gif] 
i wonder how many more, if any, of these stories come out of the woodwork now...


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

JNmercury00 said:


> You guys that are still trying to convince pale rider are fools plain and simple. Keep going and you might win the special Olympics :roll:


I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say about the 'special Olympics'. If I hand you a shovel, would you like to elaborate?


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Roddy is quite right here. The enforced withdrawal of the police from traffic management is sadly lamentable. You would be shocked to find out just how few police officers are now engaged in traffic operations given that in 2012 there were 1754 deaths on our roads compared with 550 murders. But of course we drivers are _always_ criticising the police for picking on the 'law abiding motorist' instead of going after 'proper criminals'. Well, you get what you ask for.

There won't be anybody out there to enforce this law - but that's your fault because you're always telling the police you'd rather we went after criminals instead. With ever-diminishing budgets we have no choice but to concentrate on what the public tell us they'd prefer us to be doing - so that's what we're doing. The result is that when you're out on the roads you're pretty much on your own.

Good luck.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

It's only a matter of time before Highways. Agency guys get increased powers and that will be the end of police traffic patrols altogether. Yet another nail in the coffin of the police service. They can't even justify it on the grounds that resources are being employed elsewhere as the cuts in services are affecting all areas.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

I've been seeing quite a few unmarked police cars though Mark although perhaps not as many marked.


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## JNmercury00 (May 22, 2007)

Spandex said:


> JNmercury00 said:
> 
> 
> > You guys that are still trying to convince pale rider are fools plain and simple. Keep going and you might win the special Olympics :roll:
> ...


Just let it go man! You can't make everyone see your view so don't waste your time. I learnt that a long time ago.


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

I love how the forum name of the OP has now become a verb "doing a Pale Rider", brilliant. :lol:


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> Roddy is quite right here. The enforced withdrawal of the police from traffic management is sadly lamentable. You would be shocked to find out just how few police officers are now engaged in traffic operations given that in 2012 there were 1754 deaths on our roads compared with 550 murders. But of course we drivers are _always_ criticising the police for picking on the 'law abiding motorist' instead of going after 'proper criminals'. Well, you get what you ask for.
> 
> There won't be anybody out there to enforce this law - but that's your fault because you're always telling the police you'd rather we went after criminals instead. With ever-diminishing budgets we have no choice but to concentrate on what the public tell us they'd prefer us to be doing - so that's what we're doing. The result is that when you're out on the roads you're pretty much on your own.
> 
> Good luck.


Whilst I understand what you're saying Mark, and I agree that you have a genuine gripe, I think the public would want the Police to have the resources to be able to do their job properly, including traffic policing.

Also, it's not the fault of the public that your resources are diminishing. I'm not politically motivated whatsoever so I'm not having a go at any particular political party but, the only thing I know is I'm paying more tax than ever and yet receiving much less from the government in return.

Mark


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> You're trying to distract from the point. There may well be any number of things that would reduce congestion, but this isn't a hypothetical question. The speed limit *is* 70mph and middle lane hogging *increases* congestion. So, it makes sense not to do it, right?


No, you missed the point. Driving down a motorway in the middle lane (or even the outside lane) at 70 mph does *not* increase congestion - UNLESS the modeller allows the traffic to travel at MORE than 70mph. In this case the lane hogger slows down traffic - and the guy you quoted actually stated that the cause of the increased congestion was traffic "building up behind the hogger". So he's assuming that the traffic would be going faster than the lane hog.

If you run the model on the assumption that no one can break the 70mph limit and that the lane hog is traveling at 70mph there is *no way* that this can increase congestion. And if his model says different he needs to debug it.



Spandex said:


> You said earlier that Policemen don't know anything about traffic flow... Are traders well known for their motorway traffic flow knowledge? :wink:


In the many years I spent contract programming I worked on a lot of different things - including many modelling programs. I also spent 3 years working for the police on their IT which was amusing - there are some interesting tales to tell about that. There a quite a few parallels between computer theory and traffic management theory - a computer system and a traffic system are very similar in many ways. And I don't think yer average cop would be able to discuss queueing theory for many seconds.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > You're trying to distract from the point. There may well be any number of things that would reduce congestion, but this isn't a hypothetical question. The speed limit *is* 70mph and middle lane hogging *increases* congestion. So, it makes sense not to do it, right?
> ...


Isn't that a somewhat specious argument to support your case that you are not causing congestion? Or are you now trying to show that lane hogging causes congestion. By your own arguments you are showing that in reality (as opposed to over simplistic modelling) if traffic is tailing you at the same speed and you don't move over you are hogging the overtaking lane and slowing their progress i.e. congestion QED. :roll:


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > You're trying to distract from the point. There may well be any number of things that would reduce congestion, but this isn't a hypothetical question. The speed limit *is* 70mph and middle lane hogging *increases* congestion. So, it makes sense not to do it, right?
> ...


Yawn [smiley=zzz.gif]


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> The enforced withdrawal of the police from traffic management is sadly lamentable. You would be shocked to find out just how few police officers are now engaged in traffic operations given that in 2012 there were 1754 deaths on our roads compared with 550 murders. But of course we drivers are _always_ criticising the police for picking on the 'law abiding motorist' instead of going after 'proper criminals'. Well, you get what you ask for.


No we don't.

The police have turned into a political - and politically correct - organisation that is afraid to tackle real crime. I recall the recent case where some "travellers" towed their caravans onto a village cricket ground. When one of the villagers phoned the police to tell them about the "gypsies" she was given a long lecture on how to refer to ethnic minorities. When they were finally evicted weeks later they had trashed the cricket ground (and the local pub), threatened several villagers with death and destroyed a mower. How many arrests were there? None.

What about the recent case of David Hunt who was/is well-known by the police for various criminal activities but regarded as "too dangerous" to investigate. When the Sunday Times investigated him and wrote an article about his activities, Hunt sued them for defamation of character. You'd think that the Met might have helped the ST in their defence but they were too scared to do this and actually tried to hinder their defence.

There are hundreds of cases like this, but let's try something that happened to me. Someone hacked into my ebay account and advertised several stolen cars. He gave his email and phone number. I contacted the police thinking that they might be interested - how naïve was that. Couldn't give a toss - "tell ebay, sir", "I have but I thought you might want to go and have a look at the cars", "That's down to ebay, sir".

Someone cloned a credit card of mine and spent £1500 on it. I contacted the credit card company and they refunded the money, but they weren't interested in investigating it - "Not worth it for £1500". So I phoned the police and pointed out that I'd only used this card once and it was at a local Chinese restaurant, who took the card away briefly. "Not our job, sir. Tell the card company".

A friend of mine had his ipad stolen. It had a tracker on it so he worked out where it was and told the police - foolishly thinking that they might be interested in retrieving it. Again, they weren't interested.

The biggest laugh of all is the police claims that crime is falling. Well of course it would be falling. If you decide that most of cyber crime is "not your business" and that various criminals and vandals are too dangerous or difficult to deal with, then that's not surprising.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> Isn't that a somewhat specious argument to support your case


No, it's factually correct.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

hahahha, nice one " pale rider ",, maybe that will waken up some of those who are finding this thread a little boring and are dozing off !!! :lol: i know some will think that you are deviating from the o p , but others have been very willing to discuss the police involment and attitude .


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> No, you missed the point. Driving down a motorway in the middle lane (or even the outside lane) at 70 mph does *not* increase congestion - UNLESS the modeller allows the traffic to travel at MORE than 70mph. In this case the lane hogger slows down traffic - and the guy you quoted actually stated that the cause of the increased congestion was traffic "building up behind the hogger". So he's assuming that the traffic would be going faster than the lane hog.
> 
> If you run the model on the assumption that no one can break the 70mph limit and that the lane hog is traveling at 70mph there is *no way* that this can increase congestion. And if his model says different he needs to debug it.


So, let me get this straight... Your whole point is that your middle lane hogging doesn't cause congestion on motorways *as long as no one else goes above 70mph??* Is that a description that you think accurately describes UK motorways?? Perhaps we can agree that in a very specific hypothetical scenario, middle lane hogging makes no difference, but in the real world where people drive at all different speeds (including speeds above 70mph) it causes congestion. So don't do it.



Pale Rider said:


> In the many years I spent contract programming I worked on a lot of different things - including many modelling programs. I also spent 3 years working for the police on their IT which was amusing - there are some interesting tales to tell about that. There a quite a few parallels between computer theory and traffic management theory - a computer system and a traffic system are very similar in many ways. And I don't think yer average cop would be able to discuss queueing theory for many seconds.


Fortunately, I've spent the last 15+ years working on digital broadcast systems and have a pretty good understanding of data transmission from both a hardware and software perspective, and one thing that's obvious is that it has very few similarities with road traffic flow modelling. In fact, the only way you can draw parallels is by doing your trick of imagining a hypothetical motorway where everyone stays in lane and no one want's to go faster than a set speed.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

well spandy,, that aparently is the best way to do it, on heavily congested roads,,( not the case for less congested ones ) IF we are all prepared to sit like clones all traveling at the same speed,, i presume the lowest common denominator will be adopted [smiley=bomb.gif]
ps,, maybe that is just because we have so many " pale riders " clogging them up. [smiley=bigcry.gif]


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Your argument about the congestion is quite obviously specious, as John says, because it is based entirely on an assumption that nobody drives at over 70 mph - which of course has nothing to do with reality.

It was never going to be long before this turned into a pop at the police! It's a typical reaction from people when it is clear they are losing an argument and want to divert the debate to something else. I'm not going to make much specific comment about all the matters you rant about except that as ever it looks like a complaint of police inaction based on a lack of understanding of criminal law or police powers. I'll take your personal examples though, to illustrate.

The eBay thing? Okay, would you expect the police in Manchester to investigate an offence committed in London, or perhaps would it be best for the Met police to do that? Yes, of course it would. But where is internet crime committed? Someone hacks into your account - is the crime committed in your house? Not really, so should your local force be the ones to investigate? Perhaps not. So is it committed from the location of the offender's computer? Well that makes more sense, doesn't it? But who knows where that is? Yes - eBay! Which is why the police have a national policy regarding internet crime and the determination of which force is responsible to investigate this, and part of that process in this case is directing you to inform eBay so that they look into it, use the ISP data available to them so that the location of the offender can be traced and then the information regarding the sale of stolen vehicles can be directed to the correct force - none of which need involve you at all once you've raised it with eBay. It actually has nothing to do with you personally, after all. So just because the police told you to report it to eBay does not mean they were 'not interested' - if you had done what you'd been asked to do it would have been investigated, but I'm guessing you just presumed you were right and the cops were wrong and didn't do what they asked. But if you did, it probably was investigated and you'd still know nothing more about it.

Your cloned credit credit? Well the card belongs to the card company, not you. It's their card that was cloned. You didn't lose any money - the company covered the £1500 spent. So who is the victim of the crime? Yes, the card company - not you. So yes, it is they who make a complaint of crime, not you and we can't prosecute a crime without the support of a complaint from the victim. It's not that we're 'not interested' - it is simply that the limits of the law within which we are required to operate don't allow us to take action.

The iPad tracker? Great idea in theory - in practice they are not accurate enough to always identify a specific premises with sufficient certainty to obtain a search warrant and recover them. The tracker only works while the machine is swiched on and often as not what it provides is only historical data, which again presents limitations in exercising legal powers of search. Again, it's not that we're 'not interested' - we simply have limitations on our powers, and rightly so, because this is not a police state where the cops are free to do whatever they like. It means your friend didn't get his iPad back, but it also means the cops can't kick your door in on a whim. It's a balance, and in my opinion the right one.

We get this sort of complaining all the time. When the limits of the law prevent the police taking action that may otherwise be to your benefit you complain that we're useless and not interested. *But* when the police are acting within _exactly_ the same limits of the law but directing those powers towards you we are overbearing and operating a police state! Everyone wants it both ways, double-standards everywhere - so for us it's a no-win situation.

I'm not going to get drawn any further into a general debate on the police - your ill-informed rant needed to be addressed and I've done that. But it's not the topic of this thread. Instead of trying to divert the argument why not just agree that we all disagree with you on the lane-hogging issue and call it a day?


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## JNmercury00 (May 22, 2007)

This thread is reaching legendary status.

Can't believe you're all still trying to convince him


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

JNmercury00 said:


> This thread is reaching legendary status.
> 
> Can't believe you're all still trying to convince him


cant believe you are still saying that !!! :lol:


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## NoMark (Jul 6, 2011)

I think we all know he's not going to be convinced about anything other than what he believes to be right.

However, I think this is an Interesting and well informed (in parts) thread.

Keep it going I say.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

yes , i agree entirely,,as i said in my first post, it is interesting to hear a " pale rider " try to justify what the rest of us consider to be selfish and stupid behavour,,, and following the post i am begining to think that he is basing his argument on these computer generated " models " of traffic flow,, and not as perhaps some of us thot , just the desire to save the threepence by driving on his cruise control !!,,,,
and yes ,, rants apart ( maybe justified ) the police activity, or lack of activity , and attitude has a part to play in this ,, i think MD has missunderstood ( dspite his very level and articulate input ) my point,, there has been, maybe less so now due to cutbacks etc ,a strong police pressence on our roads,, but my point was , that in taking no action against the " pale rider " this behavour has gone unchecked for years,, in the scinario of someone tailgating, or underpassing the pale rider it is them who are risking a " speaking to " or prosecution rather then the person who is causing the problem,,, if , as said, the traffic officers have such a master of the situation why has this been the norm....


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> So, let me get this straight... Your whole point is that your middle lane hogging doesn't cause congestion on motorways *as long as no one else goes above 70mph??* Is that a description that you think accurately describes UK motorways?? Perhaps we can agree that in a very specific hypothetical scenario, middle lane hogging makes no difference


That's progress if we can agree on that.

If you're now arguing that people who hog the middle lane at 70mph (or 80mph) are causing problems for people who want to travel faster, then I will also entirely agree with that - although they have the option of using the outside lane. But why should I inconvenience myself to help people who are breaking the law (or, at least, breaking the law slightly more than I'm comfortable with doing)? Why should I facilitate law breaking?


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Pale Rider said:


> What about the recent case of David Hunt who was/is well-known by the police for various criminal activities but regarded as "too dangerous" to investigate. When the Sunday Times investigated him and wrote an article about his activities, Hunt sued them for defamation of character. You'd think that the Met might have helped the ST in their defence but they were too scared to do this and actually tried to hinder their defence.


Where has anyone ever said that Hunt was regarded as too dangerous to investigate? No-one in fact.

The reality is that a Sunday Times reporter wrote a piece about Hunt based almost entirely on the content of leaked documents from The Met Police. The mere fact that these documents existed is proof enough that Hunt was under active investigation. All that Hunt has achieved is to successfully defend himself against a libel action because the judge accepted that the content of the police documents was true. The documents were illegally obtained and the Met sort an injunction to stop him using them in his defence.

The reporter has achieved nothing beyond jeopardising an ongoing investigation- he hasn't brought him to book for anything. Why on earth should the police seek to assist him in the acquisition of his ace reporter badge?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

Why ???????Simple ,,, because you are not god ,,,,, just because the police have been letting you away with it for so long does not make you right !!!!


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## Trig (Jun 7, 2013)

Pale Rider said:


> Why should I facilitate law breaking?


Why should you be an ignorant git who ignores one rule for the sake of not facilitating someone else breaking another.

You being in the middle lane slows other people down, and helps cause congestion.
People that are breaking another law by speeding aren't causing congestion.

You cant take the moral high ground and complain about people speeding when you yourself are in the wrong when it comes to the choice of lane you want to drive in...


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

roddy said:


> Why ???????Simple ,,, because you are not god ,,,,, just because the police have been letting you away with it for so long does not make you right !!!!


I assume that's addressed to me?

Sorry mate, but the fact is you don't come across as overly bright or capable of a reasoned argument. You've engineered this into a police discussion since you first entered the thread, so as you obviously have some personal axe to grind I'm not biting.

Btw - try a paragraph now and again and people might actually try to read your posts.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

I think he meant Pale Rider.

At last, Pale Rider you have changed lanes but only to go off topic and show us how little you also know about jurisdiction and evidence required for a police prosecution. Well, I suppose you reached a dead end when the only justification for hogging not causing congestion was based on an unrealistic fraffic flow model and the funny thing was you pointed out the flaw in your own logic.

Now you twist again to say that you only cause hogging because other people want to go faster than you and your own made up speed limit. Unbeleivable! Your rant about the police is of course diversionary but perhaps it reveals a motive of justification for your lane hogging along the lines of - well if everybody else gets away with doing wrong then why can't I?


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> The eBay thing? Okay, would you expect the police in Manchester to investigate an offence committed in London, or perhaps would it be best for the Met police to do that? Yes, of course it would. But where is internet crime committed?


This is actually one of the things that hit me immediately when I worked for the police - that all the police authorities are run as their own personal fiefdom. The Met might commission one computer system and, say, Devon and Cornwall would commission another. Absolutely barking.

The argument that cyber crime doesn't fall under any particular "police authority" is feeble and is the reason why many MPs are complaining about the current "fractured" situation. Cyber crime been happening for decades now and is getting worse - so set up a central police authority for it. It's blindingly obvious. In fact get rid of all the separate police authorities - it might put a few of CS's nose out of joint, but tough.



Mark Davies said:


> Your cloned credit credit? Well the card belongs to the card company, not you. It's their card that was cloned. You didn't lose any money - the company covered the £1500 spent. So who is the victim of the crime? Yes, the card company - not you.


Another feeble response. We ALL lose money when cyber criminals rob the card company. You don't seriously think that the card issuer forks out this cash from their own pockets?



Mark Davies said:


> The iPad tracker? Great idea in theory - in practice they are not accurate enough to always identify a specific premises with sufficient certainty to obtain a search warrant and recover them. The tracker only works while the machine is swiched on and often as not what it provides is only historical data, which again presents limitations in exercising legal powers of search. Again, it's not that we're 'not interested' - we simply have limitations on our powers, and rightly so, because this is not a police state where the cops are free to do whatever they like. It means your friend didn't get his iPad back, but it also means the cops can't kick your door in on a whim. It's a balance, and in my opinion the right one


No, the trackers are pretty spot on nowadays. The reason he was given was that the ipad had almost certainly been sold on and that the person who now had it was not the thief. But that's no reason not to investigate it (receiving stolen goods) - and no one is suggesting kicking doors down.



Mark Davies said:


> We get this sort of complaining all the time.


I can see you've got a great attitude. Ever thought that the complaints might be justified? And I notice that you leave out the point about being reluctant to deal with the big criminals.

You say I'm losing the argument on the "lane hogging". Wrong again. I'm losing the debate - but debate and argument are entirely different things.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

igotone said:


> roddy said:
> 
> 
> > Why ???????Simple ,,, because you are not god ,,,,, just because the police have been letting you away with it for so long does not make you right !!!!
> ...


No, I think you can assume any insults on this thread are addressed to me, igotone. 8)


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Pale Rider said:


> igotone said:
> 
> 
> > roddy said:
> ...


:lol:

Clarification needed then. :wink:


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > So, let me get this straight... Your whole point is that your middle lane hogging doesn't cause congestion on motorways *as long as no one else goes above 70mph??* Is that a description that you think accurately describes UK motorways?? Perhaps we can agree that in a very specific hypothetical scenario, middle lane hogging makes no difference
> ...


So, you cut the end off my sentence in order to make your point seem more sensible. What I said in full was:


> Perhaps we can agree that in a very specific hypothetical scenario, middle lane hogging makes no difference, but in the real world where people drive at all different speeds (including speeds above 70mph) it causes congestion. So don't do it.


The drivers who want to go faster than you can of course use lane 3, but then the drivers who want to go even faster than them have nowhere to go - because you've turned a 3 lane motorway into a 2 lane motorway because you don't see why you should be inconvenienced (lets not even get into a discussion on why changing lanes on a motorway is an inconvenience for a grown man with a set of eyes in his head).

As for facilitating speeding, you've already admitted you're speeding yourself, so lets have less of the self-righteous notion that you have any interest in stopping speeding. If you did, you'd stop yourself doing it. You're just making childish excuses there.

The real point here is that you *do* cause congestion, because you drive in the real world, not in your hypothetical world. And when you cause that congestion, *everyone* is affected regardless of the speed they want to do. So stop doing it.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> The drivers who want to go faster than you can of course use lane 3, but then the drivers who want to go even faster than them have nowhere to go - because you've turned a 3 lane motorway into a 2 lane motorway because you don't see why you should be inconvenienced


There probably aren't any drivers who "want to go faster than me" - not many anyway. If they abandoned the speed limit I would drive down the motorway at about 130mph - faster when I get my new car. The trouble is I don't want to get banned - and I don't see why I should cower in the inside lane just to allow people who don't give a toss about the law to have an easier passage.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> There probably aren't any drivers who "want to go faster than me" - not many anyway. If they abandoned the speed limit I would drive down the motorway at about 130mph - faster when I get my new car. The trouble is I don't want to get banned - and I don't see why I should cower in the inside lane just to allow people who don't give a toss about the law to have an easier passage.


No one cares what you _want_ to do. It's irrelevant. It's what you _actually do_ that affects everyone who has the misfortune to share a motorway with you.

I think we're coming to the nub of the issue here though. That last sentence says it all. It shows that really, this is a psychological issue you have, and has nothing to do with driving. You see moving over as being subservient to the people who want to go faster than you and that bothers you. I suppose the flip side to that is that you probably feel powerful and superior when you 'hold your ground' in the middle lane. All the waffle about 'safety' and 'traffic flow' and 'unprosecutable laws' is just a veneer to hide the feelings behind, isn't it.

It's really not very nice in your head.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Hypocrisy.


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## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Can I have some abuse please as I feel left out. [smiley=argue.gif]

I have often pondered as to why people drive in the middle lane (BTW it is an overtaking lane only) when the inside lane is empty. I have come to the conclusion that either they don't give a dam or are incompetent drivers who think if something should happen I can avoid any problem with my driving and have lanes either side ( as often the outside lane another overtaking lane is also empty of traffic) to go into. You see people hogging the middle lane all the time esp noticeable at night. Maybe these people just don't trust themselves I certainly don't.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Spandex said:


> Pale Rider said:
> 
> 
> > There probably aren't any drivers who "want to go faster than me" - not many anyway. If they abandoned the speed limit I would drive down the motorway at about 130mph - faster when I get my new car. The trouble is I don't want to get banned - and I don't see why I should cower in the inside lane just to allow people who don't give a toss about the law to have an easier passage.
> ...


Hmmm ... well, we've had Maslow's hierarchy of needs - perhaps a parallel theory is emerging called Pale Rider's hierarchy of lanes. A long way from self-actualisation :wink:


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

I suggest Pale Rider is stuck in the *Red* level

http://spiraldynamics.net/DrDonBeck/ess ... cities.htm


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

igotone said:


> roddy said:
> 
> 
> > Why ???????Simple ,,, because you are not god ,,,,, just because the police have been letting you away with it for so long does not make you right !!!!
> ...


 :lol: :lol: tones of paranoia there pall,, :lol: :lol: ,, ,, and a sound lack of reasoning or understanding of some very simple points ( how much simpler do you need it,, i will try ) ,, despite your twisting of my point , i would have thot that even you would realise i do not blame the police for pale riders behavour or line of reasoning, but only for not doing anything about it,,, and nor was it an insult aimed at P R, only an opinion,,,, however i see that you are throwing around a few insults,, mmm, i was always taught that it is the ignorant who revert to insult,, so be it.. :roll:


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

roddy said:


> igotone said:
> 
> 
> > roddy said:
> ...


You say you don't blame the police for Pale Rider's behaviour, yet you blame them for not doing anything about it. That's a bit of a fine difference don't you think?

Mark very patiently explained the lack of resources to you, but you seem to be deaf to all explanations and in a little world of your own on some sort of crusade. Traffic patrols are virtually non existent on our roads now and that includes motorways. They really have been gradually reduced over the last few years to the point where they're a pretty rare sight on our roads. On the motorways, Highways Agency cars largely replace effective levels of police patrols. They've been drastically reduced under the general heading of reducing costs and diverting resources elsewhere. Now these aren't police policies- they're government policies enforced on Chief Constables. It's pointless complaining to working cops here about it - speak to your MP and you might do some good.

I don't know what it's like up in Haggis Land , but down here, where we actually have some concrete we're only too well aware of what a rare sight traffic cars are. As Mark said, " We are on our own" and we're very well aware of what importance politicians place on policing our roads. The current state of our roads in another big clue for those who still don't get it.

In a nutshell then - thousands of miles of motorway to be policed in the UK by the relative handful of traffic cars still out there - assuming the gov't wouldn't rather have them engaged elsewhere. You probably have more chance of winning the lottery than actually copping one of these new FP Tickets.

Now go and empty your Haggis traps. :wink:


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

Fantastic thread until pale rider got some of you arguing amongst yourselves lol....means he is winning. Spandy's post have been as expected slowly break you down point by point & Marks posts are pretty much as expected. Rodders you did bring the cops into this debate and stupidly gave pr another avenue of attack to bypass his failings dude.
For my input.....any motorway that sticks to 70mph ruling will still be just as congested due to those that want to do the overtaking and not wanting to return to the left hand lane.

Pr says he regularly does 79mph then contradicts himself to suit his argument at that particular time period ok lol but you can't have your cake and eat it in life.....stick to the facts not fictions you imagine ROFL

@Les......you smell of hamster droppings!!! Ok on the abuse bud?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

i am not sure if it is the haggis or the concrete that has goten between your lugs, but the outcome is much the same .. :lol: ,, maybe the fine line of difference is too much for you to grasp,, :? ,,,,i am not on any anti police " crusade " at all,, but who else is in a position to do anything about the problem other than them,, Mark has yes explained how today there are so few police patrols,,, i still see plenty of them tho  , but how does that relate to their lack of effort on an issue which has been around for the last 20 years or so,,, and if you think that the politicians and police are not puting huge resources and money into policing our roads then that is just further proof of the concrete between your ears [smiley=bomb.gif] ,,, modern survelence of the roads is not about traffic managment it is about servelience of those conducting crime. Anyway, i digress from OP .


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

GAZZ, i am not blaming the police for " P R "s thinking or behavour,, i am blaming them for not doing anything about it,, and i dont think it was me who brought them in . :wink:


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

roddy said:


> GAZZ, i am not blaming the police for " P R "s thinking or behavour,, i am blaming them for not doing anything about it,, and i dont think it was me who brought them in . :wink:


Ah Rodders don't blame them, they are as frustrated as fook m8 I do work for them so chat regularly and abuse each other more lol. As a welder if I took ya gauntlets away and tied one hand behind your back........and told you to give me the same results you would tell me to coff and I know that is the truth m8.
So to be honest our cops work hard in what they do with ever decreasing budgets and more restrictions placed upon them.
One month it's burglaries
Next month it's illegal cars or traffic violations
All while being told to fall in line and get on top of violent crimes...........poor buggers


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

I'm not going to go too far into this. Yes, you're talking bollocks - but just like everyone else who spouts on about policing without the first idea of how it actually works you are no doubt convinced you know _everything_ about it (despite never having done any of it) and so will never be convinced you are wrong. I've had enough experience of these debates to know trying to enlighten you is pointless. However, for the benefit of those looking on . . .



Pale Rider said:


> The argument that cyber crime doesn't fall under any particular "police authority" is feeble and is the reason why many MPs are complaining about the current "fractured" situation. Cyber crime been happening for decades now and is getting worse - so set up a central police authority for it. It's blindingly obvious.


I didn't say cyber crime 'doesn't fall under any particular police authority'. Indeed I said exactly the opposite. In fact I was pointing out the importance of determining where the offence had been committed from, which could be (and probably will be) quite remote from where the results of the crime are felt. The investigation needs ownership of a particular police force and ideally the one geographically best placed to action the investigation. The crime may be cyber but the investigation won't be. People need to be arrested, premises need to be searched, evidence and exhibits need to be located and siezed. These are physical, not virtual actions. It makes no sense at all to have a centralised, national cyber crime authority based wherever, that then inefficiently wastes time and tax-payers' money travelling all around the country conducting enquiries that local forces are perfectly capable of doing. It makes more sense to first determine where the crime was committed - which can usually be done very easily - and then have the local investigators deal with it.

Your 'blindingly obvious' suggestion - based in ignorance as it is - is quite fascile.



Pale Rider said:


> No, the trackers are pretty spot on nowadays.


Really? So when was the last time you tracked an iPad as part of a criminal investigation? Oh, you've never done it? Never mind - that doesn't stop you being an expert, does it? So what happens when the top-down locator shows the iPad somewhere in the middle of a 15 storey block of flats? Just which of the 60 possible doors do we kick in? If you had _any_ practical experience of this then perhaps you wouldn't be talking such complete rubbish.



Pale Rider said:


> I can see you've got a great attitude. Ever thought that the complaints might be justified?


This is another common one. It starts with your presumption that you know what policing is all about and so your complaints must be justified. However your position (and that of so many people like you) fails to recognise the rather unique nature of policing and law enforcement. It fails to appreciate how what we do is so completely outside the normal experience of the average individual that it is highly unlikely that you actually do have any idea of what you're talking about. The fact is, like most of the general public, you know absolutely nothing of the practical realities of policing, and so when you make your complaints they are generally laced with complete ignorance of what you are talking about. Yet, because you see stuff on the TV you are absolutely convinced you are an expert on policing - despite the blatantly obvious fact that you've never been anywhere near it. So I can try and patiently explain things to you and dispel your misconceptions, but as we have seen here you will have none of it because you are an armchair expert. I know I'm not going to change your mind, but I don't take your complaints too seriously because I also know (with the benefit of 20 years of policing experience) that you're talking complete shite.

More generally, should we follow the demands of a noisome section of the public completely ignorant of the law, with no experience whatsoever of criminal investigation, law enforcement and public protection, other than watching a few episodes of The Bill - or perhaps as trained and experienced professionals should we get on with doing the job that we know best? The answer is obvious but even so, we do still listen.

On the whole, despite the difficulties we are presented with, we're doing a pretty good job. We're not perfect but you don't have to look far to appreciate this country still has the best and most liberal policing in the world. Crime rates are falling rapidly, and while that is a global trend that we can't entirely take credit for we are measurably making huge progress. And yet you still complain about such matters as kettling, when everywhere else in the world (including our near European neighbours) such situations are dealt with by tear gas, water cannon or even live firing. We are the only country in the world that is policed by consent rather than force of arms, yet never does that luxury seem to be appreciated here. It is precisely because of the way we are policed that you even get the opportunity to complain about things such as kettling and even have an influence over the policy. Do you think the French authorities give a toss if people complain about the use of water cannon and tear gas? No, they don't. Yet the policies of British police forces are constantly reviewed in light of public opinion, and kettling is a perfect example.

So suggesting I or the British police in general pay no attention to public opinion is again just completely fascile.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> I didn't say cyber crime 'doesn't fall under any particular police authority'. Indeed I said exactly the opposite. In fact I was pointing out the importance of determining where the offence had been committed from, which could be (and probably will be) quite remote from where the results of the crime are felt. The investigation needs ownership of a particular police force and ideally the one geographically best placed to action the investigation.


Attempting to allocate a geographical location to a cyber "event" is doomed to failure without international agreement, I'm afraid. That's why you need a central location to deal with it (one number) and not a "fractured" police network.

It reminds me of the tax situation with regard to some on-line companies. When I sit at my computer in a rural part of England and buy some load of tat from Amazon the goods are delivered from their warehouse in Slough - or somewhere like that in the UK. Yet Amazon thinks that the transaction took place in Luxembourg - because Luxembourg has the lowest tax rates. And there's nothing that HMRC can do about that without getting agreement from the EU - which probably won't be forthcoming of course because Luxembourg will veto it.



Mark Davies said:


> This is another common one. It starts with your presumption that you know what policing is all about and so your complaints must be justified. However your position (and that of so many people like you) fails to recognise the rather unique nature of policing and law enforcement. It fails to appreciate how what we do is so completely outside the normal experience of the average individual that it is highly unlikely that you actually do have any idea of what you're talking about.


Yes you're all very misunderstood and doing a "good job" and "members of the public" just don't know what they're talking about. Complacency with a capital C. What a pathetic post.

One of the features of this internet age is that there is blanket coverage of almost everything that happens. When riots occur in various cities around England we can all watch live coverage of what happens. We can see the police watching the looting and arson from a safe distance and doing SFA about it - because it would be "dangerous". When a collection of police officers conspire to create false testimony against a government minister (Plebgate) - probably for political reasons - we can watch what actually happened on TV. Likewise when a police officer attacks someone at a demonstration.

People have a pretty good idea what's going on now and they don't like it.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> Hypocrisy.


Exactly. That's the word that I was thinking of too.

A bunch of blokes in tuned TTs complaining about someone who doesn't obey one law because it makes it more difficult for them to break another.

Hypocrisy sums it up very well.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > Hypocrisy.
> ...


Clearly I was referring to you and your own made up speed limits and lane changing rules which you inconvenience and impose onto others as a self appointed policeman, criticising them for breaking the actual law which you so arrogantly flout yourself and then have the gall to have a go at the real police because you think you know better on this and other subjects of diversion you introduce. Who do you think you are? You bring no credence to the subject and invite only ridicule. 10 out of 10 for entertainment but apparently minus several million for good thinking. Best thread in ages though as a result so well done


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > Hypocrisy.
> ...


Oh, give it up... You don't care about the laws, except where they infringe on your ability to act however you please.

You were annoyed by the fact that because of the speed limit, you don't feel comfortable driving at the speed you want to drive... Then you see a load of people who drive faster than you and because you're a bitter and twisted little soul, you resent them for it. THEN, to top it off the government come along and tell you you're going to have to move over to let them pass or face a fine, and you can't contain the righteous indignation...

Try to bluster about laws as much as you want... All this all comes down to is your own petty resentments...


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Pale Rider said:


> Yes you're all very misunderstood and doing a "good job" and "members of the public" just don't know what they're talking about. Complacency with a capital C. What a pathetic post.


No, that's not the point. Let me give you a simple analogy to try and explain.

Let's say you are a qualified mechanic and driving your TT you start to experience the absolutely typical symptoms of a coilpack failure. You know what you're doing so of course you are carrying a spare coilpack. You pull over to the side of the road. So there you are with the engine running going through the process of systematically disconnecting each coilpack to find out which one has failed, and you've just identified the culprit when someone walks up to you and says, "No, that's not what you should do. You need to whack the exhaust manifold with a sledgehammer, mate. That will sort it."

So, basically because you know what you're doing you're already aware what the problem is and how to fix it and clearly the suggestion of the helpful member of the public is complete rubbish, firstly because you know it won't solve the particular problem you've got, but more importantly because the suggestion is so ridiculous that it was never likely to solve _any_ kind of problem and only ever likely to make things worse. It is quite clear, simply from the suggestion made, that our member of the public simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

Well, that's you. You want us to whack the manifold with a sledgehammer and because we say 'no' _we_ are being 'complacent' and failing to listen to the general public.

It's the absolute arrogance of some members of the public that I have always found staggering. Policing is like no other function at all. There are very few things that other people do in life that are remotely like it and most people's experiences only ever touch on a very small aspect of what we do. You claim to have an idea of what you are talking about because occasionally the media shows you some tiny aspects of policing that involve a very few people and which are specifically shown precisely because they are negative and out of the ordinary - and that's the encyclopaedic knowledge of policing on which you base your proclamations.

You've never done a day's policing in your life. You couldn't even begin to describe a day in my working life or even tell me where I spend most of my time let alone what I do there. And your TV reports don't even begin to teach you _anything_ about criminal law, rules of evidence, statutory limitations on police powers and procedures, technological capabilities and deficencies or the complexities of bringing a case to court - any of the mass of knowledge necessary to carry out the policing function. Equally I know nothing about what you do - but the difference is I appreciate the limits of my knowledge and experience and wouldn't for one moment presume to tell you how to do your job. But of course you are a _taxpayer_ so that automatically gives you the right to talk about things you know nothing about. I understand that - it is your democratic right - but that doesn't mean we should necesarilly do what you say, does it?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

OK Mark,( or anybody else with inside or expert knowledge ), i will certainly accept the " limits of my knowledge ", tho with a certain amount of experience,, and despite what certain people may feel, i am not on a police bashing crusade, but since you so willingly and eloquently put yourself in the position of supporting , explaining and justifying all aspects of police policy and behavour , then perhaps yo might be able to explain my issue,, which is the total lack of police effert on trying to discourage the attitude and behavour of the many " pale riders " which are , and have been for many years, a scourge on our roads,, when they are perfectly willing to pounce on anybody who is unfortunate enough to be stuck behind one of these PRs and is either trying to " move them out of the way " or just find a space and go down the inside. I know you mention " cuts, lack of resources " etc,, but this is a fairly new development and even still there are plenty of patrols on the road,, i can not see how it costs huge amounts of money , drains on resources etc to carry out what , to me with my " limited knowledge" , is a fairly simple and quick attempt at a fix, or at least an affort to help ease the situation by probablly the only body in a position to do so. R


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

I do think the highways authority should have been using the large motorway signs to back up the change with, "KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING". Having not done so seems a missed opportunity and a lot of drivers seem to be carrying on hogging as before despite what seemed like an improvement a few days ago. They should be reminded.


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Roddy, cuts to traffic policing are not a recent development - they've been going on for about 15 years. GMP's traffic department is now about 10% of the size it was 10 years ago (the specialist motorway function cut even more), so you don't need to know much about traffic policing to appreciate how such drastic reductions in manpower are inevitably going to reduce our capability to enforce traffic law.

This reduction hasn't been just because of budget cuts. They have arisen because of very fundamental changes and significant increases in the demands being made of the police over recent years. With limited resources something has to give and with 'law abiding' motorists constantly complaining "Haven't you got something better to do?" we have naturally done what you've asked of us and diverted our resources to the matters you tell us you are more concerned about.

So, you complain when you think we don't listen to you and you complain when we do exactly what you ask of us. We simply can never win.

The straight forward answer to your question is that you have to have bobbies patrolling the motorways to observe and correct the offending behaviour, but there is simply nobody there to do it any more.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

thanks for taking the time / making the effort Mark,, but with due respect , i dont think you have answered my question,,,,,, why,, when a patrol is already on the highway , ( no extra effort or expense involved ) why do they not, with their knowledge of what causes holdups / congestion and disruption to all others,, why,, as i already outlined, they will pounce on anyone tyring to out manouvre the pale rider, why the blatant inaction against the true culprit, i cannot see where the expense or drain on resourses or time is, ( how long does it take to pull " P R " over for a short word in their ear ).. ta, R.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

roddy said:


> thanks for taking the time / making the effort Mark,, but with due respect , i dont think you have answered my question,,,,,, why,, when a patrol is already on the highway , ( no extra effort or expense involved ) why do they not, with their knowledge of what causes holdups / congestion and disruption to all others,, why,, as i already outlined, they will pounce on anyone tyring to out manouvre the pale rider, why the blatant inaction against the true culprit, i cannot see where the expense or drain on resourses or time is, ( how long does it take to pull " P R " over for a short word in their ear ).. ta, R.


I've read anecdotal evidence of Police cars driving up behind middle lane hoggers and either waiting for them to just move over out of embarrassment, or eventually giving them a little prompt with the lights to make them move. I've also read about people being pulled over after completely ignoring the flashing lights behind them for some time - although I imagine that 'talking to' was probably more focussed on the fact that they clearly don't ever check their mirrors when they're on the motorway. The stories are from people who witnessed it happen to other motorists, rather than the middle lane hogs themselves though.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> Clearly I was referring to you and your own made up speed limits and lane changing rules which you inconvenience and impose onto others as a self appointed policeman, criticising them for breaking the actual law which you so arrogantly flout yourself


Two fairly obvious points:

Firstly, the 70mph limit is not one that I have "made up". (It's also not one that I would ever claim to adhere to - as I said I drive as fast as I think I can get away with).

Secondly, if the law that you think I'm "arrogantly flouting" is the "middle lane hogging" law then maybe you could produce this law for me. If you've been following the thread it appears that there is no such law. In fact the existing laws of careless driving (or driving without due care and driving without reasonable consideration) don't specifically mention this - the only mention is in the CPS guidance about "poor lane discipline" which it says is "subjective" and can only be prosecuted if it "Inconveniences other drivers". Plainly someone driving at 50mph in the middle lane for too long could be prosecuted, but NOT someone driving at 70mph.

So I'm not breaking any law. The hypocrisy lies elsewhere - in those who want everyone else to get out of the way so that they can steam down the motorway above the legal limit without being held up.


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

roddy said:


> thanks for taking the time / making the effort Mark,, but with due respect , i dont think you have answered my question,,,,,, why,, when a patrol is already on the highway , ( no extra effort or expense involved ) why do they not, with their knowledge of what causes holdups / congestion and disruption to all others,, why,, as i already outlined, they will pounce on anyone tyring to out manouvre the pale rider, why the blatant inaction against the true culprit, i cannot see where the expense or drain on resourses or time is, ( how long does it take to pull " P R " over for a short word in their ear ).. ta, R.


Have to agree with you Rodders on this one, while on the motorway it could be done more.



> Plainly someone driving at 50mph in the middle lane for too long could be prosecuted, but NOT someone driving at 70mph.


i agree somewhat, however does that stop you from pulling in to allow someone else to pass if the outside lane is full and they cannot use it when needed?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

but what i remember, and you must also remember, is that you have ( quote from pg 3 ) your ruise control set at 79... so, from that , i deduce, that your illegal actions are acceptable whereas others are not. :wink: ,,,,,, ok,, hipocracy is something which is quite common on here as when it suits , the " law " , can and will be used to suit the argument,, and dont expect to go against the flow of established members unless you can take a lot of flak !!,,, move over please..


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > Clearly I was referring to you and your own made up speed limits and lane changing rules which you inconvenience and impose onto others as a self appointed policeman, criticising them for breaking the actual law which you so arrogantly flout yourself
> ...


As I said, hipocricy. You made your own speed limit up of 79mph and won't get out of the way of someone who wants to do above 79 mph - the hipocracy is that you won't move over because you say *they* want to break the law and you shouldn't help them do so. What you mean is you don't want them to go faster than you and as Spandex quite rightly points out this is more a psychological issue.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> No, that's not the point. Let me give you a simple analogy to try and explain.....


That's what's called a "bad analogy" - much beloved of politicians.



Mark Davies said:


> It's the absolute arrogance of some members of the public that I have always found staggering.


Why am I not surprised.

Remember Ray Mallon - Robocop. He had fairly simple views on policing. He understood that basically the vast majority of the population are law abiding and that about 95% of crime is committed by 5% of the population. So he decided to concentrate his attention on those who commit crime and leave those who obey the law alone. He actually made a difference to crime rates by taking action against criminals. Obviously he had to be sacked.

Unfortunately the modern police force reduces crime by fiddling the statistics, and increases clear up rates by concentrating on low level crime and ignoring the real criminals who are hard to convict. Like I said the police force is now almost a political organisation that exists to publish nice figures and meet artificial targets. It has lost sight of its fundamental purpose - to reduce crime. It needs a radical shake-up but the political parties are afraid to take it on.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

ok PR, for sure that is becoming more and more the case,,, but why does that allow you to sit in the middle of the road and annoy everybody else,, please move over.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> As I said, hipocricy. You made your own speed limit up of 79mph and won't get out of the way of someone who wants to do above 79 mph - the hipocracy is that you won't move over because you say *they* want to break the law and you shouldn't help them do so. What you mean is you don't want them to go faster than you and as Spandex quite rightly points out this is more a psychological issue.


So what about the hypocrisy of those who think that the middle lane hogger should be pulled over so that they can break the speed limit? That's the real hypocrisy. I'm not breaking any laws - but they are.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > As I said, hipocricy. You made your own speed limit up of 79mph and won't get out of the way of someone who wants to do above 79 mph - the hipocracy is that you won't move over because you say *they* want to break the law and you shouldn't help them do so. What you mean is you don't want them to go faster than you and as Spandex quite rightly points out this is more a psychological issue.
> ...


but what i remember , and you must also remember, is that your argument was about your perceived " dangers " of changing lanes,, nothing to do with the law...PLEASE MOVE OVER !!


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > Hypocrisy.
> ...


It does indeed Pale Rider!

You set your cruise control to 79 mph, you drive at 120 mph and would happily do 130 mph but you see fit to "educate" other motorists to stick to *your* chosen speed limit by motorway lane hogging.



> Hypocrisy sums it up very well.


 Yes indeed :?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

huh !!???  i dont see that he is trying to educate anybody,, he is just determined that no one is going to " educate " him, or let anybody make him do anything which he feels is not nessassary....


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

THat's why I used ",,," roddy


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

OK  ,,,, but maybe trying to educate by example... :roll:


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> Two fairly obvious points:
> 
> Firstly, the 70mph limit is not one that I have "made up". (It's also not one that I would ever claim to adhere to - as I said I drive as fast as I think I can get away with).
> 
> ...


We have produced the law for you, but for some reason you seem convinced that a law has to specifically mention every possible permutation of an offence in order for it to stand.

As you'll have read, the law gives *no* actual examples. Now, either that's because legally they don't have to, and they can leave it up to the judges to determine what we can reasonably expect of a careful and considerate driver, OR, they've accidentally drafted a law which means nothing and no one has noticed for decades, despite people regularly being prosecuted for careless driving under that unprosecutable law.

Which do you think it is, Pale Rider? Would you like a hint?


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Pale Rider said:


> So what about the hypocrisy of those who think that the middle lane hogger should be pulled over so that they can break the speed limit? That's the real hypocrisy. I'm not breaking any laws - but they are.


Yes you are, and now you can even be fined on the spot for it. You may have read about it in the papers recently... :wink:


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Pale Rider said:


> Secondly, if the law that you think I'm "arrogantly flouting" is the "middle lane hogging" law then maybe you could produce this law for me. If you've been following the thread it appears that there is no such law. In fact the existing laws of careless driving (or driving without due care and driving without reasonable consideration) don't specifically mention this - the only mention is in the CPS guidance about "poor lane discipline" which it says is "subjective" and can only be prosecuted if it "Inconveniences other drivers". Plainly someone driving at 50mph in the middle lane for too long could be prosecuted, but NOT someone driving at 70mph.


Can we please for everyone's benefit put this to bed once and for all! There is no legislation anywhere which prescribes which lane you should drive in on the motorway. The advice on motorway lane usage is found in The Highway Code which is purely an advisory document. Where it tells you you must comply with mandatory signs, e.g. red lights, stop signs speed limit signs etc., you don't commit an offence contrary to the Highway Code, the legislation which sets out the offence, and under which you will be prosecuted, lies elsewhere in the relevant Act setting out the offence.

Whilst nothing in the Highway Code is law, evidence that you have failed to comply with it's advice can be, and often is, given to support another offence such as dangerous, careless or inconsiderate driving. The government have introduced these FP Tickets in an attempt to tackle what is a very prevalent problem on our motorways. Should you be unfortunate enough to get a ticket you have the choice of either paying it within the prescribed time or contesting it at court by way of a 'Not Guilty' plea. Should you lose you'll no doubt incur a far heavier penalty than if you'd paid the ticket and will have to pay court costs too. If you seriously think that contesting these tickets is going to get the case dropped or discontinued then I'm afraid you'll find out the hard way that you're wrong.

I really don't see what the big deal is - I probably drive on the motorway at similar speeds to yourself and would dearly love to see the speed limit raised to 100 mph, but lane discipline will have to be a lot better than it is now for that to be a safe and viable proposition for motorway users of all abilities. I have no trouble with getting over into the appropriate left hand lane whenever there's a decent gap to do so and I don't find my progress hindered at all.We can all get into complacent bad habits mate, and It's no bad thing to think back to basic principles from time to time and iron out any bad habits.

Instead of digging your heels in, why not just give it a try?


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Just so we can keep up, I've tried to collate all of PRs excuses in one place:

1. It's not enforceable.
2. It's not illegal.
3. It IS illegal, but only if I inconvenience another driver.
4. It's safer.
5. It doesn't affect traffic flow.
6. It does affect traffic flow but only if people drive above 70mph.
7. I would be helping people break the law if I moved over.
8. "I don't see why I should cower in the inside lane."

Not that I'm implying he'll say any old crap to justify his behaviour or anything... Just thought it might help us all keep track


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Pale Rider said:


> John-H said:
> 
> 
> > As I said, hipocricy. You made your own speed limit up of 79mph and won't get out of the way of someone who wants to do above 79 mph - the hipocracy is that you won't move over because you say *they* want to break the law and you shouldn't help them do so. What you mean is you don't want them to go faster than you and as Spandex quite rightly points out this is more a psychological issue.
> ...


You mean you are not breaking your made up law of a 79 mph speed limit you have decreed for yourself. Not only are you breaking the real law of 70 mph but you are also breaking the law in regard to consideration of other road users as Spandex and others have explained (see RTA). That's two laws you are breaking not their one. Even if we disregard the law your actions are antisocial and inconsiderate. Please move over and let people pass - you are not a policeman but you are being an obstinate obstacle :roll:


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Pale Rider said:


> That's what's called a "bad analogy"


Instead of just making empty statements like this why not explain exactly why it is a bad analogy (other than because it makes you look foolish) and I'll enjoy taking your argument apart. You explain to me why you are *so* convinced that you are in position to make informed comment on the details of policing despite never having done the job and in the face of someone who does do the job telling you that actually you're way off the mark? Go on, explain it in any other terms other than collosal, misplaced arrogance.

Do you even know what the police do from day to day?



Pale Rider said:


> Unfortunately the modern police force reduces crime by fiddling the statistics, and increases clear up rates by concentrating on low level crime and ignoring the real criminals who are hard to convict. Like I said the police force is now almost a political organisation that exists to publish nice figures and meet artificial targets. It has lost sight of its fundamental purpose - to reduce crime.


The independant Crime Survey (not the police statistics) showed a 9% decrease in crime in the year to March 2013 - in fact more than your so called 'fiddled' official police statistics which showed a 7% fall. I'd suggest either figure is pretty good in just 12 months. Total recorded crime (by the Crime Survey, not us) is now *less than half* of what it was in 1995. And I can tell you (because I actually do the job, while you don't) that in that period considerably more of what is reported to us is now recorded as a crime. So incidents of minor criminal damge or minor common assaults are now recorded when policy previously was not to do so. A huge amount of anti-social behavior is now recorded when previously it wasn't a crime at all. That's all high volume stuff, yet even with these additions to the figures we have still achieved these substantial results in crime reduction. Quite remarkable given we have 'lost sight of our fundamental purpose'!










You will see that levels of crime (absolute figures, not per head of population) are down to well below what they were in 1981, despite a population increase of 12.5% over that period - so a significant decrease in real terms even there.



Pale Rider said:


> It needs a radical shake-up but the political parties are afraid to take it on.


Really? So the current dismantling of the police service that has been ongoing for 2 years under Tom Winsor must be a complete figment of my imagination then?

I presume you're typing standing up?


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

LOL This actually really funny. They were reducing and disbanding traffic departments over 20 years ago with experienced traffic bods being put on other duties and not replaced. The current state of the police service is purely down to one government shake up after another for many years after consultation with various spin doctors and industrialists who think they can bring industrial ideas of efficiency, profit and loss to the police service which they know feck all about.

They're entirely responsible for the current sad state of the police service - the last thing we need is any more of it, but don't worry, there will be! :roll:


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

I think I'm best out of this thread now, but let me say that police work is a never ending job with gruelling shift patterns and high- stress work loads. Out of all the names people like to call cops, I find 'Plod' thoroughly objectionable - it bears no resemblance to the actual day to day reality of being a police officer.

I dunno why cops try to post in these threads- it always ends the same way, and it's curious that those who criticise the loudest are often in occupations where their idea of real stress is some fecker shuffling their floppy disks. They have never experienced one moments real fear or abject terror in their lives and probably never will.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

all very interesting to some ,, i expect,, but i still cannot understand why some traffic officer / policeman, cruising up and down the M1, or the overpass on Shap or the M74 etc etc etc, ( dont try and tell me that there arent any :roll: ) in their 75 k merc jeep / undercover bmw whether over or under payed, over or under worked, over or under stressed , can not pull the pale riders over and have a word with them,,, [smiley=bomb.gif]


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Roddy, I can't grasp why you don't understand it because it's really extremely simple. On a stretch of motorway where you once had 20 traffic officers patrolling you now have 1. They're busy enough just sorting out the accidents to not have time to do anything else. It really is as simple as that. They can't pull people over for lane hogging when they're simply not there.

On the subject of stress and linking in to the cuts I was reading just yesterday about some research conducted by Nottingham University, exploring just how continued crime reduction is being achieved despite 20% cuts in our budgets. Well obviously it is because we're all being worked that much harder. But how hard? Well they found that 38% of constables and 45% of sergeants suffered work related stress - compared with an average of 15.5% in the general population. In addition they found that those presenting with symptoms of stress were *12 times* more likely to be suffering with burnout. In other words, as stressed as we are, we are 12 times more likely to just keep cracking on with it until we reach breaking point. That's our commitment to the vocation.

Despite that commitment they found that half the people they surveyed wanted to leave the job. It's no surprise really, when the research shows we are being flogged to death. If only there were jobs to go to.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

roddy said:


> all very interesting to some ,, i expect,, but i still cannot understand why some traffic officer / policeman, cruising up and down the M1, or the overpass on Shap or the M74 etc etc etc, ( dont try and tell me that there arent any :roll: ) in their 75 k merc jeep / undercover bmw whether over or under payed, over or under worked, over or under stressed , can not pull the pale riders over and have a word with them,,, [smiley=bomb.gif]


Ey up it's the Mad Jock!

Very interesting to some, but not you then?

You really are hard work mate. How the Hell do you know that people don't get pulled over? Just because it doesn't happen in front of you doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and who the Hell cares if it's a cop driving a 75K Merc - it's not his car, it's just a work tool.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Unless things have changed cops have the highest suicide rate - second only to doctors. Don't worry Roddy, I'm not planning on offing myself any time soon. :wink:


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

igotone said:


> roddy said:
> 
> 
> > all very interesting to some ,, i expect,, but i still cannot understand why some traffic officer / policeman, cruising up and down the M1, or the overpass on Shap or the M74 etc etc etc, ( dont try and tell me that there arent any :roll: ) in their 75 k merc jeep / undercover bmw whether over or under payed, over or under worked, over or under stressed , can not pull the pale riders over and have a word with them,,, [smiley=bomb.gif]
> ...


OMG,, its cocrete head again,, hard work ,, yes mate you are ,, ok, it may seem a long time ago now,, but i did ask if anybody has ever been , seen or even heard of anyone being pulled for " pale riding ) (  ) , so far no one, at least Mark has attempted, i would say unconvincingly , why , when they are already on the scene, still do nothing about it,,, " because they are too busy ",, i regularly see them sitting on overpasses , cruising in slow lanes etc etc etc,, ok perhaps no one can explain why the only oficial body who could help aleviate the situation has historically done nothing about it.... :?


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Roddy, when you say you 'regularly' see traffic cops I wonder if you are just generalising or if perhaps there's a particular set of circumstances pertaining to the Scottish roads you are driving on that mean you have more than your fair share of cops up there. I drive up and down the length and breadth of Britain (including Scotland) all the time (15k miles per year) and I regularly cover hundreds of miles at a time without _ever_ seeing a police patrol (not to be confused with HATOs - who have 'Traffic Officer' rather than 'Police' on the back of their cars - and who have no prosecution powers).

Tell you what, over the next month have a general check of what mileage you do on motorways and count how many cops you actually see. I'd be interested in the result and as a comparison I'll do the same. I suspect one or the other of us is going to be surprised.

As for why little was done about it in the past I've already explained that. It's because processing full prosecution files is a time consuming process, you only have so many hours in a day to do them and sadly there are far too many more serious offences that need processing, so lane hogging has not been a priority. It's exactly why the FPNs have been opened up to allow this issue to be addressed far more efficiently.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

Mark,, thank you for the replies,, and believe me, i do have respect for what you say in almost all your replies to all sorts of posts on here,,,,,,,,,,,, i will specifically take a note of how many cop cars i see on the roads  ,, i also travel significant anual miles, both in england and scotland and cant say i see any difference in level of patrols,, tho i have noticed a general reduction in the last few years or so,,,,, i never knew that " traffic officer " s were not cops,, hahah , i wish i had !!!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, please note that i am not saying that pale riders should historically have been pulled over and charged ( with associated paper work for a charge which prob could not be proven ) but a simple word in their ear regarding their antisocial behavour,,, that would not have taken up very much of the valuable time...cheers , R


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

igotone said:


> I think I'm best out of this thread now, but let me say that police work is a never ending job with gruelling shift patterns and high- stress work loads. Out of all the names people like to call cops, I find 'Plod' thoroughly objectionable - it bears no resemblance to the actual day to day reality of being a police officer.
> 
> I dunno why cops try to post in these threads- it always ends the same way, and it's curious that those who criticise the loudest are often in occupations where their idea of real stress is some fecker shuffling their floppy disks. They have never experienced one moments real fear or abject terror in their lives and probably never will.


Bud my apologies for using the word plod, it is just how I get on with them in my work that I call them that amongst other things and vice versa lmao. If the new woman CS heard what we call each other she would have kittens I think lol. I have close friends who are ex forces that have joined the force who absolutely hate that their hands are tied behind their backs so much bud.


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

Gazzer said:


> igotone said:
> 
> 
> > I think I'm best out of this thread now, but let me say that police work is a never ending job with gruelling shift patterns and high- stress work loads. Out of all the names people like to call cops, I find 'Plod' thoroughly objectionable - it bears no resemblance to the actual day to day reality of being a police officer.
> ...


LOL. No probs Gaz, I know it's not even meant disparagingly by most people. It's just that the image is so far removed from the reality, but you clearly know the score anyway. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

igotone said:


> Gazzer said:
> 
> 
> > igotone said:
> ...


I do and respect it m8 wholeheartedly


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> Just so we can keep up, I've tried to collate all of PRs excuses in one place:
> 1. It's not enforceable.
> 2. It's not illegal.
> 3. It IS illegal, but only if I inconvenience another driver.
> ...


A reasonably accurate summary.

1. If you think the existing law is enforceable (in the case of someone driving at 70mph in the middle lane) try and find a single prosecution for this offence.
2/3. "Driving without reasonable consideration" (which is what covers lane discipline) is only an offence if someone is inconvenienced - which is obviously not possible if the lane hogger is traveling at the legal limit.
4. It's safer to not have traffic that's driving at greatly different speeds in one lane - which is what the HC recommendations result in.
5/6. It only reduces traffic flow if the lane hog travels at less than the speed limit OR if you take into account the fact that flow is increased by increasing speed limits (usually, dependent on limiting factors such as bottlenecks).
7. Correct.
8. ... just to let people break the speed limit more than I'm doing already.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

I'm a bit sad that you've given up inventing new excuses though. I was enjoying the creativeness, but you seem to just be repeating the already disproved ones now.

Come on... Let's have something new.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Mark Davies said:


> You explain to me why you are *so* convinced that you are in position to make informed comment on the details of policing despite never having done the job and in the face of someone who does do the job telling you that actually you're way off the mark? Go on, explain it in any other terms other than collosal, misplaced arrogance.


Let's put to one side the fact that I spent a few years working with the police which did give me some idea of what the job involves - I had to understand what went on in order to do _my_ job. But let's take the approach that I'm just a "customer" of the police and I'm looking at it entirely from my own point of view. Your attitude is to discount my views because I don't know anything about your job - and I'm an arrogant blah, blah, blah. On this argument, someone who has dealings with a retailer has no right to make a comment on his/her experiences of the retailer because they don't know anything about retailing. Which is plainly "shite" - to use a word you understand. The customer is not necessarily always right but a sensible retailer listens to what they say.

My experience of the police is that they have very little interest in dealing with - or even recording - crime, except under particular circumstances, and I've given several examples of this previously. But I've also gone a bit further by suggesting where some of the problems lie, which are, to some extent, based on a bit of inside knowledge. I'll give another example.

Take the cases of the muslim gangs who have been abusing vulnerable white girls - because they're kuffar infidels and therefore worthless. Several of these unfortunate girls reported what was happening to the police but were dismissed as prostitutes/unreliable, etc. I don't think this was an example of the police doing a "good job" and I think it reflects that the police have become a politically correct organisation.

When dealing with crimes such as this the "modern" police chief's reaction is inaction - as Peter Cook once said in another context they "immediately do nothing". Then they fire off a memo to their staff reminding them to be aware of racial, religious and cultural sensitivities when dealing with ethnic minorities and always exercise tolerance- or some such nonsense. The average cop just hits the delete button while issuing a string of expletives, but they have to do what they're told. So nothing happens until some journalists get hold of the case and the police are forced, very belatedly, to begin doing something.

I reckon Robocop would have taken a different approach. He'd have said something like "Round up those Paki's and bring 'em in for questioning" - much as DC Hunt would have done - and he would have been on their case with every possible form of surveillance until he'd nailed them.



Mark Davies said:


> The independant Crime Survey (not the police statistics) showed a 9% decrease in crime in the year to March 2013 - in fact more than your so called 'fiddled' official police statistics which showed a 7% fall.


This old chestnut. Most independent observers understand that the way that crime figures are recorded has been changed so much over the years that it's almost impossible to compare one year's figures with another. The Independent Crime Survey has at least been consistent but the way it arrives at its figures is very dubious. There have been many papers written about this but the Wikipedia entry does sum up some of the criticisms:

"_ Professor Ken Pease, former acting head of the Home Office's police research group, and Professor Gary Farrell of Loughborough University, estimated in 2007 that the survey was underreporting crime by about 3 million incidents per year due to its practice of arbitrarily capping the number of crimes one can be victimised by in a given year at five.[5] If true the error means that violent crime might actually stand at 4.4 million incidents per year, an 82% increase over the 2.4 million previously thought. Since the five crimes per person cap has been consistent since the BCS began this might not affect the long-term trends, however it takes little account of crimes such as domestic violence, figures for which would allegedly be 140% higher without the cap.[6] Police figures are also thought[who?] to seriously undercount repeat victimisation.

Lord de Mauley has said the BCS omits rape, assault, drug offences, fraud, forgery, crime against businesses and murder, while accepting that it "is accepted as a gold standard by most British academics and internationally".[7]

The British Crime Survey has also been criticised[citation needed] for its exclusion of residents of communal establishments, e.g. hostels, nursing and care homes and university halls of residence, from its surveys, and for its inability to offer statistics for so-called "victimless" crimes, such as those concerning the abuse, possession and trafficking of drugs. The BCS also fails to record crimes against businesses, commercial premises and vehicles and (because it is a victim survey) instances of murder and manslaughter.

One criticism is that both the youth survey and the adult surveys do not distinguish between a) crimes not reported to the police because they thought the police would do nothing or b)crimes not reported to the police because the victim thought them too trivial.[8]_"

It could be added that it doesn't include cyber crime, also.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Every now and then on this site, I read posts from people which leave me genuinely confused how someone so patently stupid can hold down a job that pays well enough to buy and run a TT...


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > 8. "I don't see why I should cower in the inside lane."
> ...


Pale Rider stamping his little feet shouting "I'm more important than everyone else"


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

Spandex said:


> Every now and then on this site, I read posts from people which leave me genuinely confused how someone so patently stupid can hold down a job that pays well enough to buy and run a TT...


a very lame reply spandy... :?


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

A3DFU said:


> Pale Rider said:
> 
> 
> > Spandex said:
> ...


or is it just that he doesnt think everybody else is more important tham him !!! :roll:


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

roddy said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > Every now and then on this site, I read posts from people which leave me genuinely confused how someone so patently stupid can hold down a job that pays well enough to buy and run a TT...
> ...


Pfft... Better than he deserves. He's reached the bottom of the barrel with his last post and I'll be pretty disappointed if anyone actually treats it with anything less than the contempt it deserves. I think this thread should be taken out and shot before PR really offends someone.


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

A3DFU said:


> Pale Rider said:
> 
> 
> > Spandex said:
> ...


Quite right - the antisocial, arrogant, hypocritical and selfish attitude just shines through.



Pale Rider said:


> ... the way that crime figures are recorded has been changed so much over the years that it's almost impossible to compare one year's figures with another. The Independent Crime Survey has at least been consistent ...


The illogical and contradictory statements continue :lol:

Along with the prejudice ...


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## igotone (Mar 10, 2010)

He's demoted Gene Hunt too. Unforgivable!


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

John-H said:


> Pale Rider said:
> 
> 
> > ... the way that crime figures are recorded has been changed so much over the years that it's almost impossible to compare one year's figures with another. The Independent Crime Survey has at least been consistent ...
> ...


Wrong on both counts. There's no prejudice here so I guess you are misunderstanding the reference to Pakis (?) which I attributed to Robocop - not entirely seriously. Remember that the police have been branded as "institutionally racist" and this type of language was common parlance. The comment about the muslim attitude to white girls is derived from various articles written by Mohammed Shafiq (muslim Foundation) and Yasmin Alibhai Brown who have both spoken out on this subject and said that it's a fact that this attitude is prevalent among muslim men and that the subject needs to be aired - not swept under the carpet.

So I resent false accusations of prejudice.

There's nothing illogical or contradictory about that statement you quote. The way that police collect crime figures has changed regularly over the years, and if you aren't aware of that you obviously haven't been following the subject - so spare me your ignorant comments. In fact, even the heavily massaged police figures can't cover up the fact that murder and violent crime continues to rise. It's difficult to cover up crimes like murder because the police can't avoid recording it - like they can with most other crimes. It's amusing to note that the London riots were basically allocated 1 crime incident.

The way that the BCS is calculated has been consistent but leaves out so many categories of crime and has so many holes in it that it is not a reliable measure - it is a massive underestimate of crime.

Anyway, this thread has run its course.


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## Pale Rider (Nov 15, 2011)

Spandex said:


> Every now and then on this site, I read posts from people which leave me genuinely confused how someone so patently stupid can hold down a job that pays well enough to buy and run a TT...


I guess I must be stupid to be arguing the toss with imbeciles like you and MD.


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Pale Rider said:


> Let's put to one side the fact that I spent a few years working with the police which did give me some idea of what the job involves - I had to understand what went on in order to do _my_ job.


Sure - of course doing an IT project for the police teaches you exactly how you deal with anthing from a drunk on a Saturday night to a mental health patient in crisis to a complex investigation into credit card fraud or a murder enquiry. You obviously therefore know _everything_.



Pale Rider said:


> But let's take the approach that I'm just a "customer" of the police and I'm looking at it entirely from my own point of view. Your attitude is to discount my views because I don't know anything about your job - and I'm an arrogant blah, blah, blah. On this argument, someone who has dealings with a retailer has no right to make a comment on his/her experiences of the retailer because they don't know anything about retailing. Which is plainly "shite" - to use a word you understand. The customer is not necessarily always right but a sensible retailer listens to what they say.


To use your own phrase this is a bad analogy, but unlike you I'll justify that comment and expalin exactly why.

Firstly retail customers are not always right. Specifically (and quite relevantly) they are not right when they have no understanding of relevant legislation such as the Sale of Goods Act and don't understand their rights or the limits of what demands they can make.

Secondly, and following on from that, I'm not simply making a presumption that you are wrong. Instead you are specifically demonstrating your lack of understanding with factually inaccurate comment. To continue your retail analogy consider a customer who has bought something, changes their mind about wanting it and takes it back. They walk into the shop and say, "I know my rights - you have to give me a refund" - and there in the single sentence demonstrating quite clearly that actually they don't know their rights at all. So according to you the 'sensible retailer' should just pay up anyway - simply because the customer demanded it? And what if the customer also claimed they had a right to be compensated their travel costs for the journey back to the shop? Just how far do we go with this.

Or, when people are wrong do we just tell them they are wrong?

But of course when people absolutely refuse to listen to others who are eminently better placed than they are to give an informed opinion on whatever topic is under discussion you're really going to get nowhere with them. Instead of accepting they might not know what they are talking about after all they instead accuse those trying to educate them of simply refusing to listen to them.



Pale Rider said:


> Take the cases of the muslim gangs who have been abusing vulnerable white girls - because they're kuffar infidels and therefore worthless. Several of these unfortunate girls reported what was happening to the police but were dismissed as prostitutes/unreliable, etc. I don't think this was an example of the police doing a "good job" and I think it reflects that the police have become a politically correct organisation.


And here is just exactly the kind of misinformed, innacurate comment that shows me the depth of your ignorance on the subject. I'm not even going to try and put you right on it because I know you will be absolutely determined to maintain your view even in the face of overwhelming evidence, so it would be pointless.

As I've said from the start it is clear you are completely closed to persuasion or argument, so certain are you that you can never be wrong on any matter. You think not? Well just look at this debate, where there hasn't been a single voice in support of your position, but so much opposition. But of course you're still right and the rest of the world is wrong.

If that's not the very defintion of arrogance I really don't know what is.

Say what you like in response (I'm sure you absolutely _must_ have the last word) but I won't be reading it - I'm done with this one.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

Love this,, the London riots were clased as one crime,, was that the murder of the innocent bystander making his way home from work ,, of course , even to someone, like myself , who is only a little interested in such matters, it is blatently obvious that the police , in colusion with the politicians , are continually massaging the statistics to suit whatever cause is being pushed at the time,,,, i think you should keep the political / police aspect of this discusion seperate from the OP on lane hogging,,,, because you obviously have a much better grasp of that than you have of lane procedure...


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

this thread has completely lost it's way now as it is just cop bashing not lane hogging..........lock it i say, before it turns into gay bashing also


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

a gay, black , policeman, sitting in the middle lane in a mk2 TT,,,,,,,, so whats wrong with that :lol:


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## peter-ss (Sep 3, 2008)

Why a Mk2? ;-)

:lol:

Sent from AutoGuide.com App


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

ok then,, a Cleo


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

peter-ss said:


> Why a Mk2? ;-)
> 
> :lol:
> 
> Sent from AutoGuide.com App


Peter you popped up at the perfect time lmao (hope you are both haveing a good bank holiday sir)


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## peter-ss (Sep 3, 2008)

Actually, I've been sitting at home all weekend with a bad cold but I wouldn't want to take this thread off topic.

:lol:


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

hahaha,, which topic ??? :lol:


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

Pale Rider said:


> There's no prejudice here so I guess you are misunderstanding the reference to Pakis (?)


Pale Rider,

apart from all the other s-h-1-t you're posting I'd ask you to refrain from racial comments/abuse please


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