Having trudged up and down the M4 at the weekend I realised it is time
to say it. And if anything should go viral in the UK, this should. People have
no idea how to drive on motorways, in particular about lane driving. So for the
benefit of those who have forgotten, have obtained their driving licences
bogusly or are simply inconsiderate nobheads, here it is. In the UK we drive on
the left and the rule of the road is ‘keep left.’
The majority of UK motorways have three lanes: the left lane, the
middle lane and the right lane. The left lane is for driving in (see the ‘keep
left’ reference above); the middle lane is for overtaking and the right lane is
also for overtaking, that is, overtaking vehicles in the middle lane who are
travelling more slowly but who, in turn, are actually overtaking vehicles in
the left lane. Once you have completed one of these manoeuvres in the middle
lane or the right lane, you should return to the left lane (see again the ‘keep
left’ reference above) where you continue driving. However, there are drivers who
for no logical reason, even when the left lane, the driving lane, is empty, think
it is okay to drive continuously in the middle lane and ignore the left lane completely
(see again the ‘keep left’ reference above).
So let us look at what effect staying in the middle lane has on a three-lane
motorway. Given that the rules say you must keep to the left and should not
overtake on the left, this means that anyone wanting to overtake a driver who
thinks it is okay to stay in the middle lane, has to go round that vehicle and
overtake on the right side, the outside lane. So, since driving in the middle
lane for no reason is not confined to just a few drivers – there are lots of
them out there - this means that there are queues of drivers just sitting in
the middle lane when they should return to the left lane. Then those wishing to
overtake those inconsiderate middle lane hoggers have to go to the outside of
them, the right side, thus forming another queue. So we end up with queues of
drivers predominantly occupying the middle lane and the right lane. Think about
this. What that now does is effectively reduce a three-lane motorway to a two-lane
motorway but with the same volume of traffic. In other words, three lanes of
traffic are now occupying two lanes of motorway. The effect is slower moving vehicles,
greater risk of accident and, guess what… traffic congestion. So next time you
whinge about how slow it is on a motorway look at the appalling lane discipline
exercised by people who like to think they are skilled drivers. The fact is,
they are driving on autopilot without thinking about what they are doing.
The message here then is, STOP HOGGING THE MIDDLE LANE! (see again the ‘keep
left’ reference above)
