The Lemon Fool

didds wrote: yet its not unusual to see a inside lane queuing in effect for a very long way, of traffic that has got into the leftmost lane, leading up to an exit, while other vehicles sail on past them and join the dual lane slip road at the last moment.
didds

Yeah
by those who think l they are too good to queue
I love squeezing them out if I get a chance

Nimrod103 wrote: A big problem for me on the M25 is the way 4 lanes at several points go down to 3, with the slow lane becoming the slip road at a junction. Sometimes it goes back to 4 lanes after the junction. Traffic travelling quite happily in the inside lane, usually slower moving trucks and in my case towing a caravan, have relatively little time to change lane, to avoid leaving the motorway.

Regular users know this and stay out a line, confusing visitors
However the signs always start at least a mile before the junction, so shouldn't be last minute if people are awake.

Leothebear wrote:Can you imagine the absolute carnage there'd be if everyone tried to get into the leftmost lane? Being pedantic about the rule doesn't make it workable.

Probably similar to how the M6 was most night before the Variable limits, except there everyone used to try and fet into the outside lane.

Paul

pje16 wrote:

didds wrote: yet its not unusual to see a inside lane queuing in effect for a very long way, of traffic that has got into the leftmost lane, leading up to an exit, while other vehicles sail on past them and join the dual lane slip road at the last moment.
didds

Yeah
by those who think l they are too good to queue
I love squeezing them out if I get a chance

I'd say its most efficient use of the road system. if others want to just queue for several minutes and ignore 50% of the legal slip road provision that's their call.

we'll agree to disagree.

didds

didds wrote:

pje16 wrote: Yeah
by those who think l they are too good to queue
I love squeezing them out if I get a chance

I'd say its most efficient use of the road system. if others want to just queue for several minutes and ignore 50% of the legal slip road provision that's their call.

we'll agree to disagree.

didds

I'm a 'sail paster'. I'll happily do it on two conditions. Firstly I know the junction and that there are definitely two separate lane exits, e.g. J10 on the M4 to Bracknell. And secondly I am prepared if my intention fails for any reason, to miss the exit and drive on to the next and return. The latter happens (very) occasionally and I see it as a price to pay for all the time I save passing the long queues.

didds wrote:

pje16 wrote: Yeah
by those who think l they are too good to queue
I love squeezing them out if I get a chance

I'd say its most efficient use of the road system. if others want to just queue for several minutes and ignore 50% of the legal slip road provision that's their call.

we'll agree to disagree.

didds

Unfortunately many people share your attitude when arriving at a "road narrows" transition from several lanes to less (often 2 to 1), a good example being the dual carriage way A303 from the Boscombe roundabout towards Stonehenge.
Imagining every one else to be an unthinking idiot, they push along the outside lane past everyon who has realised the road narrows, then bully their way into the oher lane at the point odf intersection while loudly proclaiming their superiority and claiming "the highway Code says 'Zipper"".
They also fume when they come across someone who has taken the rest of the code into context and is maintaining their position opposite where the joined the queue, normally with a large gap to the rest of the 'bully 'lane ahead.
Three things happen when this occurs: one: The whole of both queues start to move faster as people no longer have to slow down as the bullies squee4ze into gaps instead of zippering, Two: generally someone realises you aren't pushing in and leaves a gap for you instead of squeezing you out, and Three, a statistically predictable idiot will try to overtake, banging his wheel with anger.

It would be nice if the Stonehenge delays were exclusively caused by bullying idiots, but alas they are supplemented by gawkers who slow right down to take a selfie, lorries who have to change down another gear avoiding a gawker and the tail back of traffic from the next roundabout where the bullies try to overtake even though the traffic is stationary down into Winterbourne Stoke (where there a really nice pub called the Bell right on the roadside!)

If you mean heading west to the A3030 roundabout and left turn A345 to Salisbury, the signage clearly shows its a left hand lane only for that turning (or straight on), the middle lane is straight on, and the right hand lane is for the right turn

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1775932 ... 384!8i8192

I don't doubt some DO use that middle lane ( straight on only ) but then push in - but that's not a "legal zippering". That's not the scenario I am on about and am discussing.


didds

didds wrote:If you mean heading west to the A3030 roundabout and left turn A345 to Salisbury, the signage clearly shows its a left hand lane only for that turning (or straight on), the middle lane is straight on, and the right hand lane is for the right turn

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1775932 ... 384!8i8192

I don't doubt some DO use that middle lane ( straight on only ) but then push in - but that's not a "legal zippering". That's not the scenario I am on about and am discussing.

At a roundabout like that, where there is a long queue to turn 'left' off the first exit, then the simplest and safest 'cheating' thing to do is a '450' - a loop and a quarter of the roundabout.

AF62 wrote:

didds wrote:If you mean heading west to the A3030 roundabout and left turn A345 to Salisbury, the signage clearly shows its a left hand lane only for that turning (or straight on), the middle lane is straight on, and the right hand lane is for the right turn

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1775932 ... 384!8i8192

I don't doubt some DO use that middle lane ( straight on only ) but then push in - but that's not a "legal zippering". That's not the scenario I am on about and am discussing.

At a roundabout like that, where there is a long queue to turn 'left' off the first exit, then the simplest and safest 'cheating' thing to do is a '450' - a loop and a quarter of the roundabout.

I don't regard taking this alternative route cheating at all...

Watis

Watis wrote:

AF62 wrote: At a roundabout like that, where there is a long queue to turn 'left' off the first exit, then the simplest and safest 'cheating' thing to do is a '450' - a loop and a quarter of the roundabout.

I don't regard taking this alternative route cheating at all...

Watis

I was once told that this was illegal.

the person telling me it couldn't of course find any reference to it, and CBA! LOL.

didds

didds wrote:

Watis wrote: I don't regard taking this alternative route cheating at all...

I was once told that this was illegal.

the person telling me it couldn't of course find any reference to it, and CBA! LOL.

Somtimes if I cannot figure out my exit I will go around the roundabout until I do figure it out. So it could be a 540 or a 810. It could also be a 360 if I decide to backtrack.

I don't see how that can possibly be illegal.

Lootman wrote: Somtimes if I cannot figure out my exit I will go around the roundabout until I do figure it out. So it could be a 540 or a 810. It could also be a 360 if I decide to backtrack.

I don't see how that can possibly be illegal.

totally agree. Has anybody here never honestly had to traverse a roundabout in full for this reason? Id be surprised

Lootman wrote:

Leothebear wrote:From my perspective, if you can be undertaken (unless by someone driving like a proper loon) you’re probably in the wrong lane. My grandad taught me that you should treat an overtake on a multi-carriageway road as a deliberate event (just as on a single-carriageway) and move back over when you’re done. Drifting along in any lane other than the left lane is driving without due care and attention.

On today's motorways this rule is nonsense.

Agreed. It might be true on some remotely used motorway in Scotland. But on the M25 you just take a lane and then it proceeds at whatever pace it proceeds, regardless of what is going on in the other lanes. Much like on US freeways where lane discipline is also redundant.

You must mean the M9

SimonS wrote:

didds wrote:
I'd say its most efficient use of the road system. if others want to just queue for several minutes and ignore 50% of the legal slip road provision that's their call.

we'll agree to disagree.

didds

Unfortunately many people share your attitude when arriving at a "road narrows" transition from several lanes to less (often 2 to 1), a good example being the dual carriage way A303 from the Boscombe roundabout towards Stonehenge.
Imagining every one else to be an unthinking idiot, they push along the outside lane past everyon who has realised the road narrows, then bully their way into the oher lane at the point odf intersection while loudly proclaiming their superiority and claiming "the highway Code says 'Zipper"".
They also fume when they come across someone who has taken the rest of the code into context and is maintaining their position opposite where the joined the queue, normally with a large gap to the rest of the 'bully 'lane ahead.
Three things happen when this occurs: one: The whole of both queues start to move faster as people no longer have to slow down as the bullies squee4ze into gaps instead of zippering, Two: generally someone realises you aren't pushing in and leaves a gap for you instead of squeezing you out, and Three, a statistically predictable idiot will try to overtake, banging his wheel with anger.

It would be nice if the Stonehenge delays were exclusively caused by bullying idiots, but alas they are supplemented by gawkers who slow right down to take a selfie, lorries who have to change down another gear avoiding a gawker and the tail back of traffic from the next roundabout where the bullies try to overtake even though the traffic is stationary down into Winterbourne Stoke (where there a really nice pub called the Bell right on the roadside!)

The solution is a clear sign saying "USE BOTH LANES - MERGE IN TURN".

Lootman wrote: Somtimes if I cannot figure out my exit I will go around the roundabout until I do figure it out. So it could be a 540 or a 810. It could also be a 360 if I decide to backtrack.

An 810????
Should you be driving?
Or do you have complicated roundabouts in your area? The famous Magic Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead perhaps?
doolally

doolally wrote:

Lootman wrote: Somtimes if I cannot figure out my exit I will go around the roundabout until I do figure it out. So it could be a 540 or a 810. It could also be a 360 if I decide to backtrack.

An 810????
Should you be driving?
Or do you have complicated roundabouts in your area? The famous Magic Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead perhaps?
doolally

An 910 would make me dizzy

doolally wrote:

Lootman wrote: Somtimes if I cannot figure out my exit I will go around the roundabout until I do figure it out. So it could be a 540 or a 810. It could also be a 360 if I decide to backtrack.

An 810????
Should you be driving?

In the days before satnavs and ‘someone else’ was navigating then it wasn’t unknown to do far far many more laps of a roundabout than an 810 before a decision was made - and not always a decision by the (supposed) navigator.

AF62 wrote:

doolally wrote: An 810????
Should you be driving?

In the days before satnavs and ‘someone else’ was navigating then it wasn’t unknown to do far far many more laps of a roundabout than an 810 before a decision was made - and not always a decision by the (supposed) navigator.

I have no idea who "Someone else" is. Who is she?

Leothebear wrote:

AF62 wrote: In the days before satnavs and ‘someone else’ was navigating then it wasn’t unknown to do far far many more laps of a roundabout than an 810 before a decision was made - and not always a decision by the (supposed) navigator.

I have no idea who "Someone else" is. Who is she?

She - she is the one who when giving directions points left and says go right (or the other way around), and doesn’t appreciate if you ask for clarification.

didds wrote: yet its not unusual to see a inside lane queuing in effect for a very long way, of traffic that has got into the leftmost lane, leading up to an exit, while other vehicles sail on past them and join the dual lane slip road at the last moment.
didds

The British desire to join a queue is stronger than any laws of the road.

AF62 wrote:

Leothebear wrote: I have no idea who "Someone else" is. Who is she?

She - she is the one who when giving directions points left and says go right (or the other way around), and doesn’t appreciate if you ask for clarification.

AKA, "She who must be obeyed" ?