Great Idea....Smart Motorways!

[Scaf]

My daughter got a flat tyre on a smart motorway - late in the evening a pouring with rain, she called me hands free to ask what to do.
I told her slow down but keep driving to the next exit, pull off and call the AA.
Meanwhile I searched Ebay for a replacement wheel as I knew it would be knackered.
Can’t put a price on keep safe.

 

[Felonious Crud]

You can legally under take in the UK anyway.
As long as you're not swerving from lane to lane.

If you sit on the inside lane at 70mph and it's clear you can undertake, pretty much everyone!

Is that right? If I'm going to undertake then I always try to do it with a clear lane in between or when traffic in the other lanes slows down and I don't. My general policy of trying to not drive like a cock seems to work some of the time, but the whole undertaking thing always felt like a bit of a grey area.

 

[outrun]

I had a blowout on the m6 in my 3200gt with the wheel down to sparks from the rim. The section was a 50mph average speed zone because of roadworks and the hard shoulder was blocked by fixed metal barriers all the way along with no where to go. I had to stop and run up the hard shoulder and wave furiously a the traffic to alert them to my car stuck in the active lane. Two people skidded up to it and several others had to swerve at the last minute as everyone is on cruise control to keep within the limits and not concentrating as a result. Longest hour of my life while I waited for the recovery guys.

Although not a smart motorway, the same issues were there. Nowhere to go to get out of the active traffic. You'd think they would put a break in the barriers every so often and I ran the car for 3 or 4 miles on the rim only trying to find one before I was forced to stop.

Stupid doesn't do it justice.

 

[GeoffCapes]

Is that right? If I'm going to undertake then I always try to do it with a clear lane in between or when traffic in the other lanes slows down and I don't. My general policy of trying to not drive like a cock seems to work some of the time, but the whole undertaking thing always felt like a bit of a grey area.

I questioned this with a traffic plod a couple of years ago.

He said something along the lines of if you keep to your lane and traffic is slower on the lanes to the right, then you can over-take, (being in a jam being a prime example).
However, if you are swerving in and out of traffic then you are driving dangerously, hence you'll get nicked if you actually see a police car on the motorway.

The M20 is awful for middle lane hoggers, generally from the Maidstone turn off to Ashford, you can most of the time sit in the inside lane at 70, and overtake hundreds of middle lane hoggers.

It's become that much of an issue on the M20 they now have unmarked police cars nicking them now! Hooray!

 

[CatmanV2]

Undertaking perfectly legal but it might be deemed dangerous or without due care. If it is....
C

 

[Singhaa88]

I agree with a lot of the statements about undertaking, i will always revert to undertake if there is someone being a dick and hogging the outside lane overtaking no-one or in the middle lane again overtaking no-one... its a massive frustration that the vast majority of the driving public dont understand how to drive down a motorway properly... The police need to focus on pulling these drivers over and educating them as well as people speeding, they claim they do but ive never seen someone pulled over for doing it.

 

[Bebs]

Lane discipline in the UK is atrocious. Clearly one of the reasons is that you don’t get to go on a motorway when you take your license.. so how are new driver’s, or any driver for that matter with a UK license supposed to know lane discipline!
German motorways are bliss... nobody stays in lane 2 or 3. Overtake, move in.

 

[CatmanV2]

I was on a speed awareness course a couple of year back. We had a guy who absolutely swore blind that staying in lane 2 or 3 was completely fine.....


C

 

[zagatoes30]

I was on a speed awareness course a couple of year back. We had a guy who absolutely swore blind that staying in lane 2 or 3 was completely fine.....


C

Was that you Chris?

 

[CatmanV2]

Was that you Chris?

Not that I recall

C

 

[D Walker]

You can legally under take in the UK anyway.
As long as you're not swerving from lane to lane.

If you sit on the inside lane at 70mph and it's clear you can undertake, pretty much everyone!

Really, I remember some one on here telling my I was a law breaking criminal. If I am doing 68 in the inside lane, and some **** in the middle is doing 60; I don’t go across 3 lanes to come back, I just tootle up the inside, then give em the look.....

 

[CatmanV2]

Really, I remember some one on here telling my I was a law breaking criminal. If I am doing 68 in the inside lane, and some **** in the middle is doing 60; I don’t go across 3 lanes to come back, I just tootle up the inside, then give em the look.....

They were wrong

C

 

[midlifecrisis]

I think middle and third lane hoggers should be taken to Germany, given a Honda jazz and told to drive from Dortmund to Hannover on the A2. That should beat some sense into them as they'll feel the wrath of many a Merc E-class driver...

 

[Wanderer]

We drove over Germany whilst I worked from car, never really saw any chokka autobahnen, or much of a rush hour, or even really fast driving. Only issue we had is some tube in a Romanian registered rust bucket entering the Autobahn in front of us and then stopping.

Lot of slip roads to a place called Ausfahrt, just like in Russia there's a lot of restaurants called PECTOPAH.

 

[CatmanV2]

We drove over Germany whilst I worked from car, never really saw any chokka autobahnen, or much of a rush hour, or even really fast driving. Only issue we had is some tube in a Romanian registered rust bucket entering the Autobahn in front of us and then stopping.

Lot of slip roads to a place called Ausfahrt, just like in Russia there's a lot of restaurants called PECTOPAH.

Has anyone managed to visit Autres Directions in France? Sounds like a nice place, and it must be popular. There are signs everywhere!
C

 

[Navcorr]

Has anyone managed to visit Autres Directions in France? Sounds like a nice place, and it must be popular. There are signs everywhere!
C

It's a small village in the suburbs of Toutes.

 

[Wanderer]

Has anyone managed to visit Autres Directions in France? Sounds like a nice place, and it must be popular. There are signs everywhere!
C

Also on Berlin U-Bahn I commented to my German-speaking better-half, 'There's a lot of trains that go to Kurzzug' then she starting wetting herself.

Apparently it just means 'short train' ie couple of carriages or so....

She used to be a language teacher but laughs like a drain when I make a mistake, like when I got Queen Elizabeth II wrong in Russian, I said Queen Elizabeth The Tuesday, (ftogo/ftornik) cos Tues is the second day etc.

 

[Wack61]

They also don't elephant race the trucks as I recall , they just follow each other as they know that 56.1 mph = sweet FA over 2 hours

 

[Wanderer]

They also don't elephant race the trucks as I recall , they just follow each other as they know that 56.1 mph = sweet FA over 2 hours

I saw signs on the autobahn that said trucks only allowed on right hand land during certain hours - ie busy ones. What a bloody good idea that is.

 

[Davidt99]

You can legally under take in the UK anyway.
As long as you're not swerving from lane to lane.

If you sit on the inside lane at 70mph and it's clear you can undertake, pretty much everyone!

Got a link to an official source on this? I think you will find you have misinterpreted the rules around undertaking.