From the Highway Code on motorway lane discipline:
- 241 – Do not overtake unless you are sure it is safe to do so. Overtake only on the right.
- 242 – In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right.
On the M1, Friday morning, on the way to work, I travelled, mostly, in lane one.
Occasionally, when I closed on slower traffic ahead of me, I moved over to lane two, to overtake it, and then moved straight back to lane one, when it was safe to do so.
In sticking to lane one, with occasional forays in to lane two, I broke Rule 241 fifty or sixty times (but within the letter of rule 242, I didn’t break the law once):
- Some of the traffic that I passed, while I was in lane one, was in lane two
- Some of the traffic that I passed, while I was in lane one, was in lane three with nothing inside it
- Some of the traffic that I passed, while I was in lane one, was in lane four with nothing inside it
Just where the hell do people learn to drive?
Ahh, if you’d skipped to the appendix on motorway driving, you’d have seen the bit where it mentions that owners of German motorcars “specifically BMWs and VW Golfs…”, “have a God-given right to drive in any lane they like, at whatever speed they fancy”.
That’s true, that is.
I have a copy of the Highway Code on my desk at work. I haven’t got to that appendix yet. Though I suspect you might be pulling my leg.
And with their headlamps on full beam with the rear fog lamps glaring.
I’ll look out for that section when I get there, too.