Safe Speed Forums

From time to time on this forum we are told that undertaking is dangerous and may be illegal, usually because we're dealing with middle lane idiots (there is already a thread about them, please go there if you want to discuss them)

The reasons given are that people don't expect it and it is harder for the undertakee to check their blindspot on that side.

So when faced with a middle lane moron with foreign plates and driving a left hand drive car, surely overtaking them is dangerous for all the same reasons and it would be much safer to undertake, all other things being equal (assume there is no-one else on the motorway ahead and no junctions coming up)

agree/disagree? what would the police think if you used this argument after getting pulled for it?

As far as I am aware overtaking on the inside is not illegal.
I have overtaken a few left-hand-drive lorries on the inside as they were in lane 2, I wanted to be in lane 1 further on and could have overtaken them in lane 3 but that would have required changing two lanes in front of them (and would have been tight if they had increased speed).
I'm sure they expect it so I didn't worry.

I believe the only reason overtaking on the inside is possibly dangerous is because people assume that it doesn't happen. Of course it is happening more and more often now, so hopefully people will get used to it.
We should be encouraging overtaking on either side, as this will stop it from being dangerous and will help to reduce congestion. (which is the enemy, right? Or is it only the enemy when the solution is to pay the government? Hmm...)

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Andrew.

Whilst I agree with everything you have just said, I'm really hoping for the opinions of the anti-undertaking side of the argument here. If you are pro-undertaking then it doesn't really matter whether the vehicle is LHD/foreign or not.

I would imagine that it is much safer to undertake a foreign lorry though, MUCH smaller blind spots.

Yeah, I have driven in Florida.

I do feel perfectly comfortable overtaking an LHD lorry on the inside though. I would prefer that than overtaking on the outside. Strangely I don't remember any LHD cars being in the outside lane when I've wanted to get past. Odd that.

Also I have a pretty good idea that the lorry in this case will stay in lane two because that leads to the ferry.

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Andrew.

Don't be silly. You'll end up dead under a truck. We know damn well it happens and we expect it-but we don't like it as eventually we find a numpty in the blind spot and it's only their horn that tells us they are there when driving a tall tractor unit.

Even if there WAS a safe way for someone with common sense to undertake making it legal will simply give the muppets another fun and interesting way to drive to their own death while looking at the nice scenery. Remember, most car drivers are complete idiots that think they are god of their own little patch of road. Giving them carte blanche to dither around on the inside of trucks will simply lead to deaths.

I accept that you're not a muppet (you're here which means you think about driving) but you have to remember that most drivers are.

btw, I've driven a Daf XF left hooker on British roads. I'd far rather you overtook on the correct side. It's far safer-we're expecting you there and by the time we can react in an HGV a speeding car can have got halfway up the side of a truck and be crushed.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

It was a left-hand-drive lorry (which I believe is the point).

Overtaking on the inside is not illegal. People just think it is, probably because they are being mislead by the Highway Code.

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Andrew.

Sorry Nos4r2, but I disagree with this "lowest common denominator" attitude. We have to (and do) trust drivers to carry out potentially dangerous manoeuvres all the time, otherwise we may as well bring back the man with the red flag.
And there are plenty of currently legal situations that allow the equivalent of "overtaking on the inside". Competent drivers will already be driving defensively and should always be wary of moving into the path of another vehicle anyway.

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p.s. I am still absolutely floored by Paul's death. May 2008 be the greatest ever for SafeSpeed. His spirit lives on.

That's because you're not the lowest common denominator.

I very much doubt you would hang around on the left side of a truck in the blind spot but there's plenty who do it on the right side next to the cab. Give them an excuse and they'll use it.

Remember, we're talking about the 50mph fixed stare forward brigade here. Spend a while in a truck (you see an awful lot more car drivers when you're in a truck-they are overtaking you constantly) and you soon realise how bad the general public are.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

It's a fair comment but the driver should be expecting vehicles to come up his right side.

In all honesty I'd keep a full lane between yourself and a foreign truck if at all possible. You only have to see the piles of beer cans and wine bottles they leave behind at truckstops to make you wary.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Okay, so its seldom I see an opportunity to undertake a lorry, since they are seldom MLMs!

If you were to pass a lorry with an indeterminate driving side, and as such you have no idea which side he is expecting passing traffic, one would suppose that it would be much safer to do so on the side where you have extra road space to evade into (the hard shoulder) rather than none (the central barrier).

Just a thought.

Yes, but you have (presumably) learned to drive in a drive-on-the-left country and your car would have likely had UK plates.

I am talking about a foreign registered car that is a left hooker and presumably has a driver that is used to driving on the right and since they're an MLM then their competence is also brought into question.

Which side is safest to overtake them on. I would argue left as they're more likely to check that side of the vehicle before a lane change, and more likely to expect to be overtaken on that side.

Gosh, I never realised the risks!
I'm sure that you will support my initiative to ban all overtaking then, just to cover all eventualities (left hand drive, right hand drive, foreign drivers, local drivers, stare-straight ahead drivers...).

Ahhh, I feel safer already...

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p.s. I am still absolutely floored by Paul's death. May 2008 be the greatest ever for SafeSpeed. His spirit lives on.

If you drove a car along the A14 on a regular basis I think you may form a different view of some of your fellow truckers. You would see some truly unbelievable manouvres by trucks carving out in front of anything at any time, regardless of closing speed or vehicle spacing. Are you sure it's just the car drivers who think they are Gods?

I have become readier to undertake in recent years because it just seems to pointless waiting in the outside lane for others to pull over when the other two lanes are so temptingly empty.

I do still try and leave a lane free between us to avoid their unexpected pulling let though, except when it's busy/slow enough to argue that the Highway Code queuing exemption should apply.

Anyway, despite this I do NOT think we should move to an 'overtake either side model' because if you think about it, this removes the onus from anyone to change lanes - 'if they want to get past, they need to change lanes to get round me'. So it becomes perfectly legitimate for 3 cars to tootle along side by side at 50 all day long, and then NO ONE can get past.

At the moment, if you are in the outside lane and not overtaking, you shouldn't be there. So we should put the emphasis on people pulling over rather than punishing undertaking, but I do think it's better to retain our 'keep left' philosophy.

(The other alternative of course is 'stay out until you need to pull over for faster cars' which I understand is more how it works in Germany - but that then puts the onus on the slower and probably less capable driver to see and react to the oncoming faster car.)

Ian

This is a Daf XF and it had French plates.



The safest thing to do is hang back,wait till you've seen where they're going to go when they've finished dithering then overtake them.

Course, if you're overtaking a Volvo truck you can't tell if it's a left or right hooker by the cab unless you can see the driver.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Actually,that's what happens when trucks are stuck at a 50mph limit in an area with a lot of scameras. You get a lot of bunching.

Mostly, we just put up with a lot of untrained f**ckwits that can't see past the end of their bonnet sharing the motorway with us. Drive a truck for a while and you might understand.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Sorry Paul but I've got to say it.

Supertramp, don't be a tit.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

It doesn't need to be a truck, any kind of long distance driving, professional or otherwise is enough to make you understand.

My GF has been commuting from Wales to Newbury for the last 4 weeks and pretty much every day comes home with a story of at least one idiot and/or having to take preemptive/evasive action to avoid someone else's stupidity.

Today's one was particularly special. Brake from 90 to 30 in order to safely circumnavigate a stepladder that was in L3 using a mere 6 inches of L2 (which was full), only to have to floor the hell out of her car to avoid getting rear ended by the car behind that was halfway into L2, then the van behind that car proceeded to demolish the stepladder as well as it's own front bumper. Didn't the two cars swerving into the next lane give you a clue that something might be up?

One call to the highways agency at Membury Services, followed by happening across a couple of traffic police who were parked up. The police said to let the HA take care of it to which she responded that she didn't think they'd do so competently. The policeman just nodded knowingly and said nothing.

TBH Lum I don't think driving a car for any distance can ever give you an insight into what its like driving a truck.

I used to do 90 miles a day to work and back, and then over 300 miles most weekends and I thought I'd seen some amazing things on the road.

Then I spent a day in a truck with Nos...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

What is the excuse on the A14 then? The only section of 50mph is about 4 miles long between Haughley and Stowmarket.

I have no desire to get into a car driver vs. truck driver battle with you, but do you ever use the A14 and see the antics that some of these idiots get up to? I am certain you would not try to defend them.