Safe Speed Forums

I'm sure everyone has been in this situation, a small group of cars and only one person who knows how to get to the destination, so everyone else has to follow.

Some things are obvious

1) If possible, order the car from slowest car to fastest* so that the convoy doesn't stray above someone's ability level and also because the better cars are more likely to be able to catch up

2) Don't amber gamble, don't go through the lights near the end of the green phase.

3) Make sure there's a big enough gap for everyone to get out at once

4) Use your indicators for gods sake

5) If making lane changes signal at a point when there are no cars preventing anyone from changing lane, then let the car at the back change lane first, then the rest of you move across.


After that, it gets a lot less clear cut.

Do you

a) Drive close to the person in front, making sure you are checking in front of them and anticipating their moves, like the "overtaking position" that some people talk about. I tend to do this when following my GF because I know how she drives and I have better brakes than her

b) Leave a longer gap, accept that any safe gap will immediately be filled by some git, then if dual carriageway or long straight, slow down until they get pissed off enough to overtake, or pull into bus shelters and laybys all the time to regroup

Both of the above are probably wrong, so what is the advice of the experts here?

* unlike today where the only person who knew where we were going drove a heavily modified Nissan Skyline GT-R o_O

i'll go with option b)
safety must still be the priority.

incidentally when you follow someone in the uk it seems to be accepted that its the lead drivers responsibility to keep everyone together..... with my german colleagues it seems entireyl the following driver's responsibility to keep up (or get lost!).

Problem with option b, as we found out, when you need to U-turn at a roundabout, because we were spread out, half the convoy turned right instead.

How do the German rules cope with traffic lights in long convoys?

One thing i used when travailing with my family in convoy is ether a CB (rare these days) two way radio (get the passengers not the drivers to use it) to keep in touch.

In that way the lead car can give instructions to all and more immortally the cars behind don’t have to be watched by the lead driver that’s really should have there attention on the road.

Definitely b - leave a gap.

Nothing is worse for other drivers (or more stressful) than a large group of vehicles all too close together because it seriously restricts the options for other vehicles.

You shouldn't really be in convoy for long journeys in the first place - it is much more sensible to arrange to meet at an easy to find location and to then just be in convoy for the final section.

Get a map. Yes an old fashioned idea, but most of the busy areas are covered by A to Z or other similar street level maps, and while technically not legal, the photocopying of the key pages and giving them to navigators avoids the convoy in the first place. If somebody does get lost, then that is when the mobile phone actually becomes a usefull tool.

1 to 5. Don't drive in convoy, if it is a really difficult to find destination then arrange a meeting place close by.

a and b. Drive normally, if you get split up then the lead car should stop at the next opportunity (not drive at 20mph down lane 1 of the motorway for them to catch up).

If you often have to drive in tandem then invest in a couple of handsfree kits but keep calls to "shall I stop" - "yes/no". No complicated directions unless the director is stopped.

My family (4 generations on occasion) often holiday together, three or four cars to wherever we are staying. We never drive convoy, we will arrange meeting places either in advance or by phone on the road (passengers doing the talking of course). We all have different driving styles / speeds. It is much easier not to worry about keeping formation.

Knowing relative positions on the road can help as lead car can advise of holdups (and on a couple of occasions, scamvans )