Safe Speed Forums

Isn't it amazing how often the topic comes up, both on here and in other "fora", and how many people seem to have so little appreciation of how to do it?

As an example, here's a recent topic on pistonheads* that I just got embroiled in. Now I don't profess to have the in-depth expert knowledge of Paul, or others on here, but nevertheless I find it quite scary just how many people ardently believe in the "accelerate then lunge" approach to overtaking, or in this case that the only option in overtaking a line of vehicles is to nail the whole lot with max acceleration and hang on in white-knuckled terror in case one pulls out!

Given that overtaking is clearly one of the most hazardous manoeuvres that motorists ever undertake, it seems to me to be a massive shortcoming that even the basic theory isn't covered by the normal driving lesson syllabus or test, let alone any practical training.

The current DfT approach seems to be to discourage the practice via road paint, traffic islands etc, whilst encouraging it via rigorously enforcing speed limits for HGVs etc. The end result seems to be more and more desperate overtaking in ever dodgier opportunities.

How big of an issue do we think this is, and how much is it perhaps contributing to the current poor road safety performance?

(* sorry - just noticed it's in the members only bit so you'll have to be registered on PistonHeads to read it)

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The "accelerate then lunge" approach to overtaking, I assume, attempts to minimise the time spent in the critical section by accelerating past vehicles as quickly as possible. There are a list of obvious defects with this approach, but the most apparent is the race-condition, which is a flaw in the manoeuvre where the outcome is critically dependent on the relative timing of events, and is thus sporadic and risky.

The analysis of race hazards originated in electronics systems, but they also arise in road systems during critical manoeuvres. A rational response to a race condition is to ‘serialise access’ to the required resource. In a road system context, this would mean that only one vehicle is allowed in each lane at one time, removing the possibility of a head-on crash. Unfortunately, the usual protocol of waiting to get to the head of the line has fallen by the wayside in our “me first, get out of my way” culture, and we seem to have a lot of speed-obsessed wastrels in cheap fast cars who overtake because of the temporary illusion of dominance that it creates for them. Very sad and stupid bunch, those.

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I stole this .sig

The original thread I refered to described a problem situation where a lorry is holding up a queue of vehicles, and the vehicles you describe as being at "the head of the line" aren't making any effort to pass, but instead are tailgating each other and thus making it very difficult for anyone behind to safely overtake and make progress.

The problem seems to be it is actually the "queuing" mentality that worsens this! Instead of regarding that we are all simply driving along a road according to a clear protocol, an increasing number of drivers seem to regard that their position at "the head of the line" prefers upon them some right to deliberately impede other drivers behind. The difference between this and a proper "queue" is that they have no intention of taking their turn, so their actions solely delay others without any advantage to themselves.

So I agree with you that its about intolerance, but if you study the highway code properly you will see that it is your attitude that is the intolerant one. If you are happy to trundle along indefinitely at 40mph behind a smoke belching HGV that's fine, but doing so does not prefer upon you the right to impede others who want to progress at a normal speed, where it is safe to do so.

Anyway, this is a digression. The points I was actually trying to raise were

(1) Government Policy is simultenously encouraging more overtaking, yet at the same time making it more hazardous.
(2) It would be beneficial to accept that people may overtake, and thus we should train new drivers in the ground rules of how to do so safely, given that it is one of the most inherently dangerous manoeuvres they are likely to undertake (no pun intended )

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The queuing drivers should be educated out of the habit really. There are also the deliberate blockers that decide to move over to the crown of the road whenever there is the tiniest of straights. People should also be reminded that the speed limit on an nsl road for a car is 60 not 50 or 40 or 35 like some people seem to think. I would also suggest some education being directed at drivers about minimum speeds for wide sections pointing out anyone that can't do 50 without feeling out of their depth should perhaps get the bus. Ditto those that think overtaking is illegal.

I find it anxiety inducing with people doing stupid things while you're overtaking them. Some speed up and the likelihood of getting pinged by camera means I end up checking my speedo while overtaking which isn't exactly the best time to do it! I only overtake if I have about 3x the room I need as otherwise it feels too scary. I also find I don't know always how much room I need to allow to overtake safely. If I am following another car and I can't be bothered to overtake it then I usually pull more towards the left so that any car behind that might want to go passed can.

I try and follow the roadcraft pull out level then floor it option. That has saved me from ending up in the grille of a landrover as I was about to follow another vehicle and then realised as he pulled back in that the landrover that was oncoming was far too close. An accelerating lunge would have driven me right into the oncoming vehicle.

Perhaps there should be some accepted signal saying 'I'm at the head of the queue and intend to overtake' or one which says 'non overtaker, please pass'

If I see the right side indicator light up on the car in front and there aren't (m)any turnings on the right, I assume an overtake is likely. OTOH a lot of the time they just pull out and go, usually in the accelerate and lunge style JT described. But ideally drivers ought to be able to signal their intention to overtake clearly enough by combining indicators, car positioning and choosing the right place to overtake. I think the standard of driver training is stuffing up the first two and while the authorities seem determined to make the third extinct.

I'd like more non-overtakers to use the "please pass" hand signal, but I suppose that's expecting too much. You can usually work it out though. Follow my mother in law for ten minutes and I guarantee anyone here would soon work out that she never overtakes. Can't judge books by their cover though - I've been passed by a blue rinser in a GTI who went by like I was parked. Bet she was wearing purple .

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

At which point you should rejoice! It is seeing things like that (and indeed the sentiments in the poem to which you allude) that gives me hope that growing older perhaps isn't an entirely depressing prospect!

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Oh absolutely. My first thought was that I hoped like hell I'd be like that at her age. Er, but not with the blue rinse or the women's clothes, obviously.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

That can happen. If it does, that is unfortunate, I know. But calm drivers are what we want, not distance/time obsessed crazies.

I mean that drivers who are not at "the head of the line" have two choices. They could muster their patience and hang loose. Or they could try a “lunge manoeuvre” from the back of the line. If they opt to overtake from the back, they open up a risk, because another driver could easily do the same thing at (more or less) the same time while in the blind spot. If you are in that position, at the back of the line, would you choose not to start a risky manoeuvre, or just go for it?



Those at the head of the line have no obligation to risk their safety by overtaking, and the drivers behind have no right to tailgate and impel drivers up front to overtake, especially when such drivers are in fear of a race condition caused by an impatient driver behind! Many drivers will always choose to drive slowly and hang loose. That is a matter of personal style. Drivers behind can expect this as part of the driving experience and must not get crazed when it happens. Life is not fair.

If a driver can’t wait until a suitable safe passing point emerges (even if one doesn’t), regardless of other road users, then he needs his head testing. You must not overtake at a dangerous spot.

As for government policy - we have far too much truck traffic blighting our village life, and I’ll back any measure to penalise and rid of some of it.

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Not sure if you read the original topic, I'm guessing not.

Within it I was actually advocating a third approach, which was to use good driving techniques to safely execute the overtake whilst allowing for the bad behaviour of the intervening cars, and anticipating and minimising any risk they might cause when they make a mad lunge style overtake.

In truth we're probably not that far away from agreement here, in that we are both opposed to "lunging" overtake manoeuvres, and impatient behaviour. The only point on which we differ is that you perhaps advocate staying in the "queue" indefinitely, whilst I would try to seek an opportunity to safely, patiently and carefully overtake.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

BW, I think you are (deliberately?) missing the point here.

The tailgaters are not those wanting to overtake, it is those forming the front of the queue behind the obstructing vehicle. So we have lorry driving at his correct speed of 40mph on a NSL road with occasional passing opportunities, but the 5 vehicles behind it all have no intention of passing, but are less than 1 second from each other, meaning that there are no gaps available into which anybody can safely pull-in. To make a safe overtake, a driver at position 6 has to find a section of road that will allow the passing of 6 vehicles at the same time.

The potential overtaker on the otherhand is typically not tailgating, because: 1) By being further back they give themselves a chance to see further down the road without the vehicle in front obstructing them, and 2) it allows them to accellerate in lane before pulling out while still having space to brake again if the opportunity is not there.


I know that you think that everybody should calmly drive at the speed of the slowest driver, but if you have say a 150 mile journey ahead of you, this is a choice between 4 hours of mind numbing tedium at a maximum of 40, or 3 hours of driving where you drive at a comfortable speed and are stimulated enough to maintain concentration.

What the drivers at the front of the queue, that have no intention of overtaking should be doing, is to extend the gap to the vehicle in front to between 2 and 3 seconds, which clearly tells any driver behind them that they do not want to overtake, but that they are giving them a safe gap to pull into should anybody else want to.

Instead these drivers at the front are not thinking, and are not considering anybody else, they are just mindlessly setting a 1 second gap and then get angry if somebody has to pull into it.

I tried to, but there was some kind of sign-up page, which I didn't like. I had to let off a bit of steam on this, because I see a lot of close shaves on my daily run as a result of macho-overtaking by people who don't understand the inconsistent nature of risk. I also see quite a few cars in fields. Sorry, I’ll try again with that sign up page.



It seems to me that there is little one can do but wait when stuck at the back, but I’ll read up what you say, fair play.



It’s a matter of communications versus consistency. There is no reliable way to signal your intentions to the cars up front. Even more, the dynamics of this situation are involved, and no simple message can be given out that will cover the cases. The only simple message (and it must be simple, to be taken up en masse, sadly) that is ‘quite’ safe is that overtaking a stream of cars is risky.

In fact, that (in a nutshell) is the problem with the ethos of this whole site. The road administrators have to give simple messages about safety to be taken up en masse that more or less work and are meaningful to the common denominators. The specialist discussions here are all very well, but do not work because of the difficulties in teaching and communicating them overall. I am in favour of keeping simple things simple, and if it is more dangerous to overtake than to wait, then wait.

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BW, the worry I have is that as long as young people learn to drive cars they will attempt overtaking manoeuvres. Discouraging them from doing so, or pretending that it isn't a problem is akin to telling them not to have sex, or to pretending that they don't!

So back to the topic, should we be introducing policies that make overtaking more hazardous, or should we be teaching new drivers how to do it with minimum risk? Or (more subtle) teach them how to spot and assess the level of risk properly, such that self-preservation then leads them to make the right choices.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

In nutshell someone was saying how (say) one artic + 4 cars had to be treated as one long vehicle, and whose fault was it if (say) car 2 pulled out and wiped you out while you were blazing past.

I was saying that this "one vehicle" was a dangerous simplification, and that instead we should treat each one as an individual hazard, whilst at the same time accepting that their tailgating removes the option of pulling back in part way. Thus we can start to evolve a plan for anticipating and dealing with the unexpected car pulling out, that doing so requires more space than the simpler "single vehicle" analogy, and that if this addititional space isn't there then the overtake isn't safe.

(I'm summarising rather a lot here, but it might save you registering on Pistonheads and buggering their day up! )

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

You have to be joking!

It's right that officials have to give out more-or-less simple safety messages. But can't you see that present messages are so oversimplified as to be misleading and dangerous?

We can give out simple strong messages that are entirely aligned with well understood principles of safe driving. Things like:

* learn from your mistakes!
* take responsibility!
* get training!
* and above all - most crashes are caused by inattention - if you want to be safe pay more attention.

[Oops. I think I've been trolled...]

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

etc.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Let’s try an mind-game to test this. Imagine the scenario you have described. Now think of yourself, in that scenario. Are you in the group of tailgaters, or one of the frustrated ‘good’ drivers behind. If I know you, Rewolf, you are one of the ‘good’ drivers behind, aren’t you? In this mind game, you never show up in the group of frustrating ‘bad’ drivers up front, do you – you are perfect!

And the funny thing? Whoever tries this game, nobody ever thinks of themselves in the group of frustrating ‘bad’ drivers up front! Perhaps there is only really one group of drivers, after all! There’s nought queerer than folk, as they say up north!



It’s actually a choice between driving calmly, or a one way trip to the cemetery! In any case, once you have passed one truck, you just get a bit sooner to the next one, so not much gain there!



Let’s try a bit of game theory to explain this. The drivers at the front of the queue don’t overtake because they are making safe progress and don’t like risk, but they might overtake if a good opportunity comes up. What they don’t want is to encourage drivers from behind to push them back down the queue, limiting their overtake possibilities and dangerously barging into their space. If they extended the gap to the vehicle in front to 3 seconds this would happen. Now I have already shown you that there is no ‘second’ group of good drivers just behind this bunch of silly nit wits up front – that distinction exists only in jealous minds. In other words, everybody is at it.

Driving is not fair, but it can be safer.

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Thanks - I know I'm close to the truth. SafeSpeeders are very sensitive to anything that upsets their topsey- turvey vision of things, and that’s when they resort to the T word.

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I stole this .sig

I could agree with that if you add 'be less aggressive'.

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I stole this .sig

'Be less aggressive' isn't very good for the majority because only a minority are aggressive.

We could say 'guard against bad attitudes' which is a good message but it won't be heard by the aggressive minority.

I rather think the aggressive minority won't respond to anything that isn't directed individually and personaly at them, simply because they won't recognise themselves. This is similar to something you have just mentioned above.

So, I conclude, 'be less aggressive' is utterly useless because the folk who need to hear it won't. We need trafpol for the aggressive types.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety