Following up to Adrian Tupper

that's what I was trying to say.

Sorry, I thought you were refering to the slow driver.

nobody should be encouraged to drive faster than they feel they
cam cope with but they should use the leftmost lane available.
Unfortunately they don't, probably partly lack of skills, lack of
thought and in the case of a person I discussed it with in real
life, laziness and selfishness.

Yes, people like that should be done for careless driving.

dangerous driving IMHO. Careless is for mistakes, dangerous for
intentional, but I'm not a lawyer and as I wouldn't want speeding
on motorways to be dangerous driving I'm stuck with intentional
dangerous manoeuvres being careless I suppose. These people are
the worst drivers I see apart from those in towns on mobiles
paying little attention to what they are doing. Confiscate the
phone on the spot I say.

ISTR an experiment where cars "raced" between two junctions of a busy
motorway. The car that hopped lanes arrived something like 30 seconds
ahead of the drivers who stayed in the same lane. i.e. was it worth it?

Its worth maintaining a good average speed, but in any sort of
traffic nothing you do makes a significant difference at all. The
best thing is too smooth the traffic by letting people out/merge
etc. I average nearly 70 on London Aberdeen, not by doing stupid
things in traffic, but by going fast on empty roads (I don't set
off in the rush hour of course). I'm much more likely to be fined
than the lunatics, because I'm breaking the speed limit, about
the only motoring offence anybody does anything much about
nowadays. On that run I will probably see two patrol cars, they
don't do a lot, maybe cause a rolling road block for a while.
There will be a "safety camera" on a bridge in Cumbria, fining
people for doing 85 on a empty road, which I think is utterly
pointless. I think you can drive like a total prat nowadays, as
long as you stay within the speed limit and don't crash, nobody
will stop you. The combination of that, congestion and lane
hogging are IMHO lowering the standard of motorway driving.
But traffic police are expensive and speed cameras make a profit,
so that's the way it will be policed in future.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
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