traffic leaving and joining motorways

[Codge]

to me, apart from random lane swapping and abrupt pulling out (which i have now got used to and almost expect) the principal hazard are peeps who leave it late to leave the m/way and cut across in front, often too close.

Also those who join the m/way either too fast or too slow, the too fast brigade cut across, often too close, to get out and overtake others asap and the too slow cause you to slow/overtake, in the latter case, i took a peep at one such driver to see that he had a mobile phone to his ear.

i'm beginning to think that the best place to be around junctions is travelling quite fast in the quicker lanes to avoid the characters that indulge in these really quite dangerous manoeuvres.
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Prevarication and procrastination are my worse enemies

[Minty]

[Codge]

it's one option i'm considering
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Prevarication and procrastination are my worse enemies

[Matt B]

[Codge]

yep - always good to have others view points, sometimes helps
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Prevarication and procrastination are my worse enemies

[Minty]

So it has taken you until you reach retirement age to realise there are people out there that are not good at joining/leaving motorways?
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My fingers smell of your mum.

[Codge]

thinking of a particular stretch of road here, the m40 as it heads west from the m25 and this seems an especially fraught section.

i haven't been on that m/way since i was nearly knocked off about 2 mths ago - working on strategies to avoid similar repeating itself.

i haven't been biking all my life minty and only recently have i been going across london...
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Prevarication and procrastination are my worse enemies

[stevo as b4]

More motorway's discussions!

Personally yes I think there are a lot people that are very poor at joining and leaving motorways, but there are a reasonable majority of people with common sense.

What lets this down is arrogance, aggression and I'm late GTFO of my way types.

What annoys me most is:

1, there are two lanes on the entry slip road, when I think there really should be one in some cases.

2, Leading on from that, drivers in lane two accelerating past slower vehicles in lane one to join the motorway sooner. Not really a huge problem if they could maintain that level of acceleration or move out into the 2nd lane of the motorway straightaway.

But if they join and then slow down or maintain a steady speed then driver's in lane one are often blocked from joining the motorway and actually have to reduce their speed sometimes by quite a bit, which creates even longer traffic queues and tailbacks.

3, people coming straight out onto the motorway using as little slip road as possible, to the point of even cutting across chevrons. The slip road is free! You might as well use the vast majority of it for what it was designed for.

All kinds of similar problems in reverse affect traffic leaving the motorways. But again lets give the benefit of the doubt and say only 30% of road users don't have a clue what to do, or how to drive safely in such situations. That would leave 70% of the problems with motorway driving due to arrogance, aggression, and people going around with a big 'fuck you get out of my way' approach to driving.

[cheeseman]

It's easy to avoid the muppets as you pointed out by going quicker than them and go in the passing lane.

Motorways are definitely the safest roads out there - much less chance of hitting a suicidal kamikaze bird that's out to kill you. Unfortunately they are diabolically boring on a bike and to be avoided at all costs.
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XJ600S->Sprint ST 955i * ; Now ST1100 + W650

[c-m]

I think the whole way motorways are joined is poor in general.

On a super busy motorway, you could end up with cars queuing on a slip road indefinitely.

I like the system in Spain where there tends to be a separate lane for traffic joining the motorway that vehicles on the motorway are not suppose to enter.

[Sable]

[doggone]

[Codge]

[Sable]

If you do that journey any where near rush hour, you cannot plod. Join the stampede or find another route home.

[Codge]

[rubyhorse2]

always wonder why people have issues with motorways, so easy to drive/ride on. simple rules, traffic in one direction and no side roads.. but you are right, some people just panic on motorways i think.

[b422063]

[chickenstrip]

I can't see the problem. As others have noted, if passing an exit, get out of the nearside lane to allow leaving traffic to use it. If passing a joining lane, if you can see the slip road to be clear, no problem. If you see traffic on the joining slip road, move to the middle lane. Do it nice and early (yeah, ok, let's not be silly about this - on the approach to the junction).

Keep your eyes open, keep your wits about you (you do anyway, don't you?) and the only ones to give you a problem are the idiots who suddenly decide "I'm off over there" and cut you up - but we all deal with this every day anyway, and not just on motorways.

Otherwise, you have a throttle and brakes - use them.
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Chickenystripgeezer's Biking Life (Latest update 19/10/18) Belgium, France, Italy, Austria tour 2016 Picos de Europa, Pyrenees and French Alps tour 2017 Scotland Trip 1, now with BONUS FEATURE edit, 5/10/19, on page 2 Scotland Trip 2 Luxembourg, Black Forest, Switzerland, Vosges Trip 2017
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[hellkat]

[hellkat]

[Sable]

[bikertomm]

I genuinely think I could drive better than most the population whilst on the phone..

Nothing fucks me off more in the mornings than absaloute mongtards in their C1's / Aygo's / i10's / Eco wankboxes doing 30/40 down the sliproad and then wondering why they have to break and panic when a lorry is coming along.

As it's a single sliproad there's no way I'm stopping down to their potato brains, once I just swerved and undertook on the hard shoulder at the proper speed, for a seamless join.. people.

/Bodyguard
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07' Honda Hornet now full powaah! My guide on performing an oil change!

[monkeybiker]

Has anyone had it when your driving down the slip road to join a dual carriage way and you get your speed right so you can drop in behind the car coming along the inside lane, but then they go and slow down so your end up side by side with the stupid fcuk tard and end up having to slow right down to get in behind them.

It tends to be the older folk getting all panicky.

This is when I'm in the car so I don't have the acceleration as I would with my bike.

[Codge]

i thought, in my ignorance, that traffic joining m/ways was supposed to bring themselves up to a reasonable m/way speed and fliter in to the slow lane but at the same time deferring to the traffic already using the m/way.

as per the above comments, this doesn't always happen, in fact the situation, well around london anyways, can be more like videos one sees of roads in russia and france, or for that matter, the chaos of eastern or african examples so i'm wondering if this may be some kind of acclimatization to international standards.

Things are certainly different from when i learned to drive, ok that was a considerable time ago Going back to biking and travelling across london has been a bit of a culture shock. maybe a lot of you have grown up to accept/expect these new ways of doing things and possible only take exception to the most blatant cases of poor driving.

Possibly it is also caused by the volumes of traffic today and the pressures put on people to achieve journeys in a set time, i don't know. i guess i need to shape up and get with it thanks for all the comments, it really has been very helpful
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Prevarication and procrastination are my worse enemies

[Codge]