Sometimes I wonder why Roads Service construct such long slip roads to allow drivers to join the M1?
Instead of steadily driving along the full length of the slip road and being able to pull out into the inside lane without braking and halting all the traffic behind them, every night on the way home there seems to be a race to see who can get off the Stockman's Lane slip road and onto the south bound M1 the earliest.
Tonight, faced with at least a third of a mile of slip road in front of him, one particular 4x4 driver decided to pull off the slip road and cross over the solid white line and over the chevrons to join the inside lane of the M1.
Annoyed that I wouldn't immediately come to a stop and let him in, he wound down his window to tell me that the Highway Code allowed him to drive over chevrons.
Well, not in any copy that's been printed in the last 20 years!
So this post's just for him.
Rant over ... for now.
5 comments:
I seriously believe everyone should take a theory and practical test every time the licence is up for renewal.
Same thing happens where the M3 merges with the M2/M5.
Half of all drivers think it is perfectly OK to sit in the outside "Fast" lane of the motorway and fancy turning right just after Bangor. It's a bonus if they're doing 70.
Or indicating left when turning right on a roundabout.
Or reversing out of a driveway onto a main road.
Or not giving way when there's a car parked on their side of the road.
Or parking in disabled spots.
Don't get me started!
I remember having a similar conversation with a guy who was found responsible for a car accident because he crossed over the solid white line. He was absolutely incredulous at it all. Imagine having to know and then actually follow the rules! What is the world coming to? The same guy once asked for my advice as a ‘scientist’. He wanted to know if there was a way to avoid getting caught by the speed cameras. I informed him that there is scientific way to stop then triggering. I told him it was a little bit tricky and he also needed to know the speed that the camera is set to trigger at. If you know that a particular camera is set to trip at over 30mph then as you approach and pass the camera you make sure your speed is below that trigger level and it simply will not detect you. He did not seem impressed with my theory.
Worse than that. Rule 259 says "you should give priority to traffic already on the motorway", and I believe that means that if you can't join safely by the end of the acceleration lane, you should stop and give way! NOBODY does that here, although I recently came very close on the northbound onslip at Stockman's Lane.
Truthfully, I am regularly baffled as to how other drivers can possibly be worse than me, then I see things like this...
I'm glad it only ended up with a waggling of finger and an erroneous reference to the highway code. Too much road rage going around for my liking ...
Alan,
Your fundamental mistake here - and sorry you are a good friend but I have to criticise you - you fail to realise that this is a 4X4 driver. Therefore he (and more often she) may do what ever they choose on the road, park where they like, signal when they want (or not if they want).
So it's entirely your fault. I know this not because I'm a 4X4 driver, but because I live in Holywood and we know our place. Us 'serf'-drivers are required by by-law to tug our forelock and (cont. p94)
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