Someone else's misjudged overtake

[Astraist]

Most often the safest way to deal with this issue is to accelerate a little before you reach the NSL, which probably prevents the situation arising in the first place. It is, of course, illegal - but you pays your money and takes your choice...

Nothing of this nature is illegal when you are at risk of mortal injury. I have seen several collisions when the overtaken driver was also hurt in a head-on collision, either because a wreck was disludged at them, or due to a typical veer on the behalf of the oncoming vehicle towards the center of the road. I particularly remember one situation where a collapsed engine block was thrown at the third car.

The question of whether to accelerate or decelerate in such a situation also depends on the presence on oncoming traffic. It would be very unwise to accelerate towards a space where you might find another car visiting your lane and coming towards you. I would suppose that if the overtaker is still not besides your vehicle, he or she are probably not posing that serious a threat to any oncoming traffic.

[YorkshireJumbo]

When I worked for a few months in Kenya in the 80's, I remember reading an advice column in a local motoring paper: they were telling drivers what to do if they were the overtaking car in such a situation. Their advice was to move to your side of the road as the car might well let you in, or you would have less of an accident hitting a car moving at nearly the same speed than hitting a car head-on

[Astraist]

While it is a little extreme (as there is no problem to brake and drop back), it is obvious that side swiping the overtaken vehicle or even hitting the guardrail or something off of the road, is better than hitting an oncoming vehicle.

I have been part of a demonstration where we deducted that when another car pulls out in front of another, the correct response on the behalf of both the overtaking driver and the driver in front, is not to veer at once, but rather to brake prior to veering. After all, if the collision is powerfull enough to kill you, it does not matter just how powerfull it was...

[IVORTHE DRIVER]

Bit of a missmash of advice/comments on this one as it can be difficult to comment accurately without being there but for what its worth my take is this.

If you are accelerating away from a restricted zone, being brisk enough should make it obvious to anyone looking to overtake that you will not impede their progress past the other car should they decide to carry on with the overtake but that does then put the onus back on them to be able to assess not only your acceleration but also to determine whether or not there will be a gap for them between you and the car behind you, if that car is doing exactly the same as you, ie brisk acceleration up to the NSL then they have the option to simply follow both of you.

A lot of your dilemma seems to have come from a lack of accurate assessment of others speed/intentions etc, do you recognise other cars "body" language? and I do mean the cars body language not the drivers, with practise/experience you can learn to judge not only the drivers intention but also whether or not that driver has set the car up for the overtake, right gear/position etc, also learn to look at the car, is it large, powerful, small, slow , speed/type of approaching traffic etc, all of these details come into play in these situations.

Your ultimate aim however is your own safety and the safety of those around you and always comes back to not putting your car in any situation/place that you do not want it to be in, if that means breaking a speed limit to create a safe place for another driver, no matter how idiotic that driver may be, then so be it.
And remember, if the oncoming driver is alert he/she will already be assessing the situation in the same way and your actions will impact on their decision as well, who ever said driving was easy?

Anybody follow that?

[Ancient]

There's a lot of 'should's there Ivor. In the similar case I observed (see above) the overtaking driver did not (refused to?) recognise that his/her acceleration was matched by the overtaken car and this resulted in a race towards a limit point with an (unnoticed?) oncoming vehicle.

The driver overtaking the OP 'should' certainly have recognised the danger had the OP continued to accelerate briskly, but there is the distinct danger that this driver would instead behave like the one I saw. I understand that the OP wants to avoid getting into that sort of race towards danger, hence breaking when the rearmost car showed signs of commencing an overtake. This may conflict with a desire to 'make progress' but seems a reasonable way to respond to someone attempting to outrace you, if you don't want to race.

[waremark]

And it was at night - so information about what was happening behind would have been limited.

The irony here is that if the OP had been an ordinary driver (as opposed to an aware and thinking driver) he would have continued to accelerate up to his intended speed, and the outcome would probably have been safer.

Once one driver has commenced a dangerous overtake, sometimes there may be no safe action for the driver being overtaken.

[trashbat]

And it was at night - so information about what was happening behind would have been limited.

Indeed - plus I find that forward vision is a lot more demanding at night, to the point where taking information from mirrors is reduced. This is probably something I need to improve.

The irony here is that if the OP had been an ordinary driver (as opposed to an aware and thinking driver) he would have continued to accelerate up to his intended speed, and the outcome would probably have been safer.

A little information is a dangerous thing, eh? I think this is true, but it's part of the journey towards better, more dynamic responses.