'making progress' or impatience?

[Kimosabe]

Do you
a) Drive at 60Mph until you become the last car in the queue of slower moving traffic ahead and treat the others as an obstacle to eventually overtake?
b) Choose to hang back and enjoy the rolling countryside instead of spoiling your view with the back of a van?

Also, I don't get the notion that if I pass a speed sign at anything below the indicated limit, i'm somehow not in control of my car and would be negatively marked during an IAM test (is the same true for RoSPA?)

[martine]

a) or b) depending on what mood I'm in, how long the queue is, what the road and weather conditions are etc etc.

As for the IAM wanting 'progress' during the test...that's the point really...it's a chance to demonstrate to the examiner that you can drive at the speed limit, safely rather than bumbling along (anyone can do that). No one's suggesting you have to drive at max. legal progress all the time but it's a test and you have to give something for the examiner to work with.

[jont]

c) if it's a particularly long queue and chances to pass are unlikely to appear, turn off and find a different road to drive down.

[MrToad]

a. If you catch up with a single vehicle and don't take a safe opportunity to overtake, then you become the queue that's now holding people up.

b. I suspect the recommendation is that at a limit change, you need to be travelling at the lower of the two speed limits.

When on test, if you enter a higher limit then you'll be expected to accelerate positively up to that new limit if it's safe and appropriate. It's important to demonstrate that you can both recognise a safe speed, and competently control the vehicle at that speed.

When not on test, you're free to travel at whatever speed you like. However, travelling much slower than you could is possibly selfish, if it prioritises your choices above the needs of other road users. Obviously, this doesn't apply on free-flowing multi-lane roads.

[Hiijinx]

All depends on the situation for me -how many in the queue already (taking into account the cars and drivers normally associated with them), how many Mph's you have to play with and anticipating how long before a speed reduction area.

If I am fairly sure that there is a 30 stretch in the near future, I just don't bother anymore since 99% of drivers seem to have a compulsion to drive at 40 everywhere and will only end up with them breathing down your bumper afterwards.

So I tend to go for C as Jont says - and piss off in another direction

[GJD]

Do you
a) Drive at 60Mph until you become the last car in the queue of slower moving traffic ahead and treat the others as an obstacle to eventually overtake?
b) Choose to hang back and enjoy the rolling countryside instead of spoiling your view with the back of a van?

Like others have said, it just depends on how I happen to feel that day, and probably other factors, like how long is the queue, do I fancy my chances of getting past all of it, how far am I from the end of my journey, how much slower is the queue going than I would like to go, can I be bothered...

Also, I don't get the notion that if I pass a speed sign at anything below the indicated limit, i'm somehow not in control of my car and would be negatively marked during an IAM test (is the same true for RoSPA?)

I don't think RoSPA would be any different. I don't think that's quite the notion though. If it's an increase in speed limit and you pass it at the new speed limit, that means you accelerated before it, and I'm sure you'd expect to be marked down for that . For a decrease in speed limit, you'd obviously be expected to have slowed by the time you reach it - at least as slow as the new limit, slower if hazards require it.

If I may borrow Mr Toad's words and add my own emphasis:

When on test, if you enter a higher limit then you'll be expected to accelerate positively up to that new limit if it's safe and appropriate. It's important to demonstrate that you can both recognise a safe speed, and competently control the vehicle at that speed.

If the test didn't require you to accelerate positively and drive up to the speed limit where safe and appropriate, it would, implicitly, not be requiring you to clearly demonstrate that you know when it is not safe to do that. I think it would be a major omission if the IAM didn't assess that.

Re your thread title, I don't think an examiner would look favourably on anything that appeared to be motivated by impatience.

[MikeB]

I agree with much of what has been said. Making progress can also be shown by good forward planning:
Arriving in an empty outside lane to go straight ahead just as the lights change to green; or starting an overtake at the first, not the second, opportunity, or by quite firmly accelerating for the first third of a straight then decelerating for the remaining two thirds, entering the next bend ahead without the need to brake.
I think it is all down to acceleration sense and mainbeam observation.

[Gareth]

Do you
a) Drive at 60Mph until you become the last car in the queue of slower moving traffic ahead and treat the others as an obstacle to eventually overtake?
b) Choose to hang back and enjoy the rolling countryside instead of spoiling your view with the back of a van?

That seems an arbitrary choice. What is the purpose of your journey? If it's for an IAM or RoADAR test then you should be demonstrating that you are able to make good progress wherever it is safe to do so, but that where it is not you are still looking for possibilities, which in turn means that neither of the postulated options are accurate descriptions of what you are attempting to achieve.

When you are driving for other reasons then you can do as you wish.

In a test you should never do (b) as that would imply you've mentally switched off from the driving. Similarly you should never do (a) since either you are looking to overtake members of the queue ahead or you are following at a safe distance that doesn't impede others from overtaking you.

[MGF]

a. If you catch up with a single vehicle and don't take a safe opportunity to overtake, then you become the queue that's now holding people up....

That depends on your following distance

What if whilst looking for your safe opportunity to overtake the driver behind misses his safe opportunity to do so because you don't agree what is safe in the circumstances? You are then holding him up.

Those people apparently holding you up in a queue may just be waiting for 'their' safe opportunity to overtake.

[MrToad]

postulated options

<snigger>

That depends on your following distance

...

Those people apparently holding you up in a queue may just be waiting for 'their' safe opportunity to overtake.

A fair point - observation of the vehicles in front will usually give you an idea of how actively they're looking for a pass so you can plan accordingly.

[Ralge]

So we are probably agreeing, then, that being on a test puts us under pressure to look for the overtake that we might not look for on another day.
This takes me back to my first advanced test (Silver) since I had decided and made it clear in my commentary that a single decker bus followed by a car on a windy country road with dense, high vegetation was not worth consideration of an overtake since, together, they made a very long vehicle.

"Silver" because I did not put myself into an overtaking position.
It still rankles and, although i have since gone on to get the T-shirt and more, I know that i would do the same again on my next test.

[martine]

"Silver" because I did not put myself into an overtaking position.
It still rankles and, although i have since gone on to get the T-shirt and more, I know that i would do the same again on my next test.

Really? Was that the only reason you didn't get gold? As you describe it, it seems little harsh.

[Gareth]

So we are probably agreeing, then, that being on a test puts us under pressure to look for the overtake that we might not look for on another day.

I don't think that's necessarily true at all. People taking the test should be aiming to demonstrate their driving at its best, maintaining a high level of concentration throughout, using good observation to form the basis for excellent decisions. There's no reason why drivers can't try to do this every time they drive, although many fall into the trap of thinking there is test driving for special days and normal driving for the rest of the time.

This takes me back to my first advanced test (Silver) since I had decided and made it clear in my commentary that a single decker bus followed by a car on a windy country road with dense, high vegetation was not worth consideration of an overtake since, together, they made a very long vehicle.

"Silver" because I did not put myself into an overtaking position.

Are you certain it wasn't because you switched off, stopped maintaining a high level of concentration, and for a while stopped looking for opportunities? Thing is, you don't get the Gold award for a lacklustre performance; you were probably (merely) competent, and examiner provided an obvious example of why in the debrief.

[GJD]

So we are probably agreeing, then, that being on a test puts us under pressure to look for the overtake that we might not look for on another day.

I don't think so. At least, I wouldn't put it like that. 'Under pressure' sounds uncomfortable to me, as if I might be expected to look for the overtake that I wouldn't look for on any other day.

Being on test doesn't put me under any pressure to look for any more overtakes than I would on any other day, unless that other day was one when I didn't happen to feel like making best use of my overtaking ability for whatever reason.

[7db]

Even if you aren't making overtakes, there's no excuse for not being in a position where you have the best possible vision.