Dealing with cars slowing down ahead of you on slip roads

[akirk]

.....and then look to increase speed at a less hazardous moment - reality is it will make virtually no difference to your journey other than to make it more relaxed!

Alasdair

And there's the key for me, the purpose of the drive. If it's about time, sometimes A-B could take minutes longer, sometimes hey ho. IF you didn't get past that slow driver on the slip, when you did pass them, how much time did you lose vs how much are you now gaining? Generally the answer to both is 'not a lot', unless you have a very fast car and clear road ahead. I generally have neither.

Even with a fast car and a clear road it doesn't really make a lot of difference... I remember some years back overtaking an elderly chap who was bimbling along on his way into Cirencester - long empty road ahead, safe easy overtake I was driving an XJS which wasn't slow... yet he pulled into the next space in the car park - and commented that it hadn't done me much good in overtaking him - as I pointed out, if it was done to get there faster I wouldn't have bothered - instead I was enjoying a lovely car, great weather, a good road and a nice overtake - nothing to do with being first / fastest...

similarly today I passed a string of cars on another long empty road, with the lead car going slowly and no-one bothering to overtake, I then came up behind a lovely 1931 Model A - I enjoyed a slow progress with no ability to overtake the rest of the way - I enjoyed both the overtake and the bimble equally...

Alasdair

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

.....and then look to increase speed at a less hazardous moment - reality is it will make virtually no difference to your journey other than to make it more relaxed!

Alasdair

And there's the key for me, the purpose of the drive. If it's about time, sometimes A-B could take minutes longer, sometimes hey ho. IF you didn't get past that slow driver on the slip, when you did pass them, how much time did you lose vs how much are you now gaining? Generally the answer to both is 'not a lot', unless you have a very fast car and clear road ahead. I generally have neither.

Passing the slow driver on the slip was about giving yourself a clear space in which to manage your merge with the major road, nothing to do with making faster progress than them. Margin of safety increased by having them behind you, that's all (and only if achievable without drama).

[IcedKiwi]

Passing the slow driver on the slip was about giving yourself a clear space in which to manage your merge with the major road, nothing to do with making faster progress than them. Margin of safety increased by having them behind you, that's all (and only if achievable without drama).

Are you not concerned that if the main road is congested and you have to slow down significantly then the person who you overtook (due to your assessment that they might not have the same observation skills etc), might either fly into the back of you, or cross early (overtaking you) over the solid line because they didn't notice you until the last minute whilst they were assessing the traffic on the main road?

[akirk]

Passing the slow driver on the slip was about giving yourself a clear space in which to manage your merge with the major road, nothing to do with making faster progress than them. Margin of safety increased by having them behind you, that's all (and only if achievable without drama).

Are you not concerned that if the main road is congested and you have to slow down significantly then the person who you overtook (due to your assessment that they might not have the same observation skills etc), might either fly into the back of you, or cross early (overtaking you) over the solid line because they didn't notice you until the last minute whilst they were assessing the traffic on the main road?

That is possible, but you can still be in control of the situation...
The suggestion ref. overtaking as clarified above was to give you clear space - i.e. you are separating out two hazardous situations:
- you and the car on the slip road
- you and merging with traffic
ideally you don't want the cumulative complexity of dealing with both at the same time - so either overtaking / slowing down could work...

In many cases with a slip road you can gain good visibility way ahead of joining the major road - on one I use regularly, I look left and right from the bridge as I cross over the dual carriageway giving me a good understanding of the traffic I might encounter (as I cross there is time for anything under the bridge to move into visibility - so unless they are stopped and restart before I have joined I should know the pattern of traffic several minutes before I join) on that particular slip road there is no space to overtake, so I simply space according to traffic ahead - traffic likely to be on the dual carriageway - holding back, or moving forward accordingly - as I approach to join, I re-check the dual carriageway and make decisions...

Alasdair

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

Passing the slow driver on the slip was about giving yourself a clear space in which to manage your merge with the major road, nothing to do with making faster progress than them. Margin of safety increased by having them behind you, that's all (and only if achievable without drama).

Are you not concerned that if the main road is congested and you have to slow down significantly then the person who you overtook (due to your assessment that they might not have the same observation skills etc), might either fly into the back of you, or cross early (overtaking you) over the solid line because they didn't notice you until the last minute whilst they were assessing the traffic on the main road?

I'd hope that I'd have taken account of that before the overtake. If the traffic is congested then there would be little point overtaking the driver in front and the alternative approach of leaving a bigger gap would be more appropriate.

Nothing is black and white, as another poster used to have in his signature. Everything is adaptable.

[Garrison]

Are you not concerned that if the main road is congested and you have to slow down significantly then the person who you overtook (due to your assessment that they might not have the same observation skills etc), might either fly into the back of you, or cross early (overtaking you) over the solid line because they didn't notice you until the last minute whilst they were assessing the traffic on the main road?

Your situaion can happen and often do - take the last junction / slip road joining the southern approach to Blackwall Tunnel. You have to use common sense in these situation to maximise your safety margin around your vehicle. I often ended up undertaking vehicles in front of me because I have an escape route of the emergency lane, whereas the other vehicles merge early cross the hatch lanes / stop on the slip road, and can use the zip-method to join into Lane 1. Often ends up in front of many cars in front of me when going on to the slip road but that is an unintented consequence ...

[Kimosabe]

Here's just one example of slip road mysticism. Forward to 1:07secs for slip road shenanigans. I found this quite by chance and unlike most other dashcam videos, I enjoyed watching it so maybe watch the whole thing if time permits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRYkgiM6jg

[Ancient]

Most of the incidents in that clip were exacerbated by the fact that the filming driver showed poor anticipation of what 'might' happen. He(?) was also far too close to the vehicle in front in most cases, limiting the options available. As a video of bad driving in the UK therefore, it was pretty successful

Edit to add:
E.g.
1 The Ka is obviously doing 'something odd': So why move off before it is out of the way? Wait and let it sort itself out...
2. Leaving a one second gap when approaching an on-slip in busy traffic where exactly this should have been anticipated is P P Planning.
3. Narrow pavements, a town centre, pedestrians passin each other and poor sight lines, again the pedestrian's move should have been anticipated and a slower approach used ready to stop instantly without intimidating the pedestrian.
etc...

[gannet]

Ancient and mefoster - far more eloquently put than I would have put it

hate dashcam warriors such as these...

[Kimosabe]

Here's just one example of slip road mysticism. Forward to 1:07secs for slip road shenanigans. I found this quite by chance and unlike most other dashcam videos, I enjoyed watching it so maybe watch the whole thing if time permits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRYkgiM6jg

Hmmm.... in that particular section, the one thing that stood out was: if you're going to bitch about other road users, why the f$ck didn't you stop earlier on the slip road rather than assuming that the box van would be able to pull out into traffic? Similarly why did you feel the urge to give it maximum beans out into lane 2? I think the two may be related.

...and i'd agree with your observations of whoever was driving and i'd also relate them to whoever was driving the Horsebox and the Silver Mondeo, assuming they also stopped due to poor planning etc and not a bucking bronco.

1:08 - 1:14 in the video.
I think the towed caravan intended to pull into L2 but didn't due to poor planning, poor vision of the short slip and following traffic already in or moving into L2. I also noted the position of the towed caravan and cars in L2 and wondered if the Car 1 in L2 had slowed in anticipation of the caravan pulling out, before the slip in order to accommodate the slip traffic, hence the close follow of Car 2 and Car 3. At 1:17 a Landrover Freelander is seemingly blocked in by a line of traffic in L2, otherwise the horsebox could have pulled out sooner.

[Kimosabe]

Ancient and mefoster - far more eloquently put than I would have put it

hate dashcam warriors such as these...

Just to clear up this point, though I do agree when it applies to dashcam warriors, the reason he gives for having a dashcam is due to a previous accident, as sort of stated to a Welsh copper who pulled him over on the outskirts of Llanowhere in this video at 5:30s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fisd2pckMOU

I bought a dashcam a couple of years ago so that I could review my mistakes, because I rarely go out for a drive with anyone who cares about driving ie her indoors, parents, two dogs and/ or bemused friends. I only wished I had left my Mobius cam in the car on time-lapse a couple of weeks ago, as the evidence of a gang of thieving oiks who I caught nicking from cars at 4am that it would have captured, would have helped with the case against them, not to mention what it would have done for my ego to watch me bomb after them over a garage roof a few dozen times on a 50" TV screen.

[chrisl]

Had a nasty slip-road experience this afternoon on the A12. It's a very short on-slip from the A13, two lanes from roundabout down to one on the slip-road and dense traffic. I held back from the car in front to give me room to identify a gap and accelerate into it, which annoyed the van driver behind. Having picked a gap between lorries and accelerating to match speeds, the van pulls out across the hatchings, into lane 1 and alongside me, and continues to block me from entering lane 1. Had to slow down then speed up, with perilously decreasing space to the lorry coming up behind. (Either that, or risk stopping close to the end of the slip-road with I-don't-know-how-many other vehicles behind me.)

Unsure what I could have done different; advice welcome.

[akirk]

Had a nasty slip-road experience this afternoon on the A12. It's a very short on-slip from the A13, two lanes from roundabout down to one on the slip-road and dense traffic. I held back from the car in front to give me room to identify a gap and accelerate into it, which annoyed the van driver behind. Having picked a gap between lorries and accelerating to match speeds, the van pulls out across the hatchings, into lane 1 and alongside me, and continues to block me from entering lane 1. Had to slow down then speed up, with perilously decreasing space to the lorry coming up behind. (Either that, or risk stopping close to the end of the slip-road with I-don't-know-how-many other vehicles behind me.)

Unsure what I could have done different; advice welcome.

difficult to know exactly without being there - but some thoughts:
- you can't stop a van from moving across the hatching - even if it is not legal
- if you were accelerating and about to move into a space between lorries, how did the van get into that space from behind you - was there not a lorry in the way?
- you can hold back a bit more than you think - to give you more acceleration time on the slip road, are you not able to out-accelerate a van?
- if the slip road is very short, then how can he fit across the hatchings, yet you have not yet had time to get across in front of the hatchings into lane 1?
- if necessary you stop on the slip road!

difficult to visualise it exactly - but then I can't remember the last time a van got near me on a slip road

Alasdair

[chrisl]

difficult to know exactly without being there - but some thoughts:
- you can't stop a van from moving across the hatching - even if it is not legal
- if you were accelerating and about to move into a space between lorries, how did the van get into that space from behind you - was there not a lorry in the way?
- you can hold back a bit more than you think - to give you more acceleration time on the slip road, are you not able to out-accelerate a van?
- if the slip road is very short, then how can he fit across the hatchings, yet you have not yet had time to get across in front of the hatchings into lane 1?
- if necessary you stop on the slip road!

difficult to visualise it exactly - but then I can't remember the last time a van got near me on a slip road
Alasdair

Thanks for your thoughts.

We were in a 1.2 Clio, which seems to have an unfortunate combination of tall gearing and under-powered engine! The hatchings are quite long but the first bit of the slip road is quite a climb from the roundabout beneath.

Here is the junction on Google earth: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.70335 ... a=!3m1!1e3

I thought there was a generous gap between the lorries and there would have been room for more vehicles to join behind me, but I could be wrong about that or the drivers behind assessed the gap differently.

To be honest I'm thinking it's one of those situations where if someone is going to be a berk there isn't much you can do about it...

[akirk]

You are right - you can't stop anyone driving stupidly

depends on which way you were joining...
- North direction, the hatching is edged with solid lines, but there is quite a lot of it and a lot of slip road after - enough time perhaps to slow down a bit and let the van toddle off...
- South direction, the hatching is broken edges which means you are allowed across it - so perhaps you could have moved across earlier?

Alasdair