On motorways: owning up
Sep. 7th, 2008 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
toothycatI am a middle lane clogger.
Motorways are divided into three lanes.
The outer lane is mostly inhabited by lorries, mobile homes and Robin Reliants.
The lane closest to the central divide is mostly inhabited by madmen who prefer to drive at their car's top speed and, upon encountering someone who is moving slower, come to within an inch of their bumper and flash their headlights rapidly to stun their prey into submission. This strategy, incidentally, serves them very poorly on country roads: tailgating a lorry or van narrows one's field of view until one is unable to see far enough along the oncoming traffic lane to be able to overtake, and dropping back does not appear to be an action these drivers are able to conceive of; instead, they get more and more agitated, sound their horn and weave from side to side in a desparate attempt to see even a little way ahead, until eventually their anger overcomes their vestigial self-preservation instinct and they boldly go forth to face the oncoming traffic.
Those of us who just want to get from A to B while doing the speed limit and without going via a hospital, therefore, end up in the middle lane.
Clogging the middle lane is supremely bad taste, naturally. One is supposed to remain in the outermost lane in which there is room. However, when room does appear between two of the aforementioned lorries, moving a lane outwards guarantees that just as you catch up to the lorry ahead and get ready to overtake, you will see on your inside another lorry, going slightly faster than the one in front of you, and will be forced to brake and wait for the elephant race to finish. Something similar, of course, happens to the madmen whenever they drop into a gap in the central lane, which is why they are so annoyed with you.
In practice, therefore, one stays in the middle lane until one can see a gap big enough that the madmen will all have gone before one catches up to the next lorry along. And feels vaguely guilty.
That is all.
Motorways are divided into three lanes.
The outer lane is mostly inhabited by lorries, mobile homes and Robin Reliants.
The lane closest to the central divide is mostly inhabited by madmen who prefer to drive at their car's top speed and, upon encountering someone who is moving slower, come to within an inch of their bumper and flash their headlights rapidly to stun their prey into submission. This strategy, incidentally, serves them very poorly on country roads: tailgating a lorry or van narrows one's field of view until one is unable to see far enough along the oncoming traffic lane to be able to overtake, and dropping back does not appear to be an action these drivers are able to conceive of; instead, they get more and more agitated, sound their horn and weave from side to side in a desparate attempt to see even a little way ahead, until eventually their anger overcomes their vestigial self-preservation instinct and they boldly go forth to face the oncoming traffic.
Those of us who just want to get from A to B while doing the speed limit and without going via a hospital, therefore, end up in the middle lane.
Clogging the middle lane is supremely bad taste, naturally. One is supposed to remain in the outermost lane in which there is room. However, when room does appear between two of the aforementioned lorries, moving a lane outwards guarantees that just as you catch up to the lorry ahead and get ready to overtake, you will see on your inside another lorry, going slightly faster than the one in front of you, and will be forced to brake and wait for the elephant race to finish. Something similar, of course, happens to the madmen whenever they drop into a gap in the central lane, which is why they are so annoyed with you.
In practice, therefore, one stays in the middle lane until one can see a gap big enough that the madmen will all have gone before one catches up to the next lorry along. And feels vaguely guilty.
That is all.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-08 01:32 pm (UTC)Indeed, that is the case. It just feels like I ought to be weaving to the slowest lane whenever there is even a ten-fifteen second gap visible, and yet I rarely feel safe/comfortable doing it in any but the lightest traffic for the above reasons.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-08 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 04:58 pm (UTC)I do what Sonia does to people who really loiter in the middle lane with no reason to be there - but "a lorry that I expect to reach in 60 seconds" is a perfectly good reason to be in the middle lane. (My rule of thumb tends to be about 60 seconds as the cutoff below which it's not worth moving in just to then move out again.)
Your post is confusing, because there are people who'll sit in the middle lane when there's nothing visible in the "slow" lane. They irritate me; but people who behave as I think you've described you do are fine.