Motorway Driving

Love them or loathe them, motorways have become a big part of modern driving.

Despite their intimidating look, motorways are actually very safe, as long as you stick to the speed limit, there is no real reason to fear them.

However, you must keep a safe distance between you and other vehicles and keep alert for impatient drivers tailgating you or a vehicle ahead.

Tailgating is very dangerous and basically refers to a motorist driving dangerously close to the vehicle ahead. The leading driver may get spooked by the tailgater and because of the distraction loose concentration of the road ahead. And if this happens and traffic slows the driver may need to brake harshly and the tailgater hasn’t enough time to avoid colliding with the vehicle he is tailgating.

Another dangerous habit drivers have on motorways is lane hogging. This term refers to drivers who stay in the middle or right-hand lanes oblivious of everything happening around them.

Why is lane hogging a problem?

The highway code recommends drivers use the left-hand lane unless overtaking, once you have completed the manoeuvre you should move back to the left hand lane if it’s safe to do so.

Lane hogging drivers stick to the middle or right lanes even when the left lane is clear, they block the lane to faster moving vehicles and therefore hold up traffic.

Drivers may get frustrated by lane hogging motorists and attempt to undertake them. This means passing the leading vehicle on it’s left-hand side.

In the UK undertaking is an offence, therefore drivers who undertake risk at minimum a fine, but they could also cause an incident.

 Managed motorways

Managed motorways, previously referred to as ‘smart’ or ‘digital’ motorways are a relatively recent upgrade to the UK motorway network and although not fully rolled out yet make up a sizeable percentage of the overall system.

It is a curious coincidence that most full licence holders in the UK have not undertaken any formal training on motorway driving but statistically they have become the safest road type compared to either rural or urban areas. This is undoubtedly down to a combination of design and enforcement.

The fact that certain vehicles would not be allowed on these roads such as slow-moving vehicles, mopeds, cyclists, horse riders and indeed pedestrians will be one such safety feature. This means that, at least in theory, the speed differential between the vehicle types allowed on the network is quite small. A large goods vehicle limited to a maximum speed of 6o mph (96 kmh) should be the slowest vehicle on the road whereas the car/motorcycle speed limit is 70 mph. This also means that theoretically, impact speeds for a motorway collision are quite small, 15 to 20 mph commonly.

The real safety issue on motorways has always been where there is a stationary vehicle, a breakdown for example. The speed differential alone makes this more likely to have serious consequence.

In previous years, the motorway network would have had a more visual and dedicated police presence to help drivers to stand by the rules, this unfortunately was also the way in which many drivers learned the rules of the motorway the hard way.

With an ever-increasing road population, the motorway network had to evolve and as space always seems to be in short supply, unlike our American cousins, we simply cannot create more roads. Making better use of the space that already existed is the option that was developed. Most motorways had a hard shoulder which was used very little of the time. Using the hard shoulder as a ‘live’ lane increases the carrying capacity of the road by 33%. (If there were already three running lanes)

To do this there had to come improvements in vehicle reliability, most vehicles now go into ‘limp’ mode rather than just stop working, ‘run flat’ tyres enable the driver to exit the carriageway before dealing with a puncture and, although not perfect, is some way to reducing risk during these incidents.

However, if there is a problem on a motorway such as a breakdown or accident, the decision was taken to fully automate a variable speed limit system to warn and inform drivers of risk in the road ahead.

‘Smart’ or ‘managed motorways’ are no longer heavily policed or monitored by a ‘bloke in a box’ watching dozens of screens. Ever vigilant cameras and sensors have taken over to detect movement, or lack of it, speed, and countless other features of daily driving to amend the speed limit and display it to drivers using electronic signage for only as long as is necessary.

It is designed to keep the flow of traffic moving which is far safer than having stationary vehicles on a high-speed road.

A flaw in this system leads us back to the fact that most drivers are not trained on motorways which may account for some unfortunate incidents where drivers have followed outdated or just bad advice when breaking down.

This may be why the rules for learner drivers have changed recently to allow them to be trained on motorways by qualified instructors in suitable vehicles. This will hopefully reduce the number of collisions or injuries even further by ensuring that new drivers are aware of the rules, signage, and advice for if and when incidents occur in future.