Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms How slow is too slow?

The number of casualties from crashes caused by slow drivers soared by almost a third last year,

It's high time those committed middle-laners were put in cars with auto pilots - they'd be faster & safer.

Discuss


Will

20 years ago all our drivers had more or less adhered to the traffic rules.
Today, I am observing a dispersion that involves a number of risks.

We have different types of drivers who are too slow. (There are also aggressive types who drive much too fast, but who don't play a role here, even though they weren't so common in this form in the past).

Three types are a danger by driving too slowly in my view.
1) The anxious mother in a small car who rarely uses a motorway. 2) The growing number of very old drivers. 3) The aggressive militant environmentalists who thwart every overtaking manoeuvre with their blockade.

I stick very closely to the speed limit which is apparently too slow judging from the number of drivers I appear to anger.

Makes a good headline, but the percentage comes from a pretty low base. Of course all casualties, especially the two deaths are to be regretted, the numbers surely pale into insignificance when compared with the results of inappropriate speeding.

I would agree lane discipline on Motorways sucks like a toothless parrot. As for driving too slowly I don't see A/B/main roads in this situation very often. 50 in a 50 limit seems fairly solid.

The introduction of the average speed cameras on the M3 have made this worse from my observation. People who were in lane 2-3 now stay in the same lane and drop down to 69mph. So we end up with undertaking, flashing and Lane 1 being left to lorries which is not such a bad thing for safety.

Ha..! As per usual, there is a lot of waffle, but no real facts as to where those accidents happened, just King Edmund of the (privatised) AA company on a monthly Press Release to raise their profile ahead of the annual drink drive figure release..

So yes, how slow is too slow, because the article is just pure hyperbole..

Could be farm vehicles, learners yada yadda..

It's a slow news week, don't forget.

My stepfather was pulled over for driving too slowly on the M1--30 m.p.h.--certainly far too slow! Lane discipline is almost unknown here in Massachusetts, and there is a percentage of the population happy to drive around town at 20 m.p.h.

The answer is “when it irritates you”. I find that the more stressed I am the slower the cars in front of me typically are. So the problem seems to be me. I guess, more people suffer from simlar symptoms on how they freak out when I feel fine a nd drive at a speed just above the limit.

On a more seriuos note, large speed differences between cars is dangerous. Experienced this first hand when driving on Trinidad, with traffic going at 10 mph minkles whith cars going 100 mph and everything in between. In these circumstances disaster strikes quickly, or as the people from Tinidad would call it: acts of God.

In NL you can be fined for having speed below 70 kmph on the highway (not in a traffic jam of course).

Cheers,
Bert

Here in North America, we have solved the problem of too slow driving with state and Federal laws. It's legal on divided highways to pass in the right lanes if the left lanes are blocked. Similarly, on 2 lane roads, state laws require you to pull over at the first opportunity and let traffic pass you if more than 3 or 4 vehicles are behind.
It seems to work well, with minimum congestion on the open road. Why these policies haven't been implemented in UK is beyond me.

Its nonsense. How can slower than average speed be the cause of hitting someone? It might be the cause for irritation and impatience but its difficult to see how an impact can be caused by going "too slow".