I can't beat them so should I join them?
 

I travel to my son's home at Consett most days, often at around teatime when there's a lot of traffic. Near the town centre there is a long two lane road ending at a roundabout. Left lane to the centre (& ahead) & right lane for traffic going ahead & right. Most cars are in the left lane & the queue can be quite long.

I am a true Brit with a well established sense of fair play & so stay on the left, inching forward to go to the centre, the right lane is often empty but people are zooming up to the roundabout in that lane (German cars mainly .... ahem!) speeding right round the quite big roundabout & heading to the centre, thus further holding up traffic waiting on the left. This is becoming so prevalent now that other cars & white van man are breaking out of the queue to do the same

So annoying, but should I do it too, it's dog eat dog out there!

I have been know to do it, makes me smile and feel sneaky

macafee2

Why dont you stay in the right lane, go right round the roundabout and come of at your desired exit? That way you are not pushing in and you can sit there with a smug look on your face knowing that you have done nothing wrong.
Neil

We have a similar problem near here and the police have been known to stop cars that have done just that particular manoeuvre.

It holds up those that have stayed in the correct lane and personally I detest those that do it just to save a few minutes but at my expense.

It’s certainly not cricket but I can’t see why a police officer would have any cause to stop a driver who had ‘skipped’ the que in the manner described. I fail to see any offence being committed. Ingenuity if you ask me.


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I have carried out this manouevre (not at this location) several times with one passenger telling me "you cannot do that", and I just replied that there was nothing illegal and complies with all signs and markings - I know that smug feeling.

I am somewhat surprised by the replies, certainly not illegal but doesn't fit in with the British way of queuing patiently & waiting our turn. As greater number of drivers do it it holds up those waiting patiently even more & so the resulting frustration will result in more doing it which is what is happening.

That's the way I do it :)

Everyone should do it which means the left lane will have fewer cars in it and those doing it will help ease the congestion 😆😆

If it's clearly signposted that the right lane approaching the roundabout is for turning right only, then yes one should stay in the left lane on the approach to the roundabout in order to go straight across. If however the signage indicates that the right hand lane approaching the roundabout is intended to be used for going straight across as well as for turning right, it's a waste of infrastructure not to use it as intended. There is no rudeness or unfairness in doing so.

The same principal applies at temporary lane closures on the motorway/dual carriageway. For simplicity's sake, assume the outer lane on a two-lane carriageway is due to close, and the usual "countdown" signage is there to warn drivers of this, e.g. 1 mile, 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m, 100m. There's no point in having a long queue in the left-hand lane half a mile (or however long) before the merge point, leaving an empty-but-usable outside lane. The most efficient way of maximising the capacity of the road is for both lanes to be used right up to the merge point, and people should have the wit and wherewithal to merge in turn, aka the zipper movement (oo-er missus!).

Problems arise when some people who have moved into the inside lane as soon as they saw the first sign believe, wrongly, that anyone continuing to use the outer lane up to the merge point is somehow being rude or selfish, and deliberately obstruct them from entering the inner lane. This stems from the psychology of queuing, of course, and it's true that no polite person standing in a queue would barge ahead of someone else. However the two scenarios are simply not the same.

I am far from a boy racer or aggressive driver - my overall attitude is to make it easy for people to merge ahead of me and indeed to make it easier for other people to share the road with me generally (including pedestrians, bikers, cyclists, buses, HGVs, horse riders ...). My philosophy is that a little courtesy and consideration goes a long way. However I will never feel guilty about making full use of the infrastructure, which has been put in place at our collective expense, for its intended purpose!