Lane hogging and tailgating on-the-spot fines in force

[dipsydoodle]

Careless drivers across Britain who hog lanes or tailgate can now be punished with on-the-spot police fines.

Under the new measures, officers can issue £100 fines and three points rather than taking drivers to court.

Ministers said it would make tackling problem motorists easier. The AA said a third of drivers risked facing a fine.

Fixed penalties for a number of offences, including using a phone or not wearing a seatbelt while driving, have also risen from £60 to £100.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23713732

[KansDem]

1. Forgive my ignorance but what is "lane hogging?"

I read the article...

Lane discipline, such as needlessly hogging the middle or outside lanes

...but not quite sure I understand the concept.

"Tailgating" I know about. That's when you're driving so close to the vehicle in front of you that you almost hit the trombone player.

[dipsydoodle]

2. You wouldn't understand because as far as I'm aware

in the US you can drive, overtake, undertake in any lane. That is not so in the UK where the nearside lane must be used if free with overtaking only in outer lanes - no undertaking to nearside of vehicle being passed.

Lane hogging refers to using middle lane or even outer lane for example when nearside lane is free.

OK ?

[KansDem]

5. Thanks!

I'll ponder this for a moment...

[sulphurdunn]

3. Don't quote me,

but I think it referees to slow pokes who won't move to the right hand lane.

[JDPriestly]

4. In LA, the fast lane is usually to the left.

The slow lane to the right is for exiting the freeway (with some exceptions when the exit is on the left), and the middle lane is where you drive with the rest of traffic, but there is no rule against passing in any lane if the car to your side is slower than you are. We get a few careless lane-changers, but generally they don't cause a problem because we just watch out for them. They are usually spotted very easily as they weave in and out. (They can get ticketed for what they are doing, but I haven't seen that happen all that often.) It works well.

In fact, watching people drive on our freeways proves to me that people can get along, flow along with each other with surprisingly little friction. I love watching how the traffic seems to function in a sort of harmony. But it just may be me. A lot of people find driving with others in this sort of natural formation to be frustrating I guess.

Could it be that the British have a problem because their rules make no sense. If a lot of people are "hogging" the middle lane, it may be because that lane should be hogged and people should use the other lanes for passing. How is the oblivious person who is "hogging" a lane to know that maybe he should move into a slower lane if the traffic just politely piles up behind him and never simply does the logical thing -- politely pass and move ahead of the slow traffic.

How can such a simple, obvious thing be made so complicated and so expensive.

Parking tickets are the problem in LA. Raised to $73.00, yes, $73.00 per offense in 2012.

Parking tickets are a big deal in Los Angeles. For years, the city has been jacking up fines, which slams many low-income renters and young people who live in tightly packed neighborhoods where they have to fight over street parking.

Most politicians don't want to talk about it because parking fines are a big part of the city's revenue. Those tickets bring in $150 million a year. When the city runs into money problems — as it always does — it's the easiest thing in the world to raise fines instead of running afoul of unions, developers and political donors.

For the sixth time in seven years, the City Council voted last year to jack up parking fines by $5. The latest hike boosted the penalty for a street sweeping citation to $73.

That's a heavy price to pay, and it's $30 more than what violators pay for the same offense in neighboring cities, such as Torrance and El Segundo. In neighborhoods like Koreatown and Pico Union, which were built before garages and carports were needed, there is nowhere to park for blocks and blocks when the yellow dirt-sucking trucks lumber by.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/15/local/la-me-holland-parking-20130216

[dipsydoodle]

6. $73.00 !

In London that's about £ 90 : c. $140.

That's aside from the likes of this scam :

Moneybox junction: The West London traffic light 'trap' that rakes in £2.7m a year

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261734/Moneybox-junction-The-West-London-traffic-light-trap-rakes-2-7m-year.html#ixzz2c8R8vWPj

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The British rule makes a lot of sense

First, it builds from a basic concept of how you use the road - slow traffic keeps to the left (I'll use the British convention). So a bicycle keeps to the left, and a car overtakes it on the right. If you have 1 lane, and you want to overtake slower traffic, then you overtake on the right, if there's no traffic coming the other way. If you have 2 lanes, then you should drive in the left lane, unless there's a slower vehicle, in which case you overtake it on the right. If there are 3 lanes, then again you drive in the left lane, unless there's slower traffic in it, in which you use the middle lane to pass it. If you're faster than that, then use the right hand lane to overtake that. And so on, if there's a 4th lane.

The problem with allowing overtaking on both sides is that it means 2 cars can, after they've been overtaking, both try to move back into the same point in the middle lane, from places where it's not so easy for either of them to see the other - your mirrors are set up to see the car you've just overtaken, but not one level with you, 2 lanes across (who will have been hidden behind the car you've been overtaking for much of the time). It also makes it difficult to leave the road, if there are people overtaking you on the left and you're in the middle lane.

Having driven in both the USA and the UK, I far prefer the UK system.

[JDPriestly]

8. Generally, pedal bikes should not be on freeways. I'm assuming that these four-lane roads are

freeways or similar to freeways. Pedal bikes don't go fast enough to be on those roads.

Second, in LA, as I think it should be everywhere, most traffic is neither fast nor slow but just flowing with the predominant speed. That is the traffic that should be in the middle lane in my view.

The slow traffic goes to the right of the driver. The faster traffic goes to the left. But since some people think they are going the same rate of speed as other traffic when they are actually going slower, and even worse, some people think they are going a faster speed and are really going slower, it is good to allow passing in all lanes.

In LA, the traffic weaves in and out. People watch for other drivers. That is what rear-view mirrors and side-view mirrors are for. We watch out as we drive.

Also, we have speed limits. Speeding does get ticketed.

Our system works really well considering we have a lot of traffic on the road and not that many patrol cars. Don't need them that much.

There are accidents in LA, but I don't see nearly as many as you would expect considering the volume of traffic.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. It's a general rule on all roads

You drive (or ride) next to the side of the road, and faster traffic overtakes by passing nearer the centre of the road.

"Second, in LA, as I think it should be everywhere, most traffic is neither fast nor slow but just flowing with the predominant speed."

In the UK, many large trucks travel below 70mph, which is the general speed limit. Most, but not all, cars will travel either close to 70mph or above it, so it is hard to state there is one 'predominant speed'.

"The slow traffic goes to the right of the driver"; there's your conceptual problem, I think. Traffic going slower than others cannot decide to go to one side or the other of the faster traffic, because that traffic is behind it, about to overtake. So everyone should keep to the slowest lane, if there's room in it, so that whatever the relative speeds of traffic behind, they all get the chance to overtake where possible. If you're going at 70, and there are 2 cars coming up behind you, one at 75 and one at 80, then you should be in the left hand lane, so that the 75mph car can take the middle, and the 80 the right (British sides of the road). It is not easy to judge the relative speeds of all the vehicles behind you and then decide whether you really need to get in the left hand lane; it's easier just to make it the rule.

"That is what rear-view mirrors and side-view mirrors are for. We watch out as we drive. " As I said, the problem is that overtaking on both sides means you have to look for cars that are beyond the areas your mirrors cover. If you've just overtaken a car in the middle lane, a car in the far lane will have been hidden from you for a considerable time (especially if the one in the middle is tall, like a minivan, SUV or truck). They may never have been visible in your mirrors. You end up having to turn your head to look left and right, and lose the peripheral vision of what's in front of you. It's not as safe.

"In LA, the traffic weaves in and out." But you said you get ticketed for that. Which shows the system cannot be working that well.

[JDPriestly]

10. I agree that slow traffic stays to the right, but we allow passing from the right.

And in LA, the right lane is for trucks.

But that rule is flexible. It is common for people to pass from the right in LA.

You just have to watch. The right lane is for entering and exiting.

The entrance at my nearest entrance to the freeway is very short. Cars should not be driving in the right lane. That lane is mostly for entering and exiting the freeway near where I live. Also, the speed limit is often 60 on the freeway near me, which is very old.

So I disagree. Drivers have to be more flexible on freeways. It is different on two-lane side streets.

And in any event, here, the left lane can be the exit lane on occasion, but most of the time it is the fast lane. Most traffic is in the middle lane or lanes in LA. In most cases, the left lane is for very fast traffic and the right lane for entering and exiting and passing into the middle or left lanes. Slow traffic is usually exiting or entering, but traffic going the general speed limit is in the middle. I don't think you get ticketed for driving slower than some traffic just because you are in the middle lane. I have never seen that.

On city streets, they should ticket people for slowly riding bikes in front of cars in the middle of the street. It is very dangerous. But driving slower than some other cars in the middle lane when there are three lanes is not a problem because we can move around the middle car either to the left or right. Sometimes the traffic in the left lane is going too fast to pass safely from a slowly moving middle lane.