Be Excellent To Each Other

I've been wondering who has right of way in the following situation:



I'm going straight on, he's turning right, we're both on side roads. The Highway Code appears to be silent on this. Almost every time this happens, whichever of the two positions I'm in, if i exercise right of way the other chap beeps me. So everyone seems confused about it.

I want to know the LAW, damnit, so that I can rain down righteous fury upon the next person who incorrectly beeps me.

If there are no markings on the road, then right of way is with whoever gets there first.

Who's in the Beemer?

you have right of way. If your turning right, you have to give way to everyone.

http://www.findleys.co.uk/practical_tut ... roads.html

Win!

Awesome. I knew I was right that I had right of way over the bloke turning right.

Thankyou, sir.

Buy a series one Land Rover, get two four and half feet lengths of railway track, weld them to either end and use them as bumpers. Never have to worry about it again.

Yep, you definitely have right of way. The only time I question myself in a situation like that would be if I was turning right and he was turning left. Yes, I'm turning right, but then I'm also sort of 'on the road' he's turning on to...

But apparently you never have right of way if you're turning right, so that's easily solved.

Roundabouts anyone?

Roundabouts are easy. As long as you aren't one of the (soon to be banned) weirdos that think the right hand approach lane is for going straight on.

"At roundabouts give way to the right.
If you don't, you are a bag of shite."

[/Vic and Bob's driving instruction video]

Do you perchance occasionally drift wide exiting a roundabout in those situations?

Oh, absolutely.

Oh. *hides*

I was in a car the other day where the driver decided to go into the right lane to go straight on (though it was technically left, because it was the first exit) while the car in the left lane decided to go right without indicating.

That shit me up, and I wasn't sure who to be angrier at more.

I also love the drivers who indicate only to show you what they're doing, rather than to tell you in advance; as if flipping the indicator on as you're turning is acceptable and not completely obvious. "I was indicating, your honor…"

Except of course when changing lanes on the motorway where that's exactly what you should do apparently.

So much so that when cars in the left lane put on their indicators, the overtaking cars in the right lane panic-brake!

That depends on the roundabout. 2 on, 2 off I'll take as right-hand for straight on, especially as that sort should have road markings explaining such.

This morning someone nearly killed me because they came more than halfway round one without indicating, started indicating left (and so I began moving) and then drove past the indicated-to exit towards me (and so I began moving much more quickly). The weekend saw me mental-banning at least 2 hundred people for indicator, fog lamp, and high beam offenses, and at least another few dozen for extreme lack of lane discipline. People really don't know how to drive.

In particular, what is it about a queue on a motorway that causes people to turn into slack-brained feebles and sit in whatever lane they happen to come out of the other end in doing about 4 miles per hour, forever?

Oh, and! at a roundabout next to CostCo in Cardiff, my sister was making a mess of choosing lanes, so I ended up in the right-hand one where she'd just jumped into the left to go straight on; I did the right thing and went all the way round, indicating my intentions properly. Spectacular judgment because some dick flew round in the left lane to the second (3 o'clock) exit without indicating. Then on my way back round a Mini driver nearly went, saw me coming, and stared at me like I was some sort of cunt and why the fuck was I daring to hold her up even half a second longer with my obeying the safe rules of the Highway Code?

The only time I do that is if I have enough speed over the car in the left hand lane that if he decides to be a prick there's nothing he can do, I never do it if I'm going to have to barge in at the other side. It's often the only safe way to get past very slow cars all the way to the motorway.

What about the twatty basts who use the left lane for turning right?

They should be killed furiously.

"You cunt, Bik."
/

Mr Chris - made of winnage.

Oh, certainly. It's when people do it on a 2 on 1 off that annoys me. Especially as you can bet your arse they're not looking in their left hand wing mirror when they head for the exit.

Why would I need to be looking in my left hand wing mirror when I could see what was in front of me and know that I've already gone past it?

If someone wants to make a race of it then I just let them through, unless they're in a really shit car.

Because if you're in the right hand lane, I'm in the left, and you're taking the exit, you MUST cut across in front of me, there's no other way to get there. I don't so much object to people racing past, it's the ones that sail towards the exit without the slightest clue that there's someone on their inside that are the problem.

Exactly yes, I don't do it if I'm going to have to barge across at the last minute, that pisses me off too. Normally roll up to the roundabout and time it so that I get there still rolling quick as a car passes so only a really quick car will be able to do anything about it.

Yeah, that's absolutely fine - it's when stationary traffic pulls off the line together in two lanes, and the mum doing the school run in the right hand lane cruises straight for the straight-ahead exit oblivious to the lane next to her (generalisations ftw!). I've even seen people do it when there is no left exit, so straight-ahead is the first exit...

Problem with roundabouts is that people cane it once they are on, thinking they are doing everyone else a favour (Cardiff Gabalfa being a major example). Were the people coming from my right to do a sensible 15-20, I can be out safely in front of them, as it is they shoot past at 30 trying to get off having waited five minutes to get on. This is why we get lights on them so often these days. Then there's the 10mh cunts who ruin it for everyone. Dangerous fuckers.

I fact why people don;t seem to understand that a roundabout is no different to any piece of 'straight' road, it just wraps round, I don't know. You are effectively at a t-junction onto an A-road with any decent sized roundabout.

Also, councils - don't put zebra crossings 3ft after each exit from a roundabout, thanks.

If you're the absolute cunt in a Smart ForFour I encountered on the A10 this evening, YOU DO.

A bunch of people nipped into the little residential access road the parallels the A10 to try and get a bit of ground on the queue of traffic slowly making its way towards the M25. And they, naturally, have to rejoin the main road with the access road ends. So, I figured, a bit twatty but fair enough, if everyone lets ONE car out of this road, no problem.

The time comes to me and I let the British Gas van waiting out. Except a chav in a ForFour comes zooming right behind him and tries to force his way out. We literally stopped an inch from each other, and I was just about to move off again when he decided to move off again, and smugly took his undeserved place in front of me.

My heart was in my mouth as we'd been literally millimetres from a crash that second time.

Well the 3ft from the roundabout thing can make sense, unless you want pedestrians to walk 5 miles up the road to cross (which they won't do and will cross without the help of a zebra).

Depends on the road of course. The example I'm thinking of is North End Road / Lillie Road in the middle of London and not say, a big roundabout in the middle of nowhere.

It's obviously more convenient for pedestrians, but it invariably both causes big tailbacks onto the roundabout itself, and accidents/near accidents because people are still thinking about what they're doing going round the roundabout and not expecting pedestrians in the road in front of them.

They'll get those anyway, you may have noticed people aren't fans of walking to roundabouts.

If they're just trying to continue going straight on at a roundabout type + junction they're not going to walk any distance up a cross street to do so.

In mildly-related news, I wonder if this is mentioned in the highway code anywhere?

I give you the roundabout after the exit of the M3 junction 1, London-bound. Clearly marked, those lanes and always have been, albeit that they've recently changed the markings. In fact they changed them to reflect what most people were doing anyway. On which point people have generally switched, and it is very annoying.

So, three lanes, left is marked as left turn. The left is immediate, so bugger off.

The next is straight on, for A240 Staines.

And the last, A240 Kingston. It is also a right turn to wherever else you can go.

So what happens? Occasionally a spectacular idiot will use the left lane to carry straight on, and they're clearly insane. But more often those in the second will plough straight on (and it is fairly straight, but clearly marked, with words and such, at each point, so they're not reading), in effect cutting across from A240 Staines-Kingston. And they do so with such utter obliviousness that you have to either get the boot down or just wait and see what they're going to do. It's mildly complicated - the A240 Kingston after the slip road lane then splits into two, and people may also have been in that lane to go right. But it's marked.

Ironically, as I say, it used to be that both lanes were for the A240 Kingston - so two lanes going into two. But then people in the outside one would cut straight across into the left. Neither way really works, but both could. I have a close shave there almost every time there's other traffic there (oh, and it's traffic-lit, so you can't get away from people down the slip road, either), to the extent that I'm glad when I'm travelling back late and have less chance of having anyone else on the road.

Next! In depth analyses of bus timetables.

When I was at school we had a coach trip to alton towers just before the summer break. We hit heavy traffic on the way there and got stuck in a jam. The atmosphere was hot and heavy, with lots of messing about, the teachers had given up trying to stop the chorus of "charlie had a pigeon". One of the girls on the other side of the bus gasped, let out a mighty scream and then started laughing very hard whilst pointing out of the window at something outside. We naturally flew over to the other window to see what had caused such a reaction only to be presented with the sight of a middle aged man in a car with dark tinted windows with his sunroof wide open, cock in hand, pulling his pudding like no-one's business. Since we were up above him and in a coach with non-opening windows, he never knew we could see him and he kept fapping away even as the traffic started moving again.

You know how they say you can't un-see things... it's true.

You've just almost described getting onto the westbound M602 from Eccles at the Eccles Interchange.

The two major differences are: 1) the middle lane is marked left-or-straight-on and 2) at least three quarters of people plough straight on from the leftmost lane across the junctionflyoverabout - thereby not just cutting you up as you go across, but actually driving at right-angles across people in the middle lane heading onto the motorway.

The morons in point 1 have usually queued for at least 100 metres to do this, meaning that people like me will shoot up the near-empty middle lane anyway, passed this queue and then quite correctly going left, trying their very hardest not to have a crash but not really minding because a new car on some other completely inept cunt's insurance/house would be quite nice really. And my (car's) horn is awesome.

I now have that infernal song stuck on infinite loop in my head. Thanks.

HaHa!

I don't know it!

Malc

Sung to the tune of 'I'm a Little Dutch Girl' (it says here)

CHAR-lie had a pigeon,
A pigeon, a pigeon,
CHAR-lie had a pigeon,
A pigeon, he had.
It flew in the morning, it flew in the night,
And when it came back, it was covered in - CHAR-lie had a pigeon..... (and repeat)

We always argued that we never actually swore and hence weren't breaking any rules. The song got louder and louder until someone inevitably shouts "SHITE!" at the top of their lungs and ruins it. Much guffaws to be had.