Richard's Guide to Motorway Driving.

Now I've been driving up and down Motorways practically every day for the past two years and have learnt that there are certain unwritten laws to driving on them. These are things that you would only notice if you spent a fair amount of time on them. So to save you the time I felt that it would be useful for me to impart my knowledge to you. So below is a list, in no particular order of importance, of things you should be aware of.

1. Everyone drives fast, no-one sticks to the speed limits, if people had their way all the motorways would be like the Autobahns of Germany (which if you didn't know have no speed limit at all). The fast lane is the overtaking lane, and some people believe that it should only be used for overtaking, what they don't realise is that others and I want to overtake EVERYONE on the motorway. Now people who go slow in the fast lane cause more trouble then the people going fast (did you know that you can be given a bigger fine and more points on your licence for going too slow then for going too fast). This is because everyone wants to overtake them, and because they can't overtake them they start to get angry, evidence of this is in the flashing of headlights, tailgating (moving their car right up to you bumper, which at 70mph and above is very dangerous because if you have to brake suddenly then they will go straight into the back of you) and overtaking on the left. How do you know if you're holding up the fast lane? The simple test is, if you have a lot of cars behind you, flashing etc and NO cars in front of you then your are holding up the fast lane, so get out of the fucking way!!!
2. If you are going to overtake on the left, even though it is illegal, you should be aware that there are good and bad places to do it. The worst place to do it is at a junction. You will notice that as you pass an exit there will be a lot of space on your left (This is for Right Hand Drive cars, Left handers figure it out for yourself), so you will think that this is the perfect chance to overtake so you speed up and start overtaking and just when you are about to get to the position in front of the car, all the traffic entering from the junction appears in front of you, going a lot slower than you are, and you end up going into the back of them. Basically if you are going to overtake on the left, don't do it at a junction, anywhere else is reasonably ok.
3. What about coming on and off at a junction? Well when you are coming onto a junction, looking into your right rear view mirror is not enough, you must literally turn your head and look to your right to see there are no cars in the blind spot. There have been many times when if I hadn't looked to my right I would have pulled out right in front of someone, and might of ended up in the film Crash. There was this one time I was passing a junction, going slightly above the speed limit (honest), and this woman came out of the junction and literally drove straight into the fast lane, I had to put the brakes on so hard smoke came rising up from them, I just managed to stop within 1 metre of her. Now let me remind you of my first point, people always drive fast on motorways, so don't pull out into a lane unless your sure of the speed of the vehicle that is approaching. Ok so what about coming off a motorway, well its normally easier since most people are going slower on the left so pulling out in front of them is normally Ok, but there is one thing I would watch out for, do not when you are approaching the exit decide to push in front of a lorry or truck, they have a lot of tonnage and they take a LOT to stop them. And the likelihood is that if you pushed in front of them they no longer have enough safe distance to stop. So they will definitely go into the back of you. Now if a car goes into the back of you, you have a chance of surviving the accident, but if a lorry goes into you then you practically have no chance of surviving. I passed one accident where two cars had literally been squished in-between two lorries like soft cheese in a sandwich. It happens quite a lot so don't do it, always give a lorry plenty of braking distance.
4. Lorries, they are big, they are heavy, they take a lot to start moving and a lot to stop them moving, they drive everyday on the roads and feel very strongly that they own the roads. If you get into a fight with them you will lose, they don't care about the paint job on them and they most certainly don't care about the paint job on your car. If they have a crash with your car then it is most likely that they could drive on as if nothing had happened whereas your car would be a write off. The main thing to watch out for with lorries, is when they are overtaking other lorries or cars. They will indicate to the right and will keep indicating until they have passed the other lorry and have started to indicate left. Then they seem to do this funny thing of indicating once right and then left again. If they start to indicate LET THEM GO!!!!, not for any reason of courtesy, or anything like that, but simply because they will pull out whether you let them or not. They think they own the roads remember and if they hit your car they'll just think they went over a bump or something. Also if they are pulling out when you are approaching a junction, it is probably because someone has jumped in front of them and they are going to hit them so if you don't let them out they will either be forced to hit the person in front of them or pull out and hit you. Which would you prefer?
5. Braking. Well you might ask, what could I possibly say about braking. Simply this, its is not uncommon for traffic on a motorway to suddenly stop dead, this catches a lot of people out and they have to do some major braking, but my main point for bringing this up, is the method by which they inform others that they are breaking hard, what they do is they put on their Hazard warning lights. So if your driving along and someone in front of you starts breaking and then they put on their Hazards you better brake hard or you'll go into the back of them.
6. Breaking Down. This happened to me in June of this year, I was quite happily driving in the fast last, as you do, and suddenly saw smoke coming out from the back of my car (I could see it in my rear view mirror) so being the sensible chap that I am I thought it was a good idea to stop. So I when onto the hard shoulder and stuck on my Hazard warning lights (which is what you are meant to do), lifted up my bonnet and looked at my engine for inspiration, the cause of my trouble was a broken water pipe, it hadn't been smoke coming out of my car it had been steam. The cause of this later transpired to be because of the Head Gasket but we won't go into that. By the side of the motorway you have orange boxes on a pole about 1km apart, these boxes hold a telephone which puts you in touch with an operator who will arrange for you to be picked up, if you are with the AA of RAC they will ask for your membership number and other details, most importantly is the number on the side of the orange box because this tells them where you are. There have been cases where the box on the other side of the motorway was nearer then the one down the motorway, so people have been known to use those instead, if you do, be sure to tell them what side of the motorway you are on or else you will see a truck appear on the other side of the road. Which is of no use to anyone.
7. THE POLICE. Now I was caught by the police doing 97mph on the M1 going Northbound in-between junctions 4 and 5, which cost me a £40 fine, 3 points on my license and an extra £40 or so on my car insurance. Well I was miffed to say the least but most of all I was surprised. Why surprised? Quite simply this, I hadn't seen them, they had come out of nowhere. For months this stuck in my mind until one day, whilst I was going along the same route I saw a police car reversing up the green hill bit next to the hard shoulder, and then I realised that they had been on top of a hill and had seen me coming. This put my mind at rest but also taught me an important lesson, police cars are not just on the motorway or on the hard shoulder, they also have clever little hiding places. I know quite a few of them on the M1 but I don't know them all. But there is a way around that, take for example walking down Oxford Street at Christmas time, if you want to go fast, you have to zig zag your way through all the people in front and you stand out like a sore thumb, but if you go with the flow of the people and walking behind the faster people, you will still get there quicker but you will just be one of the crowd and indistinguishable from the rest. And that’s how it is with driving, if you seem like everyone else your not noticed.
8. Motorbikes. The worst thing about a motor bike is not seeing it. If you drive a motorbike, no matter whether it be night or day, keep your headlamps ON!!!! Or we just can't see you.

In conclusion, no-one drives how they should, no-one drives according to the law, no-one drives sensibly or with due care or attention to others. If you are to survive on the roads full stop, you must constantly look out for the unexpected. Thats life, deal with it.