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This has to be the most classic image of a convoy. Just look at how many cars this lorry is holding up. The third car is having a look. |
| Why is it that vans do over 80 on the motorway but hold you up on A roads? Well, I've found the answer, its because vans over 2 tonnes are restricted to 50mph on single carriageways and 60mph on dual carriageways. At one time of day the police wouldn't bother nicking van drivers for doing 60 on a single carriageway but since the scamera partnerships were formed they've now started to enforce this absurd limit in the name of revenue. |  |
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There are two slow coachers here. The lorry and the blue car. The blue car should pull over and let the others pass. |
| This is how it should be done. The white car moves over to the left giving the black car plenty of room to pass. All too often slower drivers move to the middle of the road to deliberately block faster cars. |  |
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The driver of the silver car has obviously been stuck behind the lorry for a long time and is making feeble attempts at trying to pass it. He's got no chance as there's a car coming in the opposite direction. |
| This is bad driving at its worst. The white car is slowing down a whole string of cars. |  |
A wide road makes overtaking much safer
The next five pictures are taken on the A303 at Ilminster. This is a five mile stretch of wide single carriageway with
no junctions. Overtaking here is easy and allows you to pass the processions. The only problem is a Gatso which is located
on one of the straights resulting in bunching.
Keeping left allows faster drivers to overtake
Even with larger vehicles there is plenty of room for three abreast. The line in the road surface shows how this could
easily be marked out with four lanes, a dual carriageway without a central reservation.
The 4x4 is the same one as in the previous picture.
A trio of cars are lining up to pass the truck
The driver of this Mercedes van obviously doesn't like being stuck behind coaches.
Slow coach
There are two long processions here. Whilst all the other drivers follow each other like lemmings, the driver of the Transit
has other ideas and is passing them.
Overtaking processions is easy on a wide road
This stretch of the A303 has been altered since the pictures above were taken. The whole of the Ilminster Bypass has been marked out with three lanes to allow traffic in one direction to overtake. Every couple of miles the centre lane changes sides to allow traffic in the other direction to pass.
Whilst the new layout makes overtaking safer, its not without its flaws. In this scene the traffic in the single lane is stuck in a procession and there's no
legal way to get past slower traffic until the centre lane changes sides. Under the old layout the more competent drivers among us would have driven along the white line
like the van above. Fortunately this three lane layout is only a stopgap measure until full dualling is carried out. When this will eventually take place is anyones guess.
2+1 lanes has good and bad effects which can be seen here
The remaining pictures are taken on the A5 between Shrewsbury and Oswestry. Most of the single carriageway
sections are wide enough to take at least 3 lanes and provide some easy overtaking opportunities. In this picture there
are two overtakers in operation. The white lines were recently lengthened and are classed as hazard warning
lines in the highway code. The only hazard you're likely to encounter is a slow moving procession.
Plenty of overtaking going on
There's a really long procession in this scene and the van driver would like to pass the lot of them. In the far distance
another overtake is in progress and there appears to be two cars overtaking the white van.
Is the third car behind the lorry going to pull out?
The driver of the Picasso is overtaking on a bend which is perfectly legal due to the broken lines.
Overtaking on a bend
The A9 between Perth and Inverness has these 2 signs which advises motorists to let faster vehicles pass on the single
carriageway stretches. I would suggest this is aimed primarily at tractors as it would
be unreasonable to expect HGV's to pull over every time a line of cars forms behind them.
Slow vehicles with processions behind them should pull over
This is the other sign which accompanies the one above.
Notice how the earthworks are wide enough to allow the road to be dualled. It's the view of many people that it should
have dualled from the start, but perhaps that would have been too expensive.
Sign advising drivers of slower vehicles to let faster ones pass