"Terry Harper" wrote in message
...
"Neil Williams" wrote in message
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On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 10:47:21 +0000 (UTC), "Terry Harper"
wrote:

Really the answer is to provide an extra lane between junctions, so that
there is never any need to merge off a slip road.

I don't like that when driving a slower vehicle (e.g. a minibus)
because it means you are forever moving back and forth. I think most
lorry drivers would probably agree - unless such lanes were
permanently marked with dotted lines to be for turning vehicles only.

It seems to work well from Junction 10 (A3) onwards clockwise on the M25.
In
general 4 lanes between junctions, three lanes through them.

And do "tortoise" vehicles have to keep changing lanes as they approach and
leave each junction?

If you mark the lanes for turning vehicles only, then you are turning a
four-lane motorway into a three-lane motorway everywhere except close to the
junction.

Much more of a problem is two-lane motorways and dual-carriageways where
lorries and other slow-moving vehicles are allowed to use both lanes. I live
close to the A34 in Oxfordshire and I know only too well that antisocial
lorry drivers regularly clog-up the road because they think it's acceptable
to overtake each other when the overtaking lorry is going only a couple of
mph faster than the lorry it is passing. It seems like common sense that you
don't overtake unless you can complete the manoeuvre quickly, without taking
ages over it. The record that I've observed was a lorry that stayed
absolutely dead-level with another lorry for over three minutes until the
lorry that was being overtaken took the pragmatic approach and braked to
allow the overtaking lorry to pull in ahead of it and open up the road again
to drivers wanting to do more than 40 mph.