Something needs to be done about people's motorway driving.

Etiquette is one thing, safety is more important.

UK roads are amongst the safest in the world. Clearly we're doing something right.

Etiquette is one thing, safety is more important.

UK roads are amongst the safest in the world. Clearly we're doing something right.

Driver education is a big problem in this country. Motorways cannot be touched by learner drivers, so most instructors don't bother teaching it, even though very similar roads (70mph dual carriageways) exist.

Sound point. And like I said, we're definitely doing better than most countries. But I imagine those figures include all roads, including urban areas etc. where I think UK driving standards are far better than many other EU countries.

Would be interesting to see figures for just motorways alone. Perhaps crashes per 1000km motorway or something. I've found 1 or 2 graphs which show we're not doing that well, but I'm not too sure how trustworthy they are... In all honesty it's very difficult to find good figures, you'd probably also need to find out about average number of cars per km motorway too

Whatever the figures are, I think better etiquette could only improve safety surely?

My dad actually almost killed me once on a motorway. Haven't been on one for about 6 years cause of it. Motorway driving is horrible.

My dad actually almost killed me once on a motorway. Haven't been on one for about 6 years cause of it. Motorway driving is horrible.

orse still, even get people sat in the outside lane at 70, because 'that's the speed limit and no-one should drive any faster'. All that does is clog up the motorway, and mean that a couple of miles back, you end up getting tailbacks.

The real problem is the amount of haulage on UK motorways. When lorries over take, they reduce the capacity of motorway by a half. It causes people to have to maneuver into fast lane, causing it to slow down and forcing people to brake to let traffic in, which all has a knock on effect down the road. It gets particularly ridiculous when the overtaking lorry takes over 5 minutes to complete the overtaking maneuver. In countries like Germany the trains and rivers are used much more than the UK which takes the strain off the motorways.

Problem is, once you look into it, the freight train system already over-capacity as it is.

Sadly we just move around too much stuff.

Personally I think there should be a £200 annual charge, payable the first time you enter to the country, for the right to use UK roads for all vehicles over 2 tonne.

This is then used to fund extra transport infrastructure building.

The real problem is the amount of haulage on UK motorways. When lorries over take, they reduce the capacity of motorway by a half. It causes people to have to maneuver into fast lane, causing it to slow down and forcing people to brake to let traffic in, which all has a knock on effect down the road. It gets particularly ridiculous when the overtaking lorry takes over 5 minutes to complete the overtaking maneuver. In countries like Germany the trains and rivers are used much more than the UK which takes the strain off the motorways.

Germany has the geographical advantage of several very large rivers running the length of the country. How could you transport ~100 tonnes of goods from, say, Leeds to London using existing waterways in the UK?

That's why the Victorians built canals.

The real problem is the amount of haulage on UK motorways. When lorries over take, they reduce the capacity of motorway by a half. It causes people to have to maneuver into fast lane, causing it to slow down and forcing people to brake to let traffic in, which all has a knock on effect down the road. It gets particularly ridiculous when the overtaking lorry takes over 5 minutes to complete the overtaking maneuver. In countries like Germany the trains and rivers are used much more than the UK which takes the strain off the motorways.