undertaking on a motorway

[Pete1954]

What is the law on undertaking on aproaching a slip road leaving the motorway you are on.

[ummmm]

How do you mean?

If you're approaching a slip road how can you be undertaking?

Going faster than the lane to your right is not undertaking...

[Buenchico]

With limited exceptions (such as the ban on using a hand-held mobile phone while driving) there are very few 'specific' motoring laws in the UK. (i.e. laws which prohibit particular actions).

For example, there is no law that states that you can't drive along the right-hand side of a two-way street. If a police officer sees you doing so he (and the Crown Prosecution Service) needs to decide whether your actions amount to 'driving without due care and attention', 'careless driving', 'dangerous driving' or any other relevant offence. If you were driving a milk float along the right-hand side of a well-lit, deserted road at 5am he would almost certainly come to the conclusion that your actions were not illegal.

Similarly, if you're approaching a motorway exit, and pass on the near-side of another vehicle, a police officer can't automatically decide "that's illegal" (since there is no specific law banning drivers from 'undertaking', irrespective of where they are on the road). If, when you did so, you and the other driver were clearly driving within designated lanes, marked for specific routes, you wouldn't be guilty of any offence. However if the lanes were not specifically marked for particular routes, you'd need to exercise extreme care when passing to the left of the other driver (and possibly avoid doing so). Otherwise the police (and the CPS) might judge that your actions amounted to 'careless driving'.

Chris

[jake-the-peg]

CPS sheet specifying that overtaking on the inside is grounds for careless driving

http://www.cps.gov.uk...ts/dangerous_driving/

Whether or not your specific example is a real case of overtaking on the inside would be open to depending on the circumstances - It's not really an overtaking manoever.

I'd advise against doing it though

[Pete1954]

When leaving the motorway via a dedicated lane to your exit junction which runs paralell with the main motorway and travelling at the required speed limit are you breaking the law if you are travelling faster than the traffic on the main motorway to your right.

[ummmm]

No....

It's like if you're in slow moving traffic and your outside lane is moving faster than the middle lane. That's not undertaking...you just happened to be in a lane that is moving faster.

[jackthehat]

No.

[jno]

I don't think so - like jake says, passing isn't the same as overtaking (that is, you're not pulling out, passing, then pulling back in again). If the main motorway lanes had come to a halt, that doesn't mean people on a slip road have to stop too.

[Buenchico]

As Ummmm states, the situation you describe is akin to that in congested traffic, where an inner lane is moving faster than an outer one. Highway Code Rule 268 states:
"Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake"

Chris

[stoofur]

To add to Pete's question. When driving on a motorway that is a two lane motorway, sometime (quite often) you get the situation where you get a queue of traffic in the right hand lane trying to pass a lorry (sometimes half a mile away) and the left hand lane is empty. Is it ok to slowly pass traffic on the left? I don't mean with the view of cutting into the right hand lane when you reach the lorry. But sometimes to me it is safer to stay in the left lane that is empty rather than sit bumper to bumper in the right hand lane.

[R1Geezer]

You mean overtaking on the left, I assume. This is often confused, if you come up behind a driver and then move left and overtake then move right again the that is overtaking. Simply passing on the left is fine. That is why people get so hysterical about people in the middle lane because they think they have to go long way round, they don't.