Almost got killed last night.

[Shalom]

Was driiving home last night around 10. I have a trip about 40 miles one way, and it was raining pretty heavily. Not so much that I was looking around for the old man collecting animals, but still pretty good. I was driving behind an 18-wheeler with a flatbed trailer, who was in the center lane of three, and I wanted to pass him. Guy was weaving back and forth in his lane a bit (this becomes significant).

It would have been easier to pass him on the right, but that's not legal in this state, not to mention the truckers don't like it because they can't see you coming, so I went in the left lane. Had to push my wipers to high speed to deal with all the spray coming off his tires. I come up to the crest of a hill, and just over the top I see a car sitting in my lane, spun out with his nose against the median and his ass sticking out at a 225° angle.

I hit the brakes (not hard enough to trigger the ABS, fortunately) and dove to the right. Didn't even think about it. In retrospect, my reflexes decided they'd rather sideswipe a truck doing the same 60 mph as I am, than hit a stationary target at the same 60mph, right? Fortunately for me, that was the moment the truck decided to weave to the right, so I missed both of them by inches. I thought for sure I was gonna wipe out the left side of my car. No idea how I survived that without a scratch. Took about five miles before my breathing slowed to normal...

I slowed down to about 50 for the rest of the trip. You only need to hit me over the head once to get my attention.

[rose_metal_nz]

Wow - freaky! Glad you're OK.

[Pagan]

I hit the brakes (not hard enough to trigger the ABS, fortunately) and dove to the right.

You want the ABS to kick in so you can maintain steering control in exactly your situation! That's what it's for!

[PepperElf]

not being able to pass on the right always baffled me.
unless you mean using the shoulder cos that's illegal here

but sometimes the person in the left lane is stuck on cruise control and ignoring the flow of traffic

[SongsOfDragons]

not being able to pass on the right always baffled me.
unless you mean using the shoulder cos that's illegal here

but sometimes the person in the left lane is stuck on cruise control and ignoring the flow of traffic

If I understand the ruling properly, in Britain it's called 'Undertaking'. Here it's mostly done by arseholes who want to pass you even though you're in the outside lane and doing the speed limit - it's fine on a big motorway with three or more lanes like the M1, but when they do it on the A34 which is only two lanes it's SO ANNOYING. Especially when you're in that lane trying to pass all the lorries!

The Hard Shoulder is for ambulances!!

I'm not sure if it's law or not; I don't think so, it's in the Highway Code which is only a guideline IIRC. I don't think the police will like you if you undertake in front of them. I think it's fine to undertake if the car you're undertaking is actually stopped in the junction waiting to turn right.

[Chromatix]

As I understand it, the Highway Code is a distillation of the law into plain language. It isn't literally the law, but you won't go wrong following it, and most of the things that it explicitly says *not* to do are in fact illegal.

Driving down the hard shoulder, except in an emergency, is one of those definitely-illegal things. If a policeman sees you doing that, expect to get pulled over.

[Beki710]

In the UK it is illegal to undertake even on a motorway, the only time it is allowed is if you are turning off at a junction, or if you are in slow moving/stationary traffic such as a traffic jam. That's pretty much what I was told when I took my test anyway...