Truck Driver Tailgating?,...in the "Nanny State"..Yeah right.

1 or 100 lanes:

KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING

Why hold on to a lane when the left is clear?

Having come over to Australia from the UK with a good run of driving round the EU, let me tell you - Australians are the worst offenders on multicarriage ways I have come across!!

Are you guys taught the keep left rule in driver school? Is undertaking legal?

I understand the truck drivers frustration with the lane hogger but tailgaiting is far worse!

Ill admit I have flashed lights and even leant on the horn on approach (picked this up in Italy) but will fall back to a safe distance and take the next rest stop if needs be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by manic

1 or 100 lanes:

KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING

Why hold on to a lane when the left is clear?

Having come over to Australia from the UK with a good run of driving round the EU, let me tell you - Australians are the worst offenders on multicarriage ways I have come across!!

Are you guys taught the keep left rule in driver school? Is undertaking legal?

I understand the truck drivers frustration with the lane hogger but tailgaiting is far worse!

Ill admit I have flashed lights and even leant on the horn on approach (picked this up in Italy) but will fall back to a safe distance and take the next rest stop if needs be.

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This is Australia, mate. The particular incident was in Victoria.
Last I saw, Victoria was not a part of the UK or EU.
We have different road rules. If you are a resident of this great country, I suggest you read them.
As has been pointed out. the car driver was not breaking any road rules. (Read rule 130 quoted earlier in this thread.)
The truck driver, however, did.
This is supported by the fact the police want to charge the truck driver with driving offences and have shown no interest in the car driver.

I am amazed by the lack of understanding of the road rules by the number of participants in this thread. If we extrapolate the numbers to the wider driving community, there must be millions who have no idea what the road rules are.
Maybe we should have yearly drivers licence testing.

Yesterday I took my grandchildren to Molong to meet their father, and returned home via Dubbo. (in the rain)

The father was ten minutes later than forecast arriving, reporting getting stuck behind a red B-double travelling at 80 on the Lachlan Valley Way. After the handover I headed west on the Mitchell Highway. West of Wellington the speed limit is 110, and guess what I caught up with a bit further along. Yes, a bright red B-double, or rather the end of the queue behind it. It took a long time to get to the head of the queue (and I never did pass it), as this section of highway has few overtaking lanes and enough traffic to make it difficult to pass anything without one, let alone a B-double.

And this truck travelled at 80-90, except when we got to an overtaking lane, when it accelerated to 110. I was immediately behind it when we hit the 70 sign approaching Dubbo - it was a Ron Finemore vehicle.

It is quite obvious from the foregoing 133 posts that if Australia was to revise their 'lane rules' and, irrespective of the number of lanes or speed limits, simply adopted and enforced the one universal, simple rule of KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING then -

1. Traffic flow would improve
2. Motorists would be less frustrated.
3. Motorists would be less stressed, happier and more relaxed.
4. Confusion caused by different rules applying to different areas would be eliminated.
5. Roads would be safer places.
6. Accidents would be reduced.

The only downside I can see would be that the State/National revenue would be reduced :whistling:

A day or so ago, I remembered something that happened to me in 1995. How do I remember it was 1995?..Because I had just taken delivery of my new company car, which was a new 1995 VS Commodore.
Anyway, on the very first business trip that I was on with this car, I was travelling up the Calder Highway, it would've been around 7.00am, it was a lovely day, a cloudless sky, no traffic anywhere close to me, I was in heaven, new car, nice driving etc,....and I was in the right hand lane,....less bumpy in that lane!!.....anyway, I see a car coming up behind me, so I move over to let him past when He gets close enough. Anyway, when He does get close,...on go the blue lights!!...it's an unmarked police car. This chap gets out of the car, he was immaculate, had his Police overcoat on, cap etc,....walked around the car, had a really close look at it,....don't know why,...it was just an ordinary 6 cyl VS.....and then booked me for not keeping to the left. I was dumbfounded. I told him I'd seen the keep left sign, but thought they were only advisory, He said No, they mean "Keep Left". There was not a single other car in sight when this happened,..straight road, Calder H'Way,...ya could probably see at least 5-6ks in either direction! Did this spoil my day,....it sure did! He said He'd been parked behind a bridge as I drove by in the right lane. I said to him something like " You'd get a few like this", or "There'd be a few like me" etc (it was a long time ago, I can't remember my exact words!). He simply said "Yes".
I was so upset by this that later on, when I saw a Highway Patrol Car on the side of the road, I pulled over & explained the situation to him. "Sounds a bit tough to me, I wouldn't do that", is what He said!
I'd actually forgotten about this incident, so there ya go!
Pickles.

All the roads up here are single lane, so that becomes moot to us..

Having just driven home again yesterday what I would really like to see is increased “overtaking lane only” speeds.

Nothing worse than a string of vehicles pulling out to overtake and sitting at 110 passing something doing 100-105...

Means only 2 vehicles get by.

And for flip sake, learn to overtake where there are no overtaking lanes... a string of 1.9km of vehicles (held up by a 8m load) finally get the nod to go through and it took 100km to sort them out and pass the slower ones. [emoji48]

More 'Keep left unless overtaking' signs would remind drivers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

More 'Keep left unless overtaking' signs would remind drivers.

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There used to be lots of these in SA, didn't do squat as far as I could determine. They need to be followed with one of these:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...017/10/202.jpg

And a reminder of the size of the fine for disobeying the rules.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bee utey

There used to be lots of these in SA, didn't do squat as far as I could determine. They need to be followed with one of these

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Here in SA...it would appear that the majority were never taught at school as to which is their right hand and which is their left.....

The problem is each state has variations in the rules. Really time for national road rules, but not just adopting NSW's rules either.
In WA the keep left rule only applies in multi lane carriageways with a posted speed limit above 90kmph. 90 or below you can travel in either lane.
Above 90 eg highways and freeways becomes a little more clouded. The road rules state you must keep left when overtaking full stop and state you must keep as far left as practicable. In my interpretation that would be the far left lane. But there are legal exceptions to this as outlined in the WA road rules:
Penalties
Failing to keep left in a multi-lane road = 2 demerit points and $50 fine.
On single lane roads you must drive as far to the left as practical (except motorcyclists). On multi-lane roads if the speed limit is 90km/h or more you must drive in the left lane. This same rule applies to any road where there is a ‘keep left unless overtaking’ sign. On these roads you can only drive in the right hand lane if:

• you’re turning right or making a U-turn;
  
• you’re overtaking;
  
• the left lane is a special purpose lane, e.g. bus lane, bicycle lane, slow vehicle turnout lane;
  
• the left lane is a turning lane and you are going straight ahead;
  
• you’re avoiding an obstruction;
  
• you’re not driving a vehicle of a type that is prohibited from the right lane by way of signs (i.e. trucks);
  
• the other lanes are congested with traffic.
  
  What also may be open to interpretation is when are you actually passing eg. Is it safer for me to stay in the right lane when sitting on the speed limit and overtaking slower traffic with gaps of say 100m between cars? Or should I continually change lanes and end up weaving? IMHO the first option is the safer.