"Technically" ........ yes you are undertaking and therefore it's illegal, however you could protest the arguement that the traffic in the other lane was forming a queue and therefore you are legally allowed to continue. If you were to be involved in an accident you might find that the technicallity is taken into account rather than the interpretation.

As for the ass sitting on your bumper with his lights on ...... hitting the brakes wasnt clever .... driving at a speed where you were only just passing the other traffic would have been far more annoying for him.

A quote from the Highway code ...... still checking the Road Traffic Act for anything more specific.

Quote:

Ahhhh but as I read the post ...... the vehicles in the other lane were all doing 30-35mph and therefore the question is wether they constitute a queue. A police officer would, in order to get a prosecution, go with the techical definition that a queue is stationary or very slow moving as implied by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Therefore unless the traffic was moving extremely slowly any attempt to pass on the nearside would be considered as a violation of the traffic laws. (I'm still trying to find the proper definition under law in the Road Traffic Act.)

Quote:

eno wrote on Jan 15^th, 2007 at 10:41am:

Your right eno, the cars were said to be moving at 30 - 35mph, the grey area becomes at what point a flow of traffic becomes a queue, Unfortunately, there are lots of other factors to take into consideration with this, such as what junctions lie ahead, does the right-hand lane turn into a dedicated lane for right turns? Are cars likely to turn left across Vavavoom's lane without checking their mirrors first. Sometimes you find that car drivers simply don't know about time restrictions in bus lanes, as a result they all form a nice orderly (albeit, nicely moving) que in the right-hand lane - if these drivers are too stupid to make use of both lanes available to them, should Vavavoom be penalised for making progress without breaking the speed limit?

Unfortunatley, all of the above questions can't be answered without having actually been there, so the whole topic is left open to varying interpretations.



TSC.

Well having had a look at your diagram Vavavoom, it seems that if you decide to use the bus lane during permitted times, then at some point you will still have to filter back into the flow of traffic on the right in order to get through the lights? In which case I would suggest that the reason the bus lane is open to all traffic at certain times is to aid traffic flow on that section of road - you may even find a 'Filter In Turn' sign just before the traffic lights. I would suggest using whichever lane is appropriate to make progress, without of course, breaking the speed limit, the bus lane has been opened for a reason so you may aswell use it to it's advantage - if others wish to que at a slower speed in another lane then let them.

However, as stated before, there is a lot of grey area over this, even the ADI's I have spoken to today agree that it is open to interpretation - thus the bloke following you with full beams on - I also suspect you have a hard time filtering back into the traffic flow, not your fault of course, the bus lane is available to them aswell, they just fail to make use of it.



TSC.