GEM Motoring Assist post useful guide to safe motorway driving

In light of the new traffic law enforcement changes announced this week, GEM Motoring Assist (Guild of Experienced Motorists) has prepared and posted a useful guide to safe motorway driving. Prompted by an independent survey commissioned by GEM Motoring Assist where more than 30% of UK motorists believe that drivers are generally more aggressive when on motorways, the guide covers aspects such as lane discipline (no hogging the middle lane or now face instant £100 fine), blind spots, speed and distance.

Although most of these GEM tips should be familiar to most commercial/fleet van drivers, it’s always a good idea to review motorway regulations from time to time and the penalties for not following them, as they may update or change like those announced this week.

David Williams MBE, CEO of GEM Motoring Assist, comments: “Bad driving habits on motorways can severely affect the concentration and safety of the other road users, causing agitation and stress for many. So, to help, we’ve created a motorway safety guide for when high speeds are involved and, at the other end of the scale, for when congestion and accidents create dramatic changes in driving conditions, and can require unexpected reduction of speed.”

 

The following tips posted by GEM contribute to a safe and stress-free driving experience on motorways and possibly help you avoid falling foul of the bad driving habits that now incur the new higher on-the-spot penalty fees.

GEM’s top tips for safe motorway driving:

• In an emergency, the only place that you can stop on the motorway is the hard shoulder. For any other purpose, using the hard shoulder is an offence


• Always allow at least a two second stopping distance in between your car and the vehicle in front. Allow a minimum of four seconds in wet weather


• When joining the motorway, use the slip road to match your speed with that of the vehicles already travelling on the main carriageway. Don’t ever stop on the slip road


• When leaving the motorway, avoid braking on the main carriageway if you can, and do the braking on the slip road


• Best practice for lane use on motorways is to travel in the left-hand lane and then filter into the middle and right-hand lanes when overtaking


• Be aware, especially when changing lanes, that left-hand-drive foreign lorries have a blind spot on their right-hand passenger side


• Always indicate when changing lanes, to make other drivers fully aware of your intentions


• When red lamps are flashing above your lane, you must go no further in that lane and move safely to a lane in which red signals are not showing


• In poor weather conditions, use dipped headlights and front or rear fog lights when visibility is less than 100 metres


• On long journeys, you must take a break of at least 15 minutes every two hours

For GEM’s full motoring guide online, please click here.