Single Carriageway Road Markings Question?

I believe you can.

 

I find this really funny! Heres why!
Last year or earlier, it might have been in the rant thread, I posted about a lorry driver who was in the middle lane of a three lane road, it was stationery traffic in the 2 inside lanes but moving in the 3rd lane which was filtering into the 2nd lane in a few hundred yards, anyways the lorry driver decided to take it upon himself to stop the traffic that was "making" progress and pulled halfway into the third lane just as I was about to pass, thus blocking the 2 lanes! I ranted about it and got a right slating from some members on the forum for using a perfectly legal price of road and the lorry driver was right . The difference between that and the post above? I was in the car at the time. I came to the conclusion that the forum was populated by lorry driving bikers! Until I met Dozersdad and winglad at the gmu and discovered there were other cager bikers on here! Anyone who tries to block the progress of anyone else is a right tw@t whatever they drive/ride.

 

Come on DD old chap, don't class some of us Audi drivers the same as BMW drivers

 

No mate, the outside lane was filtering From 3 into 2 lanes quite a bit further on, not closed. And vehicles were filtering into gaps as they should. There was no law stating you couldn't use that lane but a sign saying you should be in the middle lane in 200yds time as the outer lane was ending, apart from in the truck drivers head. Why didn't he do it at the 800yd sign if it was illegal to be in that lane?
It's like saying those cars in original post thought that, in their opinion, it was unsafe for watty to use the hatched area so took the 'law' into their own hands and probably saved his life.

 

Hash marked islands may be used when it is safe to do so, as long as not bordered with a solid line.

The only problem arises if plod see's you and decides it wasn't safe, your nicked sonny !!!! Because they are there to keep traffic safe, by entering you are doing something slightly 'unsafe', so easy to give you points and a nice big fine.

Asked about this when on a bikesafe course, the 2 officers couldn't decide !!! So it's kinda up to which copper when he spots you, if it's a Traffic Wanker, you've had it !

 

I always use the hatched broken lined area,i thought it was put there just for bikes to use for overtaking haha.

 

This is near my house. As i approach from the right, to make a pass, I wait till the solid white lines end on the right hand hash island(above the big black rectangle), nip into the box to turn right, carry on into the hash marks and make a clean easy pass. Before this is a couple of miles of solid lines and limited safe passing places, so by the time I get here, i am ready to get on my way.

This was the specific example I was thinking of when asking the 2 bikesafe cops, as you can see, it could be deemed as unsafe, but I have always been able to make a clean pass, whenever I have done it.

I seriously doubt I would attempt it if any cops about, but am I actually breaking any laws? Is it unsafe, I don't think so, could a traffic officer deem it unsafe, yes maybe!!!!

 

I still don't understand this... The law and the highway code states that traffic should be using the whole of the 3 lanes up to the point it merges, as this reduces tailbacks.
But a lot of people (it's a UK thing really) still stick with getting into the 2 lanes as soon as possible, leaving a whole lane of traffic empty! A whole lane of traffic that could have vehicles reducing the tailback.
If you have 300 cars in 3 lanes, the queue will be 100 cars long, if you reduce to 2 lanes, your queue will be 150 cars long at best. In Europe they use the zipper merging technique, where it's one to one in each lane, and it all goes nicely, whereas here we have the nice 'you're not getting in! up to the bumper' technique which causes the problem.

It's been proven in test after test. But we do love a queue in the UK