Middle Lane Hogging
Middle Lane Hoggers – Why Do They Do It?
It’s something that’s been commented on time and time again anecdotally, that the standard of driving seems to have declined since we all came back from lockdown, with Middle Lane Hogging (or lane hogging in general) being cited as the cause of particular annoyance. But what is middle lane hogging? Why does it seem to get people’s backs up more than many other driving behaviours? Is it illegal? Everyone’s got an opinion, we even approached every UK Police Force for some feedback on the matter, so read on for our take on it and what we discovered!
What Is Middle Lane Hogging?
It’s a question that probably doesn’t need asking, but we’re going to answer it anyway. Lane hogging in general is where; on a road with more than one lane going in the same direction, a driver occupies a lane other than the left lane for no good reason. It’s as simple as that. On roads with three or more lanes (typically motorways, but not always) middle lane hoggers are ‘those’ drivers who immediately move to the central lane, then stay there regardless of all other traffic, even if the lane to their left is empty (and they should, therefore, be driving in it).
Those who do the same trick but move to the outside lane and then stay there (there’s no such thing as a ‘fast lane’ or even a ‘slow lane’ by the way) are also lane hoggers but tend to get out of the way quicker, unless they become ‘Tailgaters’ or get tailgated themselves. We might look at them another time, but for some reason it’s the middle lane owners club that raises more hackles.
Maybe this is because there are more of them, or because they get in the way more? Without going too far into stereotypes, we know the sort – the nervous driver gripping the steering wheel with both hands at the 12 o’clock position and gripping so tightly that their knuckles turn white…. or the drivers for a ‘ride hailing company’, probably driving a Prius – both likely to plant themselves in the middle lane at 60mph (or less) and don’t move from there no matter what the prevailing conditions.
What Are The Rules About Lane Hogging?
The primary source of rules we’d all be familiar is The Highway Code, in this case the rules relating to Lane Discipline – rule 264 in particular.
Rule 264 states unequivocally, “Keep in the left lane unless overtaking”. It’s hard to misinterpret that one. There are a small number of caveats and exceptions, but the simplicity of the message makes it hard to misunderstand. But people still do it!
We sent a few questions to every UK Police Force as an FOI request to find out more about middle lane hogging. Most responded reasonably on time and their answers threw up some interesting information., but not what we expected.
First of all, ‘Middle Lane Hogging’ isn’t a specific offence so there aren’t exact figures available. ‘Middle Lane Hogging’ DOES however fall under the offence of “Driving without due care and attention”, sometimes referred to as ‘Careless Driving’ or ‘Inconsiderate Driving’.
“The offence of driving without due care and attention (careless driving) is committed when your driving falls below the minimum standard expected of a competent and careful driver, and includes driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.”
https://www.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/rs/road-safety/driving-offences/
There are several examples of what behaviour could be grouped under that offence and middle lane hogging is included on the list – described as “unnecessarily staying in an overtaking lane” – (any lane that isn’t the left lane is an overtaking lane).
Is Staying in The Middle Lane Really All That Bad?
Why is middle lane hogging a problem? We could make the case that it causes unnecessary annoyance (and it’s very clear that it does), but this could potentially be regarded as much a fault of the person who gets annoyed as it is the person causing the annoyance. What can’t be debated away is that it creates and exacerbates congestion, as well as forcing other drivers to engage in more maneuvers than are strictly necessary.
Picture the scene, an oblivious middle lane hogger is trundling up the motorway at far less than the speed limit for no good reason (there’s no traffic joining on the left, they’re not overtaking anyone etc). Vehicles driving correctly in the left lane, approaching from behind AT the speed limit and wanting to overtake must first move into the middle lane, then to the right lane, overtake, then return to the middle before finally going back to the left lane. While the lane-hogging driver bimbles on.
The approaching driver could, of course choose to continue in the left hand lane to pass their lane hogging friend, but this is sometimes risky and in many circumstances, there are rules against that too.
Consider the scenario where, rather than there being just one driver (driving correctly), but several approaching from behind ‘Captain Oblivious’ in the middle lane. They’ll essentially be forced to funnel past in lane three and a queue will quickly build up forcing every driver to slow down while they’re waiting to use that one remaining overtaking lane. THAT is what causes congestion. Where traffic slows down for no obvious reason, there’s often a middle lane hogger completely unaware that they’re the cause!
Also consider that the super slow ones (sub 60mph) cause even worse congestion because even restricted lorries want to overtake them, but can’t because HGV’s aren’t allowed in the outside lane.
What Are The Most Common Excuses For Hogging The Middle Lane?
One of the things we included in our Freedom Of Information requests to various Police forces was to ask for the most ridiculous excuses drivers have used for hogging the middle lane. With this not being something they typically ‘officially’ record and a review of manual notebooks being too time intensive, this request for comment was universally declined under the rules governing such requests, however, there are plenty of daft reasons/excuses found elsewhere.
Laziness – Moving into the middle lane and simply ‘cruising’ requires less effort than observing proper lane discipline.
Misconception – Some drivers consider the left lane as the ‘slow lane’ or that it’s reserved primarily for HGV’s.
Ignorance – When Police do pull middle lane hoggers over (and they regularly do post about it on Twitter), offending drivers are often unaware of the rules that say they should be driving in the left lane, some even claim that they were always taught to drive in the middle lane.
Are There Any Penalties For Middle Lane Hogging?
So,we’ve established that hogging the middle lane is inconsiderate and lazy, so what penalties do offending drivers risk by so doing?
The offence of careless driving mentioned above has a broad range of penalties attached depending on the seriousness of the circumstances. At worst a £5,000 fine, between 3 and 9 points on your license and potentially even a ban. In practice though, getting pulled over will usually result in (if you’re exceptionally lucky) only words of advice from a friendly Officer. More normally though, there’ll also be 3 points on your license and a fixed penalty notice for £100 – the same starting penalty as speeding offences. It’s not a stretch therefore, to consider that Middle Lane Hogging is just as bad as speeding!
What’s Surprised Us
When we sought some hard statistics from the various Police Forces about middle lane hogging, we asked for a years worth of data, we asked whether they’d directly targetted middle lane hoggers as part of an active campaign, we also asked what was the most ridiculous excuse they’d encountered and finally for any advice for people who frequently find themselves hogging the middle lane.
We didn’t get what we asked for. Partly, as mentioned above, because there is no specific offence of middle lane hogging its not recorded and to discern which of the careless driving offences WERE down to hogging the middle lane would involve going through the manual notebooks – this put the cost in man hours of complying wth the request above the level that allows them to refuse on cost grounds. So most of them did.
There were however a few forces who confirmed that they had indeed targetting middle lane hogging drivers as part of a campaign over the year.
We discovered that there are a number of Police Forces in the UK where there are no middle lanes at all in their jurisdiction (only 2 lane roads and motorways) so they couldn’t provide information on middle lane hogging.
As FOI requests are requests for data and that forces aren’t allowed to ‘create data’ as part of their response, we were sadly not able to be entertained by anecdotes of daft excuses, or, glean the wise words of advice from serving officers. We do understand and we didn’t want to waste their time by sending more specific requests.
