Actually, I'm now having misgivings with the logic of Chris's argument AIUI. Chris, you're saying that you move out before accelerating because you can't see what's possibly in lane 2 (standing water, shredded tyre carcase, item that fell off overcube truck...). Does this mean that you're close enough to the truck that you can't see L2 much ahead of its tailboard? If so, then IMO you're getting too close to the vehicle you're overtaking before moving out on dual.

i think he is trying to explain the triangle effect of overtaking, but i maybe wrong.

Chris - yes, I noted that you changed position then adjusted speed, I was under the impression that this was the very thing that gadgetman, Ken etc were being critical of as it quite often requires the people in lane 2 (quite often doing 75mph - 80mph) to move out to lane 3 or to slow down.

I'm always open to counter arguments

Arguably in that situation the slower driver in Lane 1 should not have moved out and required someone else to change speed etc?

Yes - if you're moving out and inconveniencing someone because they haven't responded to your intention to move out then that is a big no no. However, if they see your signal and respond to it by moving out to lane 3, then I don't think there's an issue. My understanding from Gadgetman's/Ken's description was to do with the ripple effect slow moving overtakers in lane 2 causes, eg if you were overtaking a car doing 56mph by doing 57mph, and I don't think that was the case in your example.

Also your approach of waiting for information then increasing speed when in lane 2 could be difficult in a car such as the Fabia SDI for example, as speed can not be increased as quickly? Is this a valid counter-argument, or should you just wait until a massive gap if driving a slower car?

It's very hard to explain without diagrams or knowing at what sort of distance you're accelerating and making the switch to lane 2 so here's my assumption. You have a 5-6 second gap to the HGV, you accelerate up to 70 which closes the gap to 2 ish seconds (Wikipedia states 50-70 is 5.6 seconds in the Fabia) and then blend into lane 2 at 70mph.

My take on it is that before you can safely commit to an overtake, you need to be sure you know all the information. If you're following a Caterham, say, you'll have a much better idea of what's ahead because you can see over them. If you have an HGV you potentially have very little if any information about the road ahead so by accelerating in lane 1 you may be committing to the overtake before you know it's safe. For example, if you're up to 70mph, move into lane 2 and then the HGV you're overtaking suddenly swerves into lane 2 (where you've suddenly appeared) to avoid some debris, you're going to have to do a fair bit of braking or dive into lane 3 (which might upset Gadgetman more )

However, (you knew there'd be a however ) if you're approaching in lane 2 with a 5-6 second gap to the lorry, you'll be getting much more information than from lane 1 and so can potentially commit to the overtake much earlier. Remembering that we always want to be able to stop in the distance we can see to be clear, where's a good position to be in lane 2 at 70mph before committing to the overtake? Every second at 70mph, we're closing around 20 feet on the lorry so we're probably looking at 3 or 4 second decision point. So if we're looking to accelerate in lane 1, we'd probably need to do it so as when we blended into lane 2 at 70mph we landed 3 or 4 seconds behind the HGV, giving him an opportunity to clock us as well as giving us the much needed view before committing. This is the approach I tend to adopt as it generally buys you a lot more time and space and saves wear and tear on my indicators

With a slower car, you might want to start the acceleration phase earlier and with a faster car, you could leave it later, but the key is still the point at which you commit

I hope some of that helps - I'm very conscious of being sat here waving my arms and sketching diagrams and then trying to translate it in to text Ultimately, it's best seen from the driver's seat with someone who can make suggestions about techniques...

Chris

Actually, I'm now having misgivings with the logic of Chris's argument AIUI. Chris, you're saying that you move out before accelerating because you can't see what's possibly in lane 2 (standing water, shredded tyre carcase, item that fell off overcube truck...). Does this mean that you're close enough to the truck that you can't see L2 much ahead of its tailboard? If so, then IMO you're getting too close to the vehicle you're overtaking before moving out on dual.

Ken - I'm talking about seeing L1, ie potential problems which may influence how the HGV I want to overtake behaves. L2 is always visible.

Chris

Right, I can't multiquote (firewall issue):-

#57 Para 2 - that's exactly that I was talking about; the bottlenecking and resultant standing wave from someone overtaking at a very low speed, or even just driving slowly!

#57 Paras 3 to 5 - I think this is pretty much what I do, if, say I've just joined behind a truck and am still getting up to speed.

Specifically in #57.5, I'll usually be accelerating as I move out, but not until then,

#58 - Ah right.