Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Double white line question

[Loz]

Originally posted by andyb
Im wondering why you ask?

I like to know things!

Seriously, there are times when this question is relevant to me. There are roads in my area where the lane is quite wide, so that there is quite a distance between the centre double-line and the position most cars take. If I am in an area controlled by double-whites, perhaps approaching a gentle left-hander, with a line of slow moving traffic present, it can be relatively safe (in my non-professional opinion) to over-take the slowly moving traffic whilst staying on "my side" of the road, as long as I can get a good view of traffic on both sides of the road. I'm not suggesting it is perfectly safe to do this, merely that it is not unacceptably dangerous if you are being observant and mindful of your relative speed and reaction times. My question was really to determine the legalities of the situation.

I learned the hard way (not long after I passed my test) that it is inadvisable to overtake at speed on a corner, no matter how wide your lane is. On a particular left-hander, the BMW car I was trying to overtake drifted out to the centre with me alongside. I was forced onto the double-whites and completed the over-take whilst tank-slapping on the catseyes. My stupid fault, and a perfect object lesson in learning to anticipate hazards. I look back at that incident now with a great deal of embarrassment (and relief that it didn't end badly).
Mind you, I did discover that you can stop tank-slappers once they've started by opening the throttle to the stop, leaning back and praying.