Hazards Whilst Filtering?

[Oop North John]

Win win IMO by filtering. Best other road users read and take note:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/mot ... ryone.html

[Jacko]

This we know. By making it illegal they're just slowing the whole thing down and removing a major advantage. Why? Because it's more risky than sitting still? Everything gives you cancer.

[Fat Rat]

I always filter, it's one of the reasons I ride a bike on the road.

[frez]

If I couldn't filter I'd commute in an air conditioned car instead and I wouldn't be working in a city like I do at the moment.

As for using hazard lights, I never have whilst filtering, and I seldom, if ever, have seen anyone else doing it.

As for other drivers trying to block my progress, it is a little irritating, but it is even more satisfying when I get passed them. I do recall seeing someone blocking a police bike from filtering through in London (obviously didn't realise it was a police bike). When the traffic moved a bit, the policeman knocked on his window and gave him a right bollocking, I didn't wait to see if he pulled him over, as I was between two other lanes, but I did have a good old chuckle to myself.

[Jay2]

Recently coming back from Scarborough and the usual holiday traffic was at a standstill, slowly filtered my way through with pillion+panniers and past a poor couple stuck in the jam on a trike slowly cooking in bike gear.

Since then the Mrs has never mentioned again why we don't get one as they are 'safer' with 'more room' and "just like having a normal bike"..................

Filtering is an option at the end of the day, if I can see up ahead cars jostling for lanes due to a junction or coned off section then I will hang-back, if a car pulls over to let me through then I'll give a friendly wave of thanks.  

[Juvecu]

I filter when there's space to do so. At one point, when I was commuting 3500 miles a month on a bike, I was so used to filtering that I stopped myself just before trying it a few times when I was in the car! In the beginning you are slow, then you eventually learn to read traffic and start seeing what the idiots are doing before they've really thought about it. Junctions are dangerous, so are roundabouts and other choke and merge points in traffic. It's quicker to fall in with the normal traffic and not filter in the dangerous spots than to have to pick up your bike after someone has taken you off it (if you're lucky enough that you're fine.) I've seen people filter crazy fast, but I almost never go faster than 15mph than the current traffic flow and if it gets to about 30 mph I join normal traffic again. Gaps start opening when flow recovers and traffic speed picks up again, it's a good indication to stop filtering.

You need to be confident in your ability to anticipate when people are going to try to kill you, if you're not, just filter slower.

OT: no point in putting hazards on, hardly anyone is looking anyway, just pretend you're invisible, it's safer than thinking the hazards are going to help

[Brucey]

Ali - I think you are wrong. Deliberately positioning your vehicle purely to stop the legal progress of another is obstruction. Could anyone who is either a lawyer or Police confirm this one way or another?

[Jacko]

De Ja Vu.

[Holmsey]

Don't call it filtering ....... I call it making progress  

[Holmsey]

As a serving police officer I must concur with you. and as you say 'due care' but proving it is difficult.

[Juvecu]

That's the problem on here where quoting seems to be a No,No.

Quoting isn't a "no no", unnecessary or quoting more than you really need to make things clear is the problem. We can't have everyone replying to posts with the Quote button instead of the Post Reply button, threads become one big mess of requoted uselessness. No one wants to read it all again and again or have to scroll past endless quoting, if you do you're just weird

Déjà vu indeed.

[frez]

The difficulty is proving they moved over deliberately and not for some other reason. If they didn't leave their lane, excuses such as "I sneezed", "I saw a pothole/animal" or even "I was trying to get a view around the vehicle in front", are all going to go a long way when all they have done is inconvenience a motorcyclist, especially when they may not be expecting an overtake in heavy traffic when nothing else has been overtaking. Of course, it might be different if they knock you off, but even then, and even with a helmet cam, it is going to be difficult to prove they were in the wrong unless they moved out of their lane.

It is not a case of whether someone did something wrong, it is being able to prove it. Regardless of whether they were in the wrong or not, it doesn't help you if you are lying in the road injured or worse with a broken motorcycle.

There are a number of times I have thought someone moved over to block me when in fact they were simply trying to get a view past the traffic and when they realise I am there move out of the way to let me through. Equally there are times when it is clear, to me, that someone has deliberately moved in the way. It used to piss me off, now I just get a greater satisfaction when I do get through, because in reality they have cost me no more than 5 or 10 seconds, and they are the ones that have elevated their blood pressure, not me.

[Oop North John]

Equally there are times when it is clear, to me, that someone has deliberately moved in the way. It used to piss me off, now I just get a greater satisfaction when I do get through, because in reality they have cost me no more than 5 or 10 seconds, and they are the ones that have elevated their blood pressure, not me.

Absolutely    I try and give them a wave of thanks as well, if I'm in a devilment sort of mood.

[biker_adz]

Well thanks for everybodys input, I'm going to go with hazards being no, I have to say I have passed the odd person on a bike sitting in the traffic when filtering is an option and thought they were bonkers, but you never know if people haven't been riding long and may be down on confidence.

For me part of the appeal of riding is filtering. We got caught coming out of London one evening when the stones played hide park and did some hardcore filtering, I was loving it but the Mrs wasn't so impressed, but it was bloody standstill everywhere and I weren't sitting it!!!

[StromAir2014]

Do people use their hazards whilst filtering traffic?

I know this is done all the time on the continent and to me it seems to make sense as anything you can do to increase visibility I feel is essential.

Having never had a bike before that had hazards I have never even had the choice but I was coming home in some heavy traffic yesterday and as it is so easy to do I flicked my hazards on and then off once I was clear of the traffic.

Does anybody else do this or know of a reason it shouldn't be done?

Also, do the fuel gauges on Strom's work out averages or something as I feel mine goes up and down more than a fiddler's elbow? And that it doesn't just go differ by 1 tab, sometimes I go from it saying that I am almost on empty to having 3 bars, or I don't know if it is just over sensitive to whether it is facing uphill/downhill etc. Or maybe it is just because I have not had a bike with a fuel gauge before (I don't think?!)

Thanks as always everybody

Only to be used on Motorways to warn everybody else behind you their is an hazard ahead. Only to be used on hard shoulder. The legal filtering speed is no more then 15 mph. I filter at 5-10mph. Short distances at a time much safer. Never trust anyone when filtering keep scanning the road far ahead and your near distance.

[Ianmc]

I've never seen it done either here or on the continent.

As an aside, why on earth do people (car drivers) put their hazards on when boarding a ferry?

It is to let the boarding crew know that you have a disabled passenger on board,so they can send your car to the easiest access lane on board for wheelchairs be unloaded and moved onto the lift.

[krisv]

what's the point. If drivers don't notice headlamps and drls, no way in hell they are going to notice the piddly indicators flashing.