djw:
In ideal circumstances, you overtake on the offside - which potentially means travelling all the way from lane 1 to lane 3 and back again. However, traffic conditions may preclude this and this manoeuvre is illegal if you are driving a speed-limited LGV on a three-lane carriageway.If:* you make a full assessment of the traffic around you before acting
- you cannot reasonably overtake on the offside
- remaining behind the slower traffic to your offside is unreasonable (for example, you are gaining on him when already in an inside lane)
- you maintain careful observation around your vehicle throughout, and
- you move briskly past on the inside once committed to overtake
then I cannot see your driving being regarded as below the standard of a competent and careful driver, which means you commit no offence. However, there is no absolutely safe undertake, practically or legally.As soon as you depart from one or more of these points, you run the risk of conviction. If you were driving a car in quiet conditions and simply couldn’t be bothered to move to the offside to overtake, you could be convicted. Deliberately weaving to the inside makes you especially likely to conviction - if you are seen and if the police can be bothered to initiate proceedings, that is.
This thread is exactly the same but with a different title that comes round every winter.
The same people come out and say you cannot overtake a gritter on the left, well if you cannot pass him on the right, we would have a queue back to to Scotland everytime a gritter appears 