Motorway lane discipline and undertaking — Rules 264, 267 and 268

Someone is sitting in lane 2 at 60 mph with lane 1 empty for half a mile. Can you stay where you are and go past them on the left? The answer is in three Highway Code rules — 264, 267 and 268 — and almost every argument about it comes from reading one of the three without the other two. Lane hogging and undertaking are different things, the one mandatory rule in the Code’s lane discipline section turns on what you are driving rather than how fast, and the “fast lane” does not exist.

Keep in the left lane unless overtaking. If you are overtaking, you should return to the left lane when it is safe to do so (see also Rules 267 and 268).

What each lane is actually for

There is no slow lane, no fast lane and no cruising lane. Every lane to the right of lane 1 is an overtaking lane you are borrowing, and Rule 264 wants it back as soon as the overtake is finished.

Rule 264 carries a second instruction that catches drivers who are otherwise disciplined. Be aware of emergency services, traffic officers, recovery workers and other people or vehicles stopped on the hard shoulder or in an emergency area — and if you are driving in the left lane and it is safe to do so, move into the adjacent lane to create more space between your vehicle and them.

Overtake on the right

Rule 267 is the plainest sentence in the chapter, and it is the default the whole argument is measured against.

Do not overtake unless you are sure it is safe and legal to do so. Overtake only on the right.

The rest of Rule 267 is the routine: check your mirrors, take time to judge the speeds correctly, make sure the lane you will be joining is sufficiently clear ahead and behind, take a quick sideways glance into the blind spot to place a vehicle that has disappeared from your mirror, remember that traffic may be coming up behind you very quickly, signal in plenty of time, then move out — and do not cut in on the vehicle you have overtaken.

That last clause is the one people forget on the way back in. Rule 264’s “return to the left lane when it is safe to do so” and Rule 267’s “do not cut in” are the same manoeuvre judged from both sides.

Rule 268 — and the exception everyone quotes half of

Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.

Four sentences, and each one is doing separate work:

1. The prohibition is on two things, not one — overtaking on the left, and moving into a left-hand lane in order to overtake. Both are addressed to you as a driver making a choice.
2. The exception is scoped to congested conditions where adjacent lanes are moving at similar speeds. It is a description of stop-start traffic, not of an empty lane 1 next to one slow car.
3. Inside that exception the permission is passive. You may keep up with the traffic in your lane. You are not being told to accelerate past a queue; you are being told you need not brake to stay level with it.
4. The closing line is the limit. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake. Diving left, running past three cars and diving back is the thing Rule 268 exists to stop, and it is not made lawful by the middle sentence.

So the honest answer to “someone is doing 60 in lane 2 and lane 1 is clear — can I pass them on the left?” is that free-flowing traffic is not the congested conditions Rule 268 describes, and the Code’s instruction for that situation is Rule 267: overtake on the right. Move out, pass, come back. The multiple-choice section is built on the Highway Code, so that is the answer it is looking for — and it is the answer that survives a police officer’s judgement of how you were driving.

Lane hogging and undertaking are two different things

They get argued as though one cancels the other. They do not, and no rule says the second driver’s behaviour excuses the first.

• Lane hogging is a breach of Rule 264 by the driver who stays out of lane 1 with nothing to overtake.
• Undertaking is a breach of Rule 268 by the driver who passes on the left outside the congestion exception.

Both drivers can be in the wrong at the same time, in the same 200 metres of motorway. Rule 168 tells the driver being overtaken to maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass, and never to obstruct drivers who wish to pass — but it does not license the driver behind to invent a route past on the left.

Is undertaking illegal?

Neither Rule 264 nor Rule 268 uses MUST or MUST NOT, so neither is an offence in its own right. That does not make either of them optional: advisory rules can still be used in evidence in court proceedings to establish liability, which is exactly what an officer’s account of your lane discipline becomes. Our guide to MUST vs should sets out how the Code marks the difference.

What does the work in law is the general offence.

If a person drives a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road or place, he is guilty of an offence.

That section has read this way since 1 July 1992. What changed on 16 August 2013 is the enforcement route, not the offence: from that date police could issue fixed penalty notices for careless or inconsiderate driving, and the announcement named tailgating and poor lane discipline as the examples. Anyone telling you undertaking “became illegal in 2013” has the history the wrong way round — the offence was already there, and 2013 gave the police a roadside alternative to court for the lower end of it. Our guide to lesser-known driving offences carries what that penalty is.

Rule 265 is about your vehicle, not your speed

The Code’s lane discipline section runs from Rule 264 to Rule 266, and Rule 265 is the only one of the three that is mandatory. It is regularly misremembered as a speed rule.

The right-hand lane of a motorway with three or more lanes MUST NOT be used (except in prescribed circumstances) if you are driving

The list that follows is a list of vehicles: any vehicle drawing a trailer; a goods vehicle over 3.5 tonnes but not exceeding 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight that is required to be fitted with a speed limiter; a goods vehicle over 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight; a passenger vehicle over 7.5 tonnes constructed or adapted to carry more than eight seated passengers besides the driver; and a passenger vehicle not exceeding 7.5 tonnes constructed or adapted to carry more than eight seated passengers besides the driver that is required to be fitted with a speed limiter.

Tow a caravan on a three-lane motorway and the right-hand lane is closed to you as a matter of law — outside the prescribed circumstances the rule reserves — however clear it looks. On a two-lane motorway the rule has nothing to bite on: it is written for three lanes or more.

The “all lanes are 70” myth

The national speed limit on a motorway is a limit on your vehicle, applied to the whole carriageway. It is not divided up by lane, and it is not the same number for everyone.

• Cars and motorcycles, including car-derived vans up to 2 tonnes maximum laden weight: 70 mph.
• Cars towing caravans or trailers, including car-derived vans and motorcycles: 60 mph — on the motorway as well as the dual carriageway.
• Goods vehicles over 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight: 60 mph, in England and Wales and in Scotland alike.
• Buses, coaches and minibuses not exceeding 12 metres in overall length: 70 mph, dropping to 60 mph above 12 metres.

Two further points settle most of the argument. Variable speed limit signs are used on some motorways and dual carriageways to change the maximum, and you MUST NOT exceed a speed limit displayed within a red circle on a sign. And the number is a ceiling, not a target.

The speed limit is the absolute maximum and does not mean it is safe to drive at that speed irrespective of conditions.

Rule 260 says the same thing from the other end: when you can see well ahead and conditions are good, drive at a steady cruising speed which you and your vehicle can handle safely and is within the speed limit. A driver holding 62 mph in lane 1 is doing exactly what Rule 264 asks. A driver holding 62 mph in lane 2 with lane 1 empty is breaching it.

Do you have to reach 70 on the slip road?

No — the instruction is a comparison, not a number.

check the traffic on the motorway and match your speed to fit safely into the traffic flow in the left-hand lane

If lane 1 is running at 50 mph in heavy traffic, arriving at 70 mph is wrong rather than diligent. If lane 1 is running at 70, arriving at 45 forces the traffic behind you to brake. Rule 259 also tells you to give priority to traffic already on the motorway, to stay on the slip road if it continues as an extra lane, not to cross the solid white lines that separate lanes or use the hard shoulder, and to remain in the left-hand lane long enough to adjust to the speed of traffic before considering overtaking.

That last clause matters for lane discipline: joining and immediately crossing to lane 2 is not what the rule describes. Our guide to merging in turn works through the priority argument on the slip road in full.

Dual carriageways are not motorways

A dual carriageway is a road which has a central reservation to separate the carriageways. That is the whole definition, and it does not make the road a motorway — so the motorway rules do not travel to it. The Code answers the same four questions in different words, and the wording is where candidates lose marks.

Rule 163 carries the other case where the Code lets you pass on the left away from a queue: only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so.

Red X, closed lanes and the running hard shoulder

Lane discipline on a smart motorway has a mandatory layer on top of Rule 264. Red flashing light signals and a red X identify a closed lane in which people, stopped vehicles or other hazards are present: you MUST follow the instructions on signs in advance of a closed lane to move safely to an open lane, and you MUST NOT drive in a closed lane. A sign tells you when the lane reopens, by displaying a speed limit or the word END.

Where the hard shoulder runs as an extra lane, it is only available when a speed limit is shown above it. A red X or a blank sign above the hard shoulder means you MUST NOT use it except in an emergency.

What this looks like on the practical test

Poor positioning on the road during normal driving is the ninth of DVSA’s top 10 reasons people fail the car driving test in Great Britain, and lane discipline is a large part of what it covers. The requirement is to position the car correctly for your intended route, position it in the middle of marked lanes, and only change lanes when necessary — and one of the three worked examples DVSA gives is unnecessarily driving in the right-hand lane of a dual carriageway for a considerable length of time. Mistakes there are recorded as a Positioning - Normal driving fault.

The change of lane is marked separately. Rule 267’s routine — mirrors, judge the speeds, check the lane you are joining is clear ahead and behind, sideways glance into the blind spot, signal in plenty of time — is also what makes a lane change pass on test, and cutting in on the vehicle you have just overtaken is the other half of it. Our guide to driving test faults explains where the line between a driving fault and a serious one sits.

Another driver undertaking you is their conduct, not yours. What is being assessed is what you did about it: your mirrors, your position, and whether you were in the left-hand lane in the first place.

Common test questions and the answers

“You are travelling in the left-hand lane. A lorry ahead is signalling to move into your lane. What should you do?”

Allow the lorry to move in. Rule 264 wants an overtaking vehicle back in the left lane as soon as it is safe, and Rule 267 tells its driver not to cut in on the vehicle it has overtaken — the gap you leave is what lets both happen. Speeding up to close the gap is the wrong answer every time.

“Traffic in the lane to your right is moving more slowly than the traffic in your lane. Can you keep going?”

In congested conditions on a motorway, yes — Rule 268 lets you keep up with the traffic in your lane even if that means passing traffic in the lane to your right. In free-flowing traffic it is a different question, and the answer is Rule 267: overtake only on the right.

“You are towing a caravan on a three-lane motorway. Which lanes may you use?”

The left-hand and middle lanes only. Rule 265 makes the right-hand lane of a motorway with three or more lanes a MUST NOT for any vehicle drawing a trailer, outside the prescribed circumstances the rule reserves.

“You are joining a motorway from a slip road. What speed should you aim for?”

The speed of the traffic in the left-hand lane. Rule 259 tells you to match your speed to fit safely into the traffic flow there — not to reach a particular number — and to give priority to traffic already on the motorway.

“There is a red X above lane 2. What must you do?”

Move safely into an open lane, following the instructions on the signs in advance of the closure, and do not drive in the closed lane. Rule 258 puts a MUST on both halves.

“Is it an offence to hog the middle lane?”

Rule 264 is advisory, so it is not an offence in itself, but the driving it describes can be dealt with as driving without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road under section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 — and since 16 August 2013 the police can deal with the lower end of that at the roadside rather than in court.

Where this shows up in revision

Lane discipline runs through the Motorway rules and Rules of the road revision topics, and the Highway Code is the first of the three books DVSA names for the multiple-choice section. Read Rules 124, 125, 133, 137, 138, 163, 168, 253, 258 to 269 in the Highway Code, work the 14 DVSA topics, then sit a full mock theory test against the real timer. It is free to get started.

Sources

• GOV.UK — Highway Code: motorways (Rules 253, 258–261, 264–269)
• GOV.UK — Highway Code: general rules, techniques and advice for all drivers and riders (Rules 124, 125, 133, 137, 138)
• GOV.UK — Highway Code: using the road (Rules 163, 168)
• GOV.UK — Highway Code: introduction — wording of The Highway Code, MUST vs should
• legislation.gov.uk — Road Traffic Act 1988, section 3 (careless, and inconsiderate, driving)
• GOV.UK — New penalties for careless driving come into force — 16 August 2013, fixed penalty notices for poor lane discipline
• DVSA — Top 10 reasons for failing the driving test in Great Britain (reason 9 — poor positioning during normal driving)
• GOV.UK — Theory test: revision and practice

Highway Code, GOV.UK and DVSA excerpts are reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0.