‘Was I actually doing anything wrong there?’ 1) Moving back into lane 2 with only 15-20m between you and the van whilst travelling at 70mph, especially as they appeared to be gaining on you 2) Given this error, failing to then move quickly into lane 1 to reduce any... further riskshow more

Don’t even think it was that. Less distance than an Artic there: 16m for an artic. Better to let them undertake than take their braking room.

I did my best to calculate based on road markings and got 16m at the point he started to move over. Obviously the van got much closer, but Ashley still didn't move over into lane 1. So instead of making it into a non-event, he made it into an even bigger event.

@AusterfieldM Lane 1 is for traffic filtering off the motor way though he passes under an overhead sign indicating that

@PudseyPedaller Not until here, well into the section of the video shown. If we’re claiming early positioning, he shouldn’t have been fancying about with an overtake in what is clearly an empty (ahead) motorway anyway.

@PudseyPedaller I'd still say the villain of the piece is the transit, the overtaken move he's lucky he didn't put it on its roof.

@PudseyPedaller The transit accelerated in its own lane before he changed lane INTO it. The transit driver is a prick... It doesn't mean there can't be two villains.

@PudseyPedaller Transit caused it, camera car made the wrong choice

@AusterfieldM The camera car driver is a driving instructor, who not only says in that clip that he did nothing wrong, but in a separate clip, having had ample time to review and reflect, describes himself as having been ‘switched on to potential problems’ and his driving as ‘defensive’.

"Jesus" Yes, you were doing pretty much everything wrong. You probably need to retake your test. Or give up.

Yeah he pulled in front of the van that was increasing speed to move out of the way of another speeding car. Should have moved left after moving into lane 2

The video is about undertaking drivers. Just before changing lanes, he says about the van driver ‘are they gonna be undertaking’. As he was fully aware of this and could prepare for it, it'd have been safer to just let the driver undertake.

I can understand why the van driver was so angry. There definitely wasn’t enough space between himself and the van driver to pull in front of them like that. When I’m in this situation, I accelerate to open up a bigger gap then pull over when safe to do so.

@AshmanServices Or allow the van driver to undertake, as that appeared to be what they were going to do, and the driver was fully aware of this.

Either or is fine, what he done was dangerous and could have easily caused an accident.

Why didn't he move back to lane 1?

@mouldie099 He needed something clickbaity for the thumbnail.

@mouldie099 i was the first to comment on the close pass of the driver with the cyclist and Ashely bad motorway discipline totally ignored i must be invisible with my hi viz vest :(

@mouldie099 I'm glad to see many of the comments are people calling him out on this, but in typical Ashley fashion, he's ignored the vast majority of them, and where he has replied, he's not actually addressed the criticism.

@mouldie099 Though I wouldn't be surprised if this results in him doing a follow up where he makes various excuses for why his actions were perfectly reasonable, even though they'll contradict things he's said in the past.

The van made it difficult for him by undertaking rather than over taking, while cars are also coming up behind him, its not great, but the way you act like its cut and dried is a bit off.

He made a bad situation worse.

Aahhahahhahaha.

Is that the driving instructor? Whoever it is they certainly aren't as good a driver as they think they are, cut up the van driver.

In his defence, why would he move into Lane 1 when it is only for the next junction and he doesn't need that exit? Staying in lane 2 was the correct course of action.

Because he's only around 15m in front of a van, both travelling at 70mph. It's 800m before the lane markings indicate it's a lane for the slip road and over twice that before the slip road itself. He had more than enough time to move over, then back again.

The van only seems to start gaining on him after he flicks the indicator. Before he hit it their speed match🤔 At the very start he even seems to be going a tad faster than it. Van driver was being an aggressive knob here IMO.

He's looking in his wing mirror when the van starts gaining. It might be after the indicator comes on, but it's before the manoeuvre begins.

Meh, so he's being aggressive. I'd do the same (and have done so). Van driver is well aware of what he's doing IMO, I'd consider this just being assertive in response to a jackass.

Sure, but it just makes him a massive hypocrite, and not just a bad driver.

Shockingly antagonist piece of driving from Mr Neal. What’s his mantra again? Something like “Make it a non event”. Maybe that slipped his mind that day? Or maybe he has two mantra “let’s make a recordable event”. Isn’t that what he suggests others do?

Given he was talking about undertaking at the time, it does feel like this was somewhat engineered.

You didn't read the road ahead. You should have moved into the 3rd lane. You totally screwed the van over by just plonking yourself in the middle lane and hogging it.

It wasn't me.

Who was it then?

Ashley Neal. Driving instructor with a YouTube channel.

A driving instructor!

Yep. Likes to tell everyone else what they do wrong, but takes criticism of his own driving poorly.

Thing we all make mistakes, but that was awful driving on the motorway.

The mistake I can understand, it's the subsequent defence of it that makes me question his competence as an instructor.

After overtaking, why didn’t you move all the way over to lane 1? There was nothing to overtake, so to me that makes you a middle lane hogger.

car driver close overtake off the cyclist nowt said Ashley space invading the Wight van hand in your lycence man

What got me about the overtake of the cyclist is that his viewer close-passes, then cuts up the cyclist, but this isn't mentioned. Instead, he suggests the scooter rider must have got too close to the cyclist even though this isn't shown.

i was thinking the same thing as you. where is the cyclist after that moped rider whent pass

Some poor driving from both you and the van driver by the looks of it. Why pull in with very little indication in front of someone who's gaining on your inside?

It wasn't me.

Actually I'm a little confused, in the forward view, right at the start, Ashley overtakes a citroen, the van is visible in that lane, behind him. Where did that citroen go? Did it move to the left lane, and then the van was able to accelerate, or did it evaporate?

It moves into lane 1 and is obscured as the van overtakes it. You can just about see it at 6-7s. It then moves back into lane 2 where you can see it when the van pulls out to pass Ashley.

I don't know the rules where you drive so i feel i can't give a good opinion. But I'll end like this : please never drive in my country. Driving like that you would fail your driving test over here.

It wasn't me.

Ah.. I use Twitter almost never , so apparently I thought I clicked reply on the source thread but apparently not. Ignore it then :).

The car driver pulled into lane 2 because the Citroen pulled into lane 1. Affectively taking its place. At the same time the van accelerated closing that gap. The driver should have left it a second or 2 to indicate to the van driver what his intentions were.

The driver should have waited until it was safe to pull in front of the van (i.e. not ~15m Infront at 70mph).

See it and worse up and down The M6. My common rants…”Pick a speed and sit at it!” “There’s another empty lane over there!” “D’ya want me to open the boot so you can get in easier?!”😡🤬

How about not concentrating on driving - filming and talking to camera whilst on a motorway? 🤯 Problem with 80% of male drivers, they all think they’re above average.

He's looking across at his camera the whole time. Is that driving without due care & attention?

Ashley completed his overtake at 70mph (max legal limit) his speed didn’t adjust. The van was wrong speeding up in the middle lane after the Citroen had moved into L1. Ashley was well in his rights to return to L2 and stay there as a slower vehicle was ahead in L1.

As Ashley would say, at least if it wasn't him driving, ‘make it into a non-event’. In this instance, he made a dangerous situation worse and then failed to make it less dangerous when he had the opportunity to do so.

Why hog the middle Lane - shouldn’t you be in the left hand lane if you’re not overtaking.

It wasn't me.

Why the actual fuck didn’t he move to L1

The Alan Partridge of driving instructors (if that's really what he is): confidently expounding on subjects he knows nothing about utterly oblivious to the havoc he's creating.

Three lane motorways are full of drivers in middle lane and being undertaken in the inside lane. Just drive in the inside lane please! Overtaking in the other two lanes then! It’s so frustrating!

There's actually a whole series of relatively poor driving from almost every vehicle in this clip.

1) With such a short distance between Ashley and the van he shouldn't have moved to lane 2, but then the van shouldn't be gaining to potentially undertake either. The van had plenty of space to move back to lane 1 also at that point but failed to do so

Should have moved to lane 1 (inside lane) not the middle lane

Just watched the whole thing in YT and agree with you Pudsey. Odd also that he closes with a clip from a lane hugger, a 'deluded viewer' as he calls them. He's hit the point where pride in his skill exceeds his skill.

this is a bad 1 for Ashely someone should show the police this clip are the driving school let them no what type of driving instructors are learning our drivers

I'd like to have seen the clip from earlier to understand why you was in the outside lane in the first place. You wasn't overtaking anything from what this footage shows and I checked the gantry you could have been in lane 2

It wasn't me.

I think there misinterpretation of what’s happening here. Ashley is passing a car in l2 that moves into l1 as he is alongside it, he checks mirrors/l1 and moves back to l2. Meanwhile the van accelerated as l2 cleared, consequently closing down the space. @AshleyNealDI

@AshleyNealDI No misinterpretation. He moved from lane 3 into lane 2 so that he ended up ~15m in front of a van whilst they were both travelling at 70mph. He then stayed there instead of moving into lane 1.

Yes. You're driving on the wrong side of the road

U did nothing wrong