'unofficial' general driving comment and rant thread

[NeilM]

Re:

I drive a lot of miles every year on business, and have done since 1979.

I hate, Hate, HATE people who accelerate as I am overtaking on cruise control.

You know the situation, trudging along at 70ish, catch up with a car, pull out to overtake and all of a sudden I am no longer catching up. I then have to accelerate a little more, overtake, pull in, take my foot off the pedal and the car behind disappears like they just put the brakes on.

It is always older / retired men or middle aged women.

What frightens me on the road? Young girls in little cars, who seem to have no sense of danger or self preservation at all.

 

[Barneyballbags]

Re:

People on mobile phones whilst driving. Plain and simple. If you want to kill someone whilst you're behind the wheel, go and drive off a fcuking cliff.

That, and people who, when approaching a closed lane on a motorway/dual carriageway (and having been warned of such for the past mile) STILL maintain the "AAAAAAAARRRGH I HAVE TO BE INFRONT OF EVERYTHING" mentality and go haring past you and your fellow drivers (in the correct lane which ISN'T about to close in 400yds), just so that they can be a few cars in front when the roadworks end and the lane reopens.

 

[boxxer]

Re:

I hate, Hate, HATE people who accelerate as I am overtaking on cruise control.

You know the situation, trudging along at 70ish, catch up with a car, pull out to overtake and all of a sudden I am no longer catching up. I then have to accelerate a little more, overtake, pull in, take my foot off the pedal and the car behind disappears like they just put the brakes on.

It is always older / retired men or middle aged women

This is happening more frequently where I live in the Borders, you are doing 60 as it a NS road and you catch someone doing 40-50 and holding up traffic, as you indicate and pull out they accelerate...... Its more often with oncoming traffic in the distance so you end up doing 75- 80 before its safe to pull back in.

I wish the Police were more active in tackling this, I dont know if either of my cars is inflamatory (Mk7 Golf GTD / Mk2 Octavia VRS) but it never used to happen in the 320D I used to run.

I wouldn't do it to other people as its downright dangerous, if I'm doing 60 and someone wants past then it's your licence friend....

I generally run about 30K milesper year commuting and family visits and I've seen (including last week) time and space being bent more than once in other drivers avoiding accidents (notably a Merc SL overtaking on a blid bend and somehow missing both the car he overtook and the HGV oncoming - how I'll never know, I was braking expecting a debris field to be littering the road) thankfully never by me!

 

[Johnboy]

Re:

I hate, Hate, HATE people who accelerate as I am overtaking on cruise control.

That did it I can't stay out of this thread any longer!

A slightly different take on this is when you're on cruise control with cars in the same lane that may have been following you at a safe distance for miles. As soon as you overtake and have to move into either the third or forth lane, depending on the motorway, and are effectively blocking the motorway during your overtaking manoeuvre, the car that's been following you quite happily for so long suddenly accelerates. Nearly everyone seems to do it to varying degrees with some definitely flooring it, odd behaviour but I'm not sure some drivers aren't even aware they're doing it.

 

[legrandefromage]

Brake lights. Ooh a tree. Brake lights. Ooh a car like mine. Brake lights. Ooh a blade of grass. Brake lights.

I hate sitting behind this sort of driver.

Cruise control? Is that where my foots gone to sleep on the accelerator?

 

[NeilM]

Cruise control? Is that where my foots gone to sleep on the accelerator?

Yup, that's about it.

 

[RadNomad]

Re:

Young girls with no spacial awareness playing with Whatsapp!
Picture the scene.. I'm on a motorbike with a pillion passenger rolling up to the back of a queue of cars at a red traffic light on a highway off-ramp. There's a fully laden truck behind me. The lights ahead have now gone green and the cars are moving off. I regulate my deceleration such that i will still be rolling just at the right time to join the flow. But oh no.. the girly in front is still stationary, immersed in her Whatsapp gadget long after everyone else has driven off. I'm still slowing down trying to compensate, slower, slower, she's still not moving. Finally i have to stop behind her at which point she wakes up, realizes she's missing the boat and suddenly zooms off at full gas, leaving me to put my foot down and resettle before moving off again, marooned half way up an incline with everyone behind me wondering what the delay is all about. Thankfully the truck driver had his wits about him.
Stupid idiots playing with phones Grrr!

 

[NeilM]

Re:

I'd rather be behind a driver like that than in front of them... that way they can't crash into the back of me when the traffic slows down and they are busy with their phone again.

 

[legrandefromage]

My rear bumper is now super shiny after a Corsa helped polish it. He could have steered for me he was so close.

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

I got a bright red painted NATO tow hitch mounted high to tow a Sankey narrow track. Any Muppet who fancies that through their windscreen can be my guest, and a surprising amount of folk do seem keen to try. Muppets.

Remove the airbags from all steering wheels and replace them with kebab skewers, that'll make folk pay.attention.