Safe Speed Forums

Tonight: two absolute beauties.

1. I caught up an old Rover doing about 30 on a minor road where is easy, and 50 is about as low as anyone goes. We got to a T junction mentioned above where most turn right. The driver positioned for right, briefly indicated left, then turned right causing cars going both ways to brake. I pulled out about ten cars later and we all crawled at 30 for the next mile behind him on an B road.

2. I caught up a Peugeot Partner van-with-windows (another numpty fave). He also turned right out of a T-junction into someone's path, then went round a parked car when it blatantly wasn't his right of way. He was flashed for this, but a couple of subsequent cars flashed him as we slowly approached the next junction. He turned left here onto a limited A road and I followed, but for some reason he only accelerated very gently to about 20 so I promptly overtook him. At which point I realised why he was being flashed so much: he had main beam on for the whole time.

Today's two.

1. Van driver who pulled slowly out in front of me when I was doing 50ish at a distance so small that my ABS was engaged by my efforts to stop in time.

2. Car in front of me and one other doing 35-40 on an B road. Realised what an obstruction they were causing, so commendably pulled into a farm entrance to let us both past, then immediately pulled back out, into the path of the 4x4 about 100yds behind me, who had to swerve round them.

ah well that reminds me...

a45 toward cov.... there's what used to be a little thief & petrol station on the left.
it's now an indian restaurant (or something) & car washing place.. but the entry & exit slips are still in place.

having tackled an overtake and the obligatory speed cam i pull back into L1 (of 2) having a quick look at the exit slip for any likely hazards.
what of course i failed to see was the audi softroader attempting to pull out from the entry slip, which of course means at best he's perpendicular to the carraigeway, fortunately for me he can't turn sharply enough to make it into L1 and ends up accelrating from close to rest in L2. given the choice of braking sharply or passing in L1, i do the latter.

said audi insists on coming past half a mile later at 80+ (60limit)

also worth of a mention were the two pimped up beemers on the 444 (DC) tonight who were alternately farrrping past the traffic and then getting screwed by it due to poor lane choice... having swapped places i end up behind them at the lights about 2miles after the first farrrrping.

Folks, I have a cracker:

Anyone here know Cerne Abbas?

I had been following a very slow Audi A4 (clearly not Squirrel) from Maiden Newton, who had had the greatest difficulty in overtaking all the Easter cyclists, in fact one she overtook then caught us up again

Anyway, as you exit Cerne going North, the car park (and best place to view the Giant) is on your right. A4 lady was now driving at about 20mph. Mrs Theboy was just remarking on what a good resemblence they got of me when they'd drawn the Giant, when A4 lady put her left indicator on, and gently came to a halt by the kerb, opposite the car park entrance.

After a few moments, it seemed apparent that she was stopping, so I pulled out to drive round her, at which point, she abruptly turned right in to the car park, while still indicating left across in front of me.



Thankfully I didn't hit her, but I did wind the window down and in earshot of a whole car park of tourists shout that she was a "f***ing moron who should try indicating the right f***ing way before making a turn". The look of righteous indignation I got was quite remarkable.

I know the devil's advocate argument is that I could have predicted that she was looking for the car park and that I could have hung back, but I did: I was sat stationary behind her for long enough to have a "she's definitely stopped, hasn't she?" exchange with Mrs Theboy before deciding she had actually pulled over.

Hmmm...in the "roundabout -indicate or not?" thread ... I thought we had all decided on NEVER ASSUME ANYONE WILL DO WHAT THEY YOU THINK THEY ARE TELLING YOU!




Don't know the road .. No way to overtake her?
Presumably a narrow road with oncoming tourist traffic?
Busy-ish?





She may have misread you? Maybe she thought you had stopped behind long enough to allow her to make her move - once she'd decided she was in the right place? Just a thought. I may have gently tapped the horn to try to make an eye contact and mouthed a question as to whether stopping or entering car park when she looked back to me? I think you may have had the time to do so here. ?? Maybe?

These are just thoughts as regards .. "what did I learn., how would I cope better if unfortunate enough to meet another such twazak in similar situation."

OK - she never cancelled the indicator when she turned in front of you... A hit would have cancelled it. She would have been adamant that she indicated all the same - they usually are .. MrstheBoy would not be "independent enough as witness" - so you would have had to get some other person present to agree to be your witness - had you hit her as a result of this.


Sounds to me as if she was "new" to the area given the slow driving you are describing somehow. We meet umpteen suchlike around here all year round as the walking fraternity are a hardy bunch.


Would I have called her a moron? Would have muttered "twazak" under breath a few times ...then followed her in and engaged in fairly friendly chatter about driving standards in this country Do this if they seriously upset me on odd occasions.


After all - what did she learn about her driving from this exchange?

(Twazak? Wildy's fave word ..believe me - you get a lot more satisfaction from muttering this instead of "moron"..Wildy manages to roll and hiss out the "k" at the back of her throat It really does release tension which they cause... )

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

You seem to meet more numpties than normal


Old Rover may not have been able to reach He may not have been sure of the road. Oddly enough - some folk do not have Sat Nav. He may have been a stranger. I hope I am not being rude here - but perhaps a re-read of the Highway Code Rule 147? may help??? \likewise the problem with the daft bint who signalled ..stopped and set off again. \perhaps as the Mad Lad suggests - she misread your wait and failed to cancel in flustered dithering as folk out there tend to do. I think Ted's right to try to make some contact if not sure.

I agree on the main beam character

We used to have TV adverts about "bobby Dazzler" when I was a kid. (Recall a blue car with huge headlamps ranting about being dazzled )

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Some of it could be down to old age, unfamiliarity, etc., but...



...is unforgiveably poor driving.

Ahhh.... He pulled out into the path of on-coming traffic at the T-junction???


I think that's what you mean? Yes.. piss-poor and had he caused an accident - and police may have been involved as result - then dependent on all investigations - we may have considered charging with inconsiderate -careless or even dangerous driving - based on whatever evidence emerged.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Cheers IG for suggesting I am correct in trying to establish some contact on occasions. I know it will not be possible to do so all of the time.

I intended to drive out to a watering hole in South Lakes this afternoon.. but then by the time we'd sorted out WW4 in Kitten Corner .. and William (who had driven to his mates') then informed us that the tourist traffic was twazak-full - and that he'd come across some twazak in a Micra reversing out of an NT carpark into the main trunk road .. and then continuing to reverse at his now stationary car .. decided to curl up in the garden with a good book and a beer here instead.


Johnny - you should try saying twazak .. but do it the way Wildy does

Sounds like "turvatsz-s-t-a-k-KK-KH-HUH!!!"


Oh .. hi IG .. Just glanced at your reply. Yeah.. if Rover did that - he'd be a twazak..

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

In that case what is the point of giving signals at all, if other road users are not going to believe them

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

The clue is in the word - signalling is at best an "indication" of a road user's intentions

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

I have always found that the MAJORITY of people who do use indicators,use them properly. The people who never use indicators are usually braindead,half asleep or don't know hwere they are going...in either case they are worth studying closely for strange behaviour such as sudden lane changes,stops etc.

If everyone suddenly stopped using indicators on traffic islands then the whole system would quickly go into a meltdown where every roundabout would cause delays similar to traffic lights and that is just what these things are designed to eliminate.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Yes, from left and right. Making someone brake when you pull out and go their way is bad enough, but making someone brake who was going the opposite way is just scary.

Heh, I'm famous!

My A4's off the road at present, the cam belt failed - the car's out of warranty but the cam belt warranty is still valid so they're repairing it but can't give me a courtesy car; I've bought an old Mondeo for £290 (taxed for a year, MOT until end of July) which is kinda fun. It'll be nice to have the A4 back though.

Anyway, the other day, driving down the B4509 between Wickwar and Chipping Sodbury, down a stretch known as the Wickwar Straight. A tractor was ahead of me. 3 cars behind the tractor all sat nose to tail.

This particular straight is very good for overtaking even in a less powerful car (my old 1.1 Fiesta that I had when I first passed my test could overtake here!). The Mondeo is a 1996 N-reg 2 litre GLX saloon with 145k on the clock and around 135bhp, so although not as pokey as the A4 (170bhp... 210bhp after its ECU remap) it's not slow.

Hung back for a good few seconds, not one of the numpties behind the tractor overtook - so I dropped a gear and floored it past all 3 cars and the tractor.

One of them (a black Mercedes C220 saloon) then rather sheepishly decides to follow through after I'd overtaken them.

I've actually come to the conclusion that once you go over a certain amount of power it's not so much the power but knowing how to use it. Even when I had the Fiesta (1.1 litre engine, 50bhp) I'd still leave most people for dead off the lights (and I wasn't racing!). The Mondeo is quick enough that not many people can catch up with me. Still... the A4 is better.

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Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

Bournemouth - Wessex Way (DC) - yesterday.

I pulled on at a roundabout just after a Jap import MPV thing had gone across in my direction.

As soon as I came off the roundabout, MPV changed to L2, despite the nearest car was ~250 yards ahead and going at least as fast. I stayed in L1. At the next speed camera , MPV slowed to about 40, still in L2, so I just cruised on by at 50.

As far as I could see, they continued in L2 at 40 until they receded from view.

Dorset has by far and away the largest number of truly incompetent drivers. The L2 driving is a common spectacle, I truly believe most bournemouth residents believe it is illegal to drive in L1 across the whole county.

Turning right, or even doing a full u-turn at a roundabout from the left lane is the most common numpty driving mistake I see in Dorset.
Driving at 35 all the way from Corfe Mullen to the Upton bypas despite it being a NSL is another one.
Most drivers seem to think that NSL is either 40 or 50 in a car. Despite this, the same drivers will carry on at 40 in a 30?????

But by far and away, on my way to Swanage at the weekend, a complete numpty doing 30 in a NSL zone, but in double white section. The double whites end about 100 yards further down the road. I position myself in primary overtake position in readiness for the overtake at the broken whites. Mr. Numpty stops dead and waves me through!!! I would have gone past, but he had also st6opped next to a traffic island. Possibly the worst exhibition of incompetent driving I have seen for many years!

Welcome to my world....

Never mind numpty over load this was extreme dangerous driving. I was in my local park walking to football training, there is a crossroads, the road I was walking on was uphill, 2lanes wide (one way street though, used to be 2 way but there is an exit to the park that is no longer entrance/exit), a car coming from the right (90degree downhill turn) decided a handbrake turn was a good idea, road was soaked as it was raining heavily at the time. He went so far wide the rear wheels clipped the kerb no more than 2.5 metres in front of where I was walking, I had my headphones in listening to music very loudly so didn't hear the tyres squel, just saw movement at the last second and was rooted to the spot. Was absolutely terrifying, was in a fair bit of shock and by the time I snapped out of it he was gone too far to get his licence plate.

I didn't realise it was so bad down here in Dorset. I've not known anything else.

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Andrew.

I don't know, I reckon the area I live in is a breeding ground for morons on the road. We're not far from Bristol, and, well... you know the highway code? Well they don't!

Had to lean on the horn no less than 5 times on the way down and back from Brissle earlier, muppets pulling out in front of me on roundabouts, pulling out from side turnings without looking, pulling out from L1 to L2 of a dual carriageway when I'm almost alongside them (and no, I wasn't hanging around in their blind spot!)... it beggars belief!

Oh, but it's ok, because "they weren't speeding". *bangs head repeatedly against wall*

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Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."