Safe Speed Forums

Their driving licence at risk. Let them pass. They simply ain't worth the bother. Assist the overtake... And breathe cos they are not now sitting on your tailpipe You are not assisting them to commit a crime. They make that decision and take the responsibility which goes with it.

If the person them brake tests and behaves in an intimidating fashion - take in as many details as you can and report it. He may have done this and been reported for it before.

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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.

Ah yes, had some of these before. My usual trick (when driving the A4) is to back right off when I know there's a straight coming up then floor it to get past them on the overtaking straight before they have a chance to block.

Of course you can only do this in a car with plenty of grunt - whilst the A4 (2 litre diesel, 170bhp) can do this without breaking sweat my Mondeo (N-reg 2 litre petrol, 137bhp) doesn't have the acceleration to do what I call a "stealth lightning overtake".

I wonder how much of this "thou shalt not overtake" behaviour goes back to people not being able to see past the limitations of their own cars (or perhaps to a lesser extent their own abilities)? I drove a friend's Land Rover Freelander the other night along a section of road that I sometimes refer to as my "test track", where I take a car to find out how it handles. The A4 will hit a peak speed of 110mph before braking for the sharp right hand bend. The Mondeo would manage 85mph. The Freelander... somewhere between 45 and 50mph.

And the speed on the bend itself. A4, Quattro AWD, wide grippy tyres etc can safely take that bend at 65mph in the dry. The Mondeo will take it at 50mph. The Freelander went round at 30mph and felt like it was about to topple. Not nice.

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

Expecting flak from Weepy any time now....

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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.

Exactly. But tbh I cannot see where this 'Investigate to overtake' idea comes from. Surely you have to come to a decision to overtake based on what you can see or not? If I am wanting to overtake something going slower than me, I am on the lookout for points to overtake anyway.

The driver ahead doesn't know my car as well as I do, so having them try to suggest points of overtaking is, well, pointless.

I just can't fathom the logic. Either you are overtaking based on your judgement, or not.




Is rather different to -



Worlds of difference if someone is already slowing down, rather than possibly trying to tell you that they will allow you to overtake then slow down.


On a different note, one wonders at the wisdom of 'suprising' people by doing fast overtakes. If someone is daft enough to block you, wait till you can overtake them at a good time rather than playing silly buggers.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

I was always told the overtaking manoeuvre should be executed swiftly which inevitably means exceeding the speed limit, especially if I need to get far enough in front of the overtaken driver so as to look like I have not cut him up.

If a car is doing 35mph in a 40mph limit I would quite likely speed up to anything between 45 to 50+ mph before dropping back to 40 mph. I wouldn’t know exactly what speed I’m doing at the time because I always keep my eyes on the road and not on my speedo, which is how it should be.

I don’t see a safer way of doing it but I remain to be corrected…

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

You need a fair amount of poke to pull off a "stealth lightning" overtake (my term but quite descriptive I feel). My old 1.9 Quattro (130bhp) would do it with a sharp poke on the right foot. The current one (170bhp) will go from 40 to 70mph in less than 2 seconds in 3rd gear so stealth overtakes are easy. The Mondeo on the other hand... won't.

You simply have to plan ahead quickly enough that you can overtake the car in front preferably before they even realise you're there and even have a chance to think about blocking you.

Nowadays I just assume that everyone I attempt to overtake will attempt to block/speed up/whatever and am always pleasantly surprised when I don't get a flash of the headlights after I tuck back in. Remember - a pessimist is never disappointed!

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

'Poke' has nothing to do with it (yes, I think everyone on here knows by now you drive an audi with xx bhp etc), it's more the fact you are doing something unexpected. The only bearing speed and acceleration has is being able to overtake in a shorter distance, other than that you should take into account all the same considerations.

Far more likely to have an accident suprising someone than if they knew where you are. What if there was something in the road, a rock, maybe a stone even. Perhaps something as simple as drifting over the lines of a slight bend. Either way, if they don't know you are there, then it could well cause an accident by them going into you, or forcing you to take some sort of evasive action.

If someone is blocking you, just wait until you can overtake safely, or they turn off, etc. Don't do something stupid, like slam on the brakes in front of them.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

Oh, and perhaps you should re-evaluate what your car can do.

I think this:



Is rather unlikely since an R8 and RS6, both with over double the bhp of yours, cannot do that.

It could be especially dangerous when overtaking, thinking your car is faster than it actually is could lead to misjudging timings for gaps.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

I was thinking the same. I've told him a million times to stop exaggerating

I don't think even my motorbike could do that and it has 110 BHP and weighs 200 Kg. (0-60 in 3 secs).

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

It's not just 'unlikely', it's mathematically impossible.

1300kg with that acceleration and time equates to at least 290HP (at the wheel) averaged over that rev range. You would need circa 350-400BHP (at the engine) for that (perhaps more with a 4WD tranny).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Yes, I was going to suggest that this accelleration is improbably fast.



<------ My car...


... (which has a lot of power and torque) probably couldn't manage this.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Snap Steve. Just pipped you

Power can get you in a lot of trouble. One of the most dangerous manoeuvres IMO is trying to overtake three cars at once. (Pertains more to motorbikes but I’ve seen cars do it).

If you’re coming from the back, the guy in the middle of the pack can suddenly pull out to overtake the guy at the front without thinking if someone from the very back is looming up. The guy in the middle wouldn’t notice you because he’s got a car behind him, the one that was in front of you, which is blocking his view.

(That made me sound like a gibbering idiot but at least I know what I mean ).

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I was being polite, I figured that was better than saying 'That's utter ballcocks.'

Course, it makes you wonder if the 152mph claim was true as well, since the book speed is 138mph. But then we can suppose proof of that will not be forthcoming

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

I'm not talking 0-60 times. I'm talking 40-<sufficient speed to safely overtake>.

Ok, I will concede that my estimate (I've never measured the 40-70 speed on my car) may not be accurate as I'm watching the road rather than the speedo. However it uses far less energy to increase your forward velocity by 30mph when the starting point is 30mph; or in English you'll go from 30-60mph faster than you'll go from 0-30mph.



Which is why on the rare occasions I do a multiple overtake (and unless there's a procession formed I have a rule of thumb not to overtake more than 2 cars at once for this very reason) I always increase the level of Observation and Anticipation.



"Poke" (ok, technical terms, power and acceleration, performance envelope) actually has a lot to do with it. Talking about overtaking a single car here that might, given the chance, do something unexpected to block your overtake (usually accelerate hard as you pull out to overtake, or even more dangerously move out over the white line to block you).

My old Fiesta wouldn't have had a chance. In the Mondeo someone flooring it as you overtake them will make life difficult, you just have to hope there's enough speed differential in the bag that you can tuck back in before they fill the space you were about to occupy. My point is that in the A4 (I use the A4 as I know its performance envelope well but there are of course other cars equally as good) the acceleration is rapid enough that you're unlikely to have a problem with "blockers" like this.

Instead of A4 you could substitute any decent handling car with >125bhp and >250lb/ft torque. (Focus ST anyone?) It's going to out-accelerate the 1.6 Focus, Astra or whatever that doesn't want you to get past him.

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

138mph on the flat.

152mph on a long downhill straight with a tail wind.

My original A4 (FWD 130bhp) was quoted at approx 129mph. Had 143mph downhill with a tail wind. The MkII Quattro (same engine) did 138mph on the same section.

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

Neither was anyone else other than you



Eh? You do realise you have that backwards. I'd advise you to check acceleration times, for various cars. 0-30 is generally a lot quicker than 30-60.

The RS6 for example. 0-30 in in 1.7

30-60 in 2.6

Besides that, I don't see what it has to do with the point.




And in that situation, the chance that a faster acceleration will help is so slight as to not bother mentioning. If you have the time to see that you need to accelerate, and then put it into action, you would have had much more time to brake and fall back in.



Personally, I see trying to overtake someone who is blocking you by speed is just braindead. Of course the other driver shouldn't be doing it, but as some people well know, 2 wrongs don't make a right especially in driving. It just makes it dangerous.



No offense meant, but given your estimates and very odd ideas of accelerating, that could well be disputed. lets just agree to disagree due to the absence of proof.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

Hi P, I'm glad that you are a little clearer now what a left indicator MAY suggest to you thanks to DCB's explainantion, I'm sorry that my wording was slightly different to his and this confused you but at least you have learnt something from between the two of us. My phrasing was different to DCB's in the fact that he would definately slow down , whereas I wouldn't neccessarily, unless I felt that you needed me to in order to help you pass, because as you state, the lead driver doesn't know the following driver's car and capabilities.

You still seem a little confused as to my terminoligy of "investigating" a possible overtake.

I will try and explain it to you in this simple example;

Imagine you are on a country NSL and come up behind a transit van which is obviously restricted(by law) to 50MPH, you follow the van through a series of bends and short straights and the van driver is aware, from the fact that you approached him at speed and the fact that you may be edging to get past at every straight but haven't found one long enough to safely overtake on. He knows the road well and knows that around the next bend is a straight that is sufficiently long enough for even low powered cars to normally overtake easily so long as nothing is coming. The van driver knows that you may have trouble seeing past him by comparison to a smaller vehicle. On coming out of the final corner onto the straight he sees that the road is clear (don't forget his view of the road will be far better than yours). He would probably indicate left at that instant to tell you that the road is clear enough for a safe overtake. He is NOT saying that he wants you to overtake OR that you must overtake but he is saying the road's clear, make your own mind up if you want to go. You would then "investigate" (maybe assess is a better word for you) the road ahead and compare the clear distance , travelling speeds and your cars performance to see if you feel confident enough to make the manouvere.
I hope this helps!

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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.

Graball, thanks for the explanation. I have to say though i already considered that, and that's why I said I would be looking anyway.



I do understand what you are saying, but then as I said if I wanted to overtake, I'd already be looking. Since I am not overtaking by the fact he is indicating, his view of the road has no effect on me.

It would *only* have effect if he was directing me to overtake when I couldn't see.

So while a nice gesture, I find in practice it's largely pointless, and at worst confusing.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

I find that in practice, it ACTUALLY works!!

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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.

Fair enough, each to their own

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.