Hostility on the roads

We may as well see all young black men as criminals, all Asian men as paedophiles and all blondes as dizzy.

This isn’t quite the same. Being black isn’t a choice. Buying an Audi is; there’s more of a chance you’re going to be a bit of a ****

self selection the marketeers wet dream.

5pm on a Friday has to be the worst time for attitude drivers round these parts.

Yes I think it getting worse.

I have a roundabout off a large hospital to navigate on my bike on my commute home, catch that at clocking off time, is like watching the start of a Formula 1 race entering the first bend!

This isn’t quite the same. Being black isn’t a choice. Buying an Audi is; there’s more of a chance you’re going to be a bit of a ****

Of course it isn’t but the sense of stereotyping is exactly the same – no sense in it.

Might this ad have been a hugely successful misfire? The viewer is making the positive association between the horrible yuppie and the Audi right up until the last few seconds where there’s the reveal/twist. You could just dub/recut the last few seconds and it’d be a perfect parody for today’s Audi driver.

jamj1974

This thread is another sad indictment of how we are willing to depersonalise people and see them as something we ascribe negative values too. You can only judge each person in each situation as and when it happens. We may as well see all young black men as criminals, all Asian men as paedophiles

Maybe your heart is in the right place but I don’t see stereotyping Audi drivers as aggressive, successful young white men as being the same as racism. Racism is an irrational hatred or prejudice against someone based on the colour of their skin. People the world over are discriminated against and murdered because of it.

Stereotyping Audi drivers as tail gating tossers, because a certain portion of them drive like tossers won’t cost anyone their lives or their jobs, or their happiness.

Shabby and aggressive driving is definitely on the rise but it’s a gentle upward curve ime.

Each year the roads seem to get a little more crowded and every peak journey a bit longer and I am sure the bad mood from one autumn carries from one year to the next and just gets a little worse.

9 years ago when I started my current job I could do the 35 mile car commute in the same time a 20 mile commute now takes me since i moved house. I travel 18 miles of that on the same route that I used to use before the only real difference is I join the motorway about 15 miles sooner now and the couple of miles from home to motorway is usually pretty clear.

Thank **** for the trains. 3 or 4 days a week away from the traffic 😀

Stereotyping Audi drivers as tail gating tossers, because a certain portion of them drive like tossers won’t cost anyone their lives or their jobs, or their happiness.

No, it won’t. Can’t argue with that. Not sure must of them where I live in Brum are driven by white young men though!

I just don’t like stereotypes – I don’t think they are an aid to finding the truth in any situation. They are way too convenient and open to abuse. As I indicated I’ve suffered from the sterotype when no fault was mine – so being on the receiving end is bound to make me more than a little sensitive…

I think I’ve made my point though so I’ll shut up.

Anyway its the merc drivers who are all **** imo!

Stereotyping is for people who don’t have the intelligence to understand nuance and evidence-based analysis. It’s nasty stuff and a favourite tool of autocrats and dictators for several millennia. Ask any Jews you know…

Choice of brand of car is tightly linked with ego needs and status so whilst stereotyping is unhelpful there may well be some similarities of underlying psychology which drivers of certain brands have in common. For e.g. why would you buy a big, macho-looking pickup called a ‘Warrior’ and with that word written in big letters on the back of it if you felt strong and secure in your own masculinity 😆

Same with a car which is vastly more powerful than you need given UK roads and speed limits… what, really, is the point of a car that does 120mph in a country where there is absolutely zero opportunity to drive above 70mph if it’s not somekind of expression of your status? Insecure people tend to need these kind of status symbols and are therefore more likely to be inappropriately aggressive to hide their insecurity…. from that you get stereotyped behaviour. I don’t think this is brand-specific, just leads to an observable tendency for people with powerful cars to also be the more aggressive drivers…

Had my first cycle commuting incident to draw blood this evening (I’m a London cycle commuter of one year). Caused by a cyclist who barged through a crowd of pedestrians and into me, catching my wrist with his bar ends. He was on a Specialized Sirrus. Say no more!

I got hit with the aggro last week, leaving Aldi in Hamilton. Almost immediately outside Aldi is a roundabout, and (if you can imagine this) I entered the r’about at the 6pm position, but needed to leave at the 3pm exit.

2 lanes on this r’about, and of course, as I was going through 3/4’s of the circle, I was in the right-hand lane until it was time to filter into my exit lane.

I reckoned without the aggression of STS Electrical Services of Hamilton, though, and their lovely white van, who (despite the fact that I was ahead of him in my filter) speeded up just about as quick as he could, blaring the horn, then had to concede as he’d run out of lane.

I could nearly understand if I’d messed up- but was totally in the right. He/she was just vexed as it looked to me like there’d been a queue further down the road he’d just escaped from.

brooess
Same with a car which is vastly more powerful than you need given UK roads and speed limits… what, really, is the point of a car that does 120mph in a country where there is absolutely zero opportunity to drive above 70mph if it’s not somekind of expression of your status? Insecure people tend to need these kind of status symbols and are therefore more likely to be inappropriately aggressive to hide their insecurity…. from that you get stereotyped behaviour. I don’t think this is brand-specific, just leads to an observable tendency for people with powerful cars to also be the more aggressive drivers…

Oh please god. Not this again. I can’t help myself, so in a nut shell.
Most of the Audis you see on the road are far from “vastly more powerful than you need”. Maybe one in 500 or 1000 is an S, fewer again RS. This doesn’t stop drivers from driving aggressively, far from it. It’s legal to exceed the speed limit whilst overtaking. Other European countries have higher speed limits. Some have none. You might want to take your car to a race track. Plenty of reasons to go above 70mph. Everyone limited to 70mph wouldn’t stop accidents, it would probably cause them.

There’s no direct correlation between powerful cars and ignorant aggressive drivers. You’ll not hear floods of complaints about Porsche drivers, Ferrari drivers, Bentley, Rolls, Maserati, Jaguar etc etc etc. By and large with the exception of few specific car models like say Civic TypeR, the vast majority of negative opinion, as regards brands on the road is directed towards Audi and BMW.

Anyway, back on topic.

Getting back to the OP: answer is yes.

I gave up my car last May. Cycle into work or get the bus or get a lift. Cycling through Lancaster is faster on bike anyway. Probably walking backwards with your shoe laces tied together would be be faster. Too many cars on the road today.
’round here, theres nothing to do for most. People just dive in their cars and drive somewhere, anywhere.

john_drummer – Member
yeah, BMW drivers have matured (and no, not me. not at the moment anyway, although I did have one once); Audi is the car of choice now for the Max Power generation growing out of their chavved up corsas

My own personal experiences tends to show that it’s still BMW drivers who drive like dicks with scant regard for the correct rules for driving, like indicators, correct lane use, etc.
I see the Audi driver phenomenon as starting with Top Gear, when they suddenly decided that BMW’s were great cars and Audis were, amazingly, the car of choice for footballers and general dickheads.
I can clearly remember the TG episode where they stated this, now everyone seems to accept it as a fact.
It’s not something I actually see.
I drive a Skoda, so it’s not a personal bias.

@jimjam I don’t think the acual power of vehicle relative to others is important, some brands work hard to market their products as “sporting” and most modern cars way more powerful than they need to be.

I’m interested intrested in this scenario when it’s ok to speed, can you explain that a bit more?

wilburt – Member

@jimjam I don’t think the acual power of vehicle relative to others is important, some brands work hard to market their products as “sporting” and most modern cars way more powerful than they need to be.

I agree it’s mostly marketing, this was proven when I read a post on a local facebook traffic group. Some prick had decided to park his 320d with body kit across two bays of the local Lidl. An otherwise empty car park too. Soemething I find infuriating. To my surprise the majority of commetnters seemed to be okay with this since he had “such a nice car”.

I’m interested intrested in this scenario when it’s ok to speed, can you explain that a bit more?

Wrong choice of words. Not legal, acceptable in some circumstances. I’ve overtaken police cars at the limit on motorways, all you get is a wave. When I asked a senior traffic cop about this he said that none of his colleagues would pull someone for going over the speed limit during an overtake so long as they quickly returned to normal speeds since it’s impossible to focus on the speedo and the road. He did add the caveat that it was technically against the law, so you could be captured on camera but that it wasn’t the type of speeding they were concerned with.

“When I asked a senior traffic cop about this he said that none of his colleagues would pull someone for going over the speed limit during an overtake so long as they quickly returned to normal speeds since it’s impossible to focus on the speedo and the road. He did add the caveat that it was technically against the law,”

so its illigal …..

if the car is doing the speed limit why do you feel the need to overtake?

It’s driving me mad (no pun intended!) at the moment, I think the quallity of driving in rush hour is very poor.

I’ve only been driving a car for 6 months, and now I have to drive in the dark, I’m sick of vans, landrovers or any car with new super bright LED lights sitting 30cm off my back bumper. I’m not going to go faster, so back off you ****t!

I never had this problem on a giant 160BHP touring bike wearing high vis, although I generally stick to the speed limit on both the bike and in the car. I guess people see a 1.2 Vauxhall Agila and assume I’m just in the way of their “posh” car!

trail_rat

so its illigal …..

There was a quote attributed to a PSNI chief inspector when talking about the benefits of avaerage speed cameras being that they allowed flexibility for scenarios where a driver might briefly exceed the speed limit, such as an overtake. There’s only a snippet here.

trail_rat

if the car is doing the speed limit why do you feel the need to overtake?

Maybe it’s doing 65.

Just to add to the argument – Theres no legal way to speed. The fact that one officer may or may not overlook it doesn’t make it ok.

Women from middle 20s -late 30s = the worst, most aggressive drivers on the road, usually driving a BMW Mini.

I know this is just observer bias, but I tend to find that on my city/motorway commute, if there is someone trying to defy the laws of physics by sitting impossibly close to my bumper, it’s generally someone in the group above…young girl in a small car.

I’m interested intrested in this scenario when it’s ok to speed, can you explain that a bit more?

Random anecdote,

I was driving the other day between two long rows of parallel-parked cars. As I got near to the end of where they were parked and the road opened up, a dirty great 4×4 came barrelling down the middle of the road towards me. I’d seen him from a way off of course, but assumed he’d take the sensible course of action and slow slightly to allow me to leave the bottleneck. Schoolboy error on my part I suppose, not assuming that everyone else on the road is out to kill me.

If I’d carried on at the same speed we’d have certainly collided. If I’d stopped and pulled over as far as I could then at best we’d be gridlocked as there wasn’t room to pass and one of us would have had to reverse (probably me, a long way), but probably still have crashed given the attitude of his vehicle. I expect that he’d have just carried on and steamed straight through me.

So, I stood on the loud pedal, accelerated out of the danger spot before he got close enough to box me in, so by the time he’d reached the pinch point I’d gone. I probably broke the speed limit for three or four seconds, then slowed back to 30.

Ilegal, yes. Risky, perhaps, if I’d misjudged it then increased speed would’ve worsened the severity any impact (though I’d have aborted mission and dropped anchor if it became apparent that I wasn’t going to make it). But the wrong thing to do? A speed camera would’ve booked me; a traffic officer would, hopefully, not have done and may even have booked the other driver. Any other course of action would’ve caused problems, I don’t really want a roadside road-rage altercation with someone who thinks it’s a great idea to point a vehicle twice the size of mine down the middle of the road and expect me to teleport out of the way.

Bear in mind of course that it’s easier to analyse situations like this in hindsight at your leisure rather than having to compute all this in a split second, make a decision and take action hoping you’ve done the right thing. WWSTWD?

Well, I’ve been commuting into Bristol by motorbike for about 4 or 5 years now. Bristol is the most congested city on the UK mainland. What’s more it declared itself a “cycling city”, which would be sure to puff up all the cyclists with a sense of self importance. What’s more they filled it with bus lanes too narrow for buses to fit in.

Basically, it has all the traits of a custom made commuter hell.

And yet… I simply don’t know what the hell you lot are on about despite everyday seeing clogged roads, miles long tailbacks, untrained randomly filtering cyclists, buses jammed to a halt in otherwise empty lanes.

The problem isn’t out there, it’s in here
<points to your head>
and in here.
<lays a hand on your heart>

(You whiny gits.)

would have been interesting to see you defend that position had a childs face walked out from a behind one of your parked cars on either side – totally unseen to you self until it was on the road in your path at the last minute.

Unless it’d been hiding behind a car waiting to jump out for the last two minutes, that wasn’t going to happen. Place was deserted.

had a childs face walked out from a behind one of your parked cars

WTF? You mean something like this?

Today’s anecdotal agressive dickhead was an old fella driving a newish silver Passat estate.

i’d like these details included in the spreadsheet please 🙂

jimjam – Member
Everyone limited to 70mph wouldn’t stop accidents, it would probably cause them.

😆

Some prick had decided to park his 320d with body kit across two bays of the local Lidl. An otherwise empty car park too. Soemething I find infuriating. To my surprise the majority of commetnters seemed to be okay with this since he had “such a nice car”.

I’d be okay with it as it was an otherwise empty car park.

How can you get stressed by how someone parks in an empty car park?
Having said that, why, if I park in any random space in a car park, does the next car generally park right next to mine??

Unless it’d been hiding behind a car waiting to jump out for the last two minutes, that wasn’t going to happen. Place was deserted.

The point about kids is that they are often shorter than cars so can be hiding without intending to.

They’d have to have been hiding intentionally in order to hurl themselves in front of me on purpose. I know what you’re saying, but as I was there and the rest of the forum wasn’t, I’m afraid I’m a better qualified to comment on the conditions. There was, categorically, no-one around.

would have been interesting to see you defend that position had a childs face walked out from a behind one of your parked cars on either side

I take your point, of course. In that situation my position would have been indefensible. But I was actively scanning for pedestrians and other hazards (someone sitting in a car who might fling open a door, for example) as I would when passing any parked vehicles, so as to mitigate that risk as much as possible.

I work at home a lot now.

Went to the office in Slough yesterday. Commented to a colleague while walking to the station on the way home that one thing I really don’t miss is the drive to work. If coming from or going east, south or west it’s sheer bl00dy mayhem. North isn’t too much better either, but at least there are rat runs and alternatives. In fact the cycle to Tring from Slough is actually quite pleasant.

Well, made it into the office this morning inspite of all you slugs slowing me down with your rolling chicanes, luckily as a super advanced human-vehicle symbiont I easily slew from gap to gap like an oiled dachshund through the agility slalom. Managed to clip the apex of the chevrons veering from the fast lane to the slip road too, Mansellesque. Raaah. Right, now to crush the admin teams hopes and dreams.

They’d have to have been hiding intentionally in order to hurl themselves in front of me on purpose.

Hmm, don’t know many kids then?

You were sure there was no-one around, but people are often sure of things until something else happens.

I’m not saying your observation skills aren’t good, but personally I think it’s always a good idea to err on the side of caution as a matter of principle, because our observations can be wrong. And, let’s face it – the stakes are high.

I like to have two layers of security – the first one is that I’m looking carefully and being conscientous; the second is that I’m going slowly enough or manoeuvring slowly enough to mitigate the situation in case I’ve made a mistake.

Stereotyping is for people who don’t have the intelligence to understand nuance and evidence-based analysis. It’s nasty stuff and a favourite tool of autocrats and dictators for several millennia. Ask any Jews you know…

Perhaps a bit strong in this context, but fair enough general viewpoint re. stereotyping.

Choice of brand of car is tightly linked with ego needs and status so whilst stereotyping is unhelpful there may well be some similarities of underlying psychology which drivers of certain brands have in common. For e.g. why would you buy a big, macho-looking pickup called a ‘Warrior’ and with that word written in big letters on the back of it if you felt strong and secure in your own masculinity

Same with a car which is vastly more powerful than you need given UK roads and speed limits… what, really, is the point of a car that does 120mph in a country where there is absolutely zero opportunity to drive above 70mph if it’s not somekind of expression of your status? Insecure people tend to need these kind of status symbols and are therefore more likely to be inappropriately aggressive to hide their insecurity…. from that you get stereotyped behaviour. I don’t think this is brand-specific, just leads to an observable tendency for people with powerful cars to also be the more aggressive drivers…

What a complete load of bollocks. Maybe you should follow your own initial advice?

You were sure there was no-one around, but people are often sure of things until something else happens.

Sure. But like I said, it’s easy to sit analysing after the event. Everything we do on a day to day basis is a process of calculated risk. If I get out of bed and immediately walk down the stairs whilst still sleepy I could slip and fall. Making coffee, I could scald myself with the kettle.

Bottom line is that I made a judgement call, rightly or wrongly, in the few moments I had between realising that the other driver wasn’t going to give way but instead try to ram me off the road, and taking some form of evasive action. I presented the tale as anecdotal evidence of a situation where I felt that exceeding the speed limit momentarily was the best course of action available to me. Was I wrong?

I like to have two layers of security – the first one is that I’m looking carefully and being conscientous; the second is that I’m going slowly enough or manoeuvring slowly enough to mitigate the situation in case I’ve made a mistake.

What would you (or anyone else) have done in that situation? Even if you’d have been going slow enough to stop, you’d probably have been in a head-on with a set of bull bars doing 40+mph. And giving way to the other driver rather than committing to passing the parked cars wasn’t an option, he wasn’t in sight until I was halfway through them.

I suppose what I could have done is drop anchor and slam it in reverse, but I don’t overly fancy my chances of going backwards quickly under pressure from Indiana Jones’ rolling boulder whilst still keeping a close watch out for teleporting children.

You really think the oncoming car would have simply ploughed straight into you? I must admit that seems unlikely to me, based on my experience of driving.. But maybe people are less sane where you live 🙂

Re exceeding the speed limit, it’s clear you need to do that occasionally. It’s clearly safer whilst overtaking on a SC road.

Re choice of car – it’s not always about ego. If I want a nicer car than a Passat next time my options are very limited if I want to avoid stigma. Also remember most of them are company cars and the drivers might not be able to take cash instead or split the allowance.

id have just let them stop/reverse for their stupidity.

i get it up by me when the main roads closed and they rat run down our track , they all see fine to travel up a single track road at 60+ – neglecting to notice the hidden rise/dip just after my house.

ive got up to look out the window just in time to watch a peugeot 306 zoom past- sounding fast and mount the high angle banking severely to avoid the TT zooming the other way over the rise…….Ive seen folks get into arguements with tractors at speed and ive seen blow outs due to potholes at speed.. never ending entertainment that road – still waiting for the granite city rally to return – sharp RH bend into crest into straight gentle bend passing my door.

i think as well as stereotyping we can tend to ascribe the worst intentions to others.

we’ve all messed up at some point – driving somewhere new, there’s no signage, the gyratory is marked weirdly and suddenly you’re in the wrong lane, trying to get into a queue, thinking “shit. Now i’m ‘That Guy’ driving like a w**ker and pissing everyone off. How embarrassing,”, and you give a wave of thanks to try and prove you’re not actually That Guy.

but 5 minutes up the road someone’s trying to cut into the queue ahead of you, and you’re thinking “look at this c**t driving like he’s king of the road! tw*t!”

some people are just dopey and we should cut them some slack! 😆

that said, nothing makes me chuckle / wince like seeing the concertina crew hustling down the fast lane, all tailgating each other, brake lights coming on as one every 5 seconds, averaging about 3mph faster than the general flow…

Choice of brand of car is tightly linked with ego needs and status so whilst stereotyping is unhelpful there may well be some similarities of underlying psychology which drivers of certain brands have in common. For e.g. why would you buy a big, macho-looking pickup called a ‘Warrior’ and with that word written in big letters on the back of it if you felt strong and secure in your own masculinity

Same with a car which is vastly more powerful than you need given UK roads and speed limits… what, really, is the point of a car that does 120mph in a country where there is absolutely zero opportunity to drive above 70mph if it’s not somekind of expression of your status? Insecure people tend to need these kind of status symbols and are therefore more likely to be inappropriately aggressive to hide their insecurity…. from that you get stereotyped behaviour. I don’t think this is brand-specific, just leads to an observable tendency for people with powerful cars to also be the more aggressive drivers…

What utter rubbish. Not read such drivel in a long while.