Motorway driving getting worse….

I’m currently doing around 500 motorway miles a week (which is probably around 2/3 what I was doing last year) and the incidences of someone scaring the crap out of me seems to be increasing on a weekly basis.

I could list a whole page of gripes, but todays worst one….

Driving up the M40 in lane 2 (yes, I was overtaking a lorry), cruise control set at 70mph and a Freelander comes past at 80/85 in lane 3 and cuts in, literally 2ft in front of my bumper. Who knows what the consequences would have been, had it clipped me.

I gave the driver a short blast of full beam and they respond by driving for the next half a mile with rear fogs on. I carried on my way, but being the antagonistic, hot headed arsehole that I am, when said moron was inexplicably back in lane 3 and lanes 1 & 2 were clear I pulled level, cast them a glance, maybe a slight gesture with my right hand and she (middle aged, horsey, butt ugly, middle class bint), has the audacity to flick me the bird.

Anyway, dangerous driving aside on her part, I wait with baited breath for the standard STW tirade of abuse accusing me of doing something wrong….

😉

just ignore the twunt and get your groove on.
or mouth randomness whilst pointing at the back of the car and looking concerned….with luck they’ll think something is up and pull over to check. 🙂

What you did wrong was let it get to you
The world is full of twunts, ignore them

I dunno TAFKASTR.

I mean you know you’ve done something wrong don’t you? Fair enough, she pulled a shit manoeuvre but then you joined in and made the situation worse. Did you do that silly thing of calling a woman a merchant banker? 😆 (We’ve all done it haven’t we?)

Then you tell us all about it. And we flame you. And you masturbate while listening to a new band on spotify.

Why do you do it you white truck driving eejit? Why? WHYYYYY?

EDIT: I forgot. It’s gun metal grey now (but you wish it was yellow). The rest still stands.

😉 indeed

Did you do that silly thing of calling a woman a merchant banker? (We’ve all done it haven’t we?)

Yes, yes I did!!!

Not quite sure about the rest of your post though, apart from the flaming bit 😐

IME best thing to do with lousy drivers like that, whether you’re cycling or driving is to get as much distance from them as you can. Whether that means driving on without a backward glance or staying well behind it dunt matter – they’re going to have a crash sooner or later and best thing to do is be nowhere near them when they do.

I’m drunk TAFKASTR. 😛 If I was your missus I’d probably be beating you right now.

Driving these days is all about taking the chill pill.

People do crazy things don’t get stressed.

Or as my twelve year old daughter says “pop a cap in their ass”

*steps away from thread and ‘unfriends’ dd

I’m drunk too, hence the need to post inane crap on STW. It was a good story in my head, then I took to the keyboard.

[sigh]

I’m slightly confused about “something didn’t happen, who knows what would have happened if it did” if I’m honest. I drove past a tanker carrying hazardous material today, who knows what the consequences would have been if it’d exploded (or spontaneously turned into a rhinoceros or something).

Failing to see what you did wrong though, beyond sitting behind her for half a mile rather than putting some distance between yourself and someone who’s prone to carving into lanes.

The tanker didn’t nearly take your front end off though did it Cougar?

I carried on, at 70 whilst she made a fuss in front of me

Thankfully, most of my driving these days is just pootling around Brizzle (which is frustrating in itself). Occasionally, I’ll have to do a week of driving on the motorway and yes, it’s just bloody awful. A load of people existing in their own bubble just not giving a **** about anybody else who has to share their space. As richpips says, it’s all about just chilling out and getting from a to b in one piece.

EDIT: I’d make it up to you TAFKASTR 🙂

(or spontaneously turned into a rhinoceros or something).

Well, you’d be a bit better looking. 😛

The tanker didn’t nearly take your front end off though did it Cougar?

Nearly’s neither here not there, it either did or it didn’t. Not saying it’s right, I’d be cross too, but playing ‘what if’ is kinda bogus.

I carried on, at 70 whilst she made a fuss in front of me

See, if she was doing 70 (presumably she overtook you and then slowed down?) then I’d have carried on at 60 or 80 to get shut of her one way or the other.

If you were so frustrated why didn’t you give her nudge in your Smart car or were you confused by a lady driving a 4wd testosterone machine?

Nothing you can do apart from dropping your speed, relax, chill … 😆

I have been trained driving the far east style so that’s nothing by comparison … over there they signal and immediately cut in without looking while the car behind has to give way … nearly rear end the front car many times.

I gave the driver a short blast of full beam

Always makes me laugh when I see drivers doing this. Do they think that their headlights are actually Star Trek style phasers & that the car in front will vanish into a cloud of dust?

Driving these days is all about taking the chill pill.

This. I’m a very zen driver these days, yet still see people losing it all over the place. Just t’other day I had pulled in to let oncoming traffic through down a narrow city road with cars parked on both sides. As they passed, friendly waves given; I pulled out into the road, only to see this car coming straight down at speed towards me, past a few pulling in spaces and right up to my bumper expecting me to reverse back. When I turned off my engine and took out a book to read she started going absolutely bananas! After about five minutes of shouting and gesticulating she gave in and reversed back up the road and into a gap. As I slowly cruised past to get a good, gloating look at her I noticed a large pulsating vein on the side of her head as she stared grimly ahead, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles…

I’m no saint when it comes to driving and as a foolish youth I recall taking a bend at a totally inappropriate speed and crossing the line as I did so. To my surprise the driver coming the other way didn’t try to avoid me by moving over, they actually swerved to ‘punish’ me for being on their side of the road, I presumed. This presumption was confirmed when I asked as many folk as I could how they would behave if they were in the other driver’s position – most said they’d attempt to punish the driver for being on ‘their’ side of the road.

Driving brings out the arsehole beast in us. A bit like the internet…

I saw a driver on the motorway the other day who clearly didn’t have the first clue what he was doing, a total and complete danger to himself and everyone else.

Thats a rarity though, the worst IMO are the “experienced drivers” who are caught up a moment of urgency and think their natural skill and experience allow them to drive more aggresivly.

As above..get you life sorted and theres no need to drive like an idiot.

There was no need for the hand gestures, this is where you lowered yourself. Better to pull up behind in lane and gestured with an open left hand, inviting her to step into lane 2.

Their behaviour affects your attitude, which affects your behaviour, which affects their attitude…

Break the cycle of conflict by not letting them affect you, or to put it another way, two wrongs don’t make a right. And yes, driving standards in general seem to be getting worse

So I’m just back home in Germany from two weeks in the UK and my observations in general* are:

UK. Agressive, competitive and selfish. Eg, lanes merging into one. The game seems to be to block the one having to merge by queueing and stop people going to the head of the queue and “zip” merging in turn which is way more efficient. There really neds a new roadsign to help make this happen.

French. Random, impatient, pushy, more motorcycle friendly / aware. For random, just look at French drivers using roundabouts. Overtake by joining a lane you may be in as soon as 66% of the other vehicle is ahead of you

Germany. Disciplined, courteous, and generally opposite of the UK. Same example, merging lanes… the two queues “zip” from the point where the lanes merge and its expected that this happens and its pretty smooth. Yes, on the Autobahn there may be a car on your tail but then the process is park the ego, move over, allow the overtake, then move out again, not sit in the overtaking position to protect the use of the lane for an overtake of a vehicle a mile up the road.

*General being non specific in that I didn’t poll every driver in each country but we know stereotypes are fine don’t we …

Eg, lanes merging into one. The game seems to be to block the one having to merge by queueing and stop people going to the head of the queue and “zip” merging in turn which is way more efficient.

I’ve never, ever understood this mentality. Sure, let’s make the queue twice as long as it needs to be, that makes perfect sense!

OP. What you describe is normal driving practice in Italy. Although I tend to agree with rickmeister I find the German drivers are just as pigheaded as the Brits when it comes to filing from two lanes into one.

Try sleeping at the wheel. I never noticed any crap driving when I was half asleep.

And relax…

It aint just the motorway.

Mrs tr on her was to work on tuesday in ice mageedon doing exactly as i taught her to drive in bad conditions – never find your self stopped on a hill in ice.

She waited at the bottom till it was clear to travel to the top after watchin cars in front sliding about

Woman gets out comes up to her and starts screaming and shouting at her not to leave gaps as its holding her up…..

Mrs tr in shock just replys with no. And woman marches off with a face like thunder.

Not sure what she thought she was going to achieve. Traffic was going no where fast anyway.

Bullying at its finest. I reckon she expected a doddery auld pensioner the car being a berlingo.

T-R: This is STW, we need to know what make of car the offending wifie was driving. We have prejudices to maintain FFS!

**** knows metalheart. Fyi it was the second hill after craigiebuckler road on springfield road . The one with the island in the middle of it. Cars were makinmince of starting on it so mrs tr decided to let it clear beire makignher attempt

Given it was aberdeen and she was enforcin the regulation inch gap. Its pretty safeto assume it was a white audi of the s variety.

As a learner it does feel like the standards are dropping. I’m probably contributing to it too!

Started taking lessons for the first time 6 years ago. People seemed to be more courteous then. These days I’ve had people overtake me on the pavement when crossing on a roundabout in a residential area in 2nd gear. Not sure what they’re hoping to achieve really.

I don’t get it – we British are good at queuing generally, but put us in cars and then no-one can wait in a queue. (Obviously I exclude myself from that last statement.)

I’m drunk too, hence the need to post inane crap on STW. It was a good story in my head, then I took to the keyboard.

[sigh]

The writing style of this post has caused me to read the rest of the thread as if it is a Viz Drunken Bakers cartoon.

I was stationary in traffic on the High Street through West Norwood earlier – next to a side road with a driving instructor yacking on the phone and continually edging towards the side of my car as he tried to pull out. I was going nowhere – traffic was solid and one more edging forward move from him and would’ve driven into the side of my car.
I was desperately trying to make eye contact to make sure he realised what he was doing – saw me eventually and stopped but he didn’t look too happy at being stared at. God knows what he teaches his students, I’m not sure he was aware what he was doing