5am this morning, driving along the A6 from Hazel Grove towards Chapel-En-Le-Frith, 30mph zone, speed cameras, I’m doing 30mph.

Up behind me comes white van man – this is no ordinary WVM, this is 7.5t small white lorry man. Promoted from van driving, but not skilled enough to get his licence to drive a proper truck, his impatience and lack of road manners seem to have grown proportionately with the size of his vehicle.

Obviously in too much of a rush to care what the speed limit was, he proceeds to see just how close he can get to my rear bumper, to the point where I couldn’t see his headlights. Resisting the urge to give my brakes a quick dab, as tempting as it was to make him soil himself, I stuck to the speed limit – resolutely. From 30 to 40, back to 30 and so on and so forth.

I didn’t think he could get any closer, but apparently he could. At least now I could see his headlights, well, one of them anyway, as he hung his offside wheels over the white lines. I knew the more I was enjoying this, the more it was annoying him. I was satisfyingly smug – and didn’t budge from the limit.

This must have gone on for a good 10-15 minutes – all the way in fact, to the Chapel by-pass! You’d think he’d have got the message by now, but apparently not, judging by our front and rear ends virtually mating. Imagine my glee, when I realised very soon, the 30mph single carriageway went straight into a National Speed Limit dual carriageway straight off the next roundabout. I knew it was coming and I’m damn sure he knew it was coming. I floored it – 2.5litres of turbocharged diesel engine roared into life and 190 horses left him in a cloud of soot.

I wasn’t going to be a hypocrite, so stuck to 70 – I could still see him flashing his headlights at me half a mile up the road. I smiled!

So, the moral to my little anecdote – if you are going to be a complete tit, I can be an even bigger one 😉

You are teh awesomzs.

Well to be fair you were obeying the rules he wasn’t, what else could you have done, you didn’t succumb to emergency braking (I might have done), short of stopping to let him pass (and why should you) you couldn’t do anything. Ok accelerating on the dual carriageway was provocative but (I assume) not unsafe.

The end of the A56 at Rawtenstall is my section for annoying people. It’s downhill dual carriage and the speed limit drops to 50 (used to be 70). Most people filter off to left hand slip to stay on the 56 (nuts road layout), I stay in the outside lane to avoid the crush turning off, as the speed limit approaches I ease off and brake a little. This really upsets the nut jobs who’ve decided to race down and try and cut in to the left at the last minute. Really annoys them, but it’s poor road layout, there’s been more accidents since the speed limit was reduced. What are you supposed to do though, most people happily fly through the 50 signs at 70 and don’t slow until they hit the new roundabout (built to access a new retail park that never opened, in the midle of what was previously a 70 mph dual carriageway, one fatality and numerous accidents there now).

His stress related heart attack will have been brought a little closer.

I laughed.

We are not all like that artist. I applaud your speed limit skills but abhor your stereotyping of van drivers 😉

In those cases I like to slow down gradually. 29…28…27…26…25…
Brilliant when they are too close to be able to pull out and overtake you anyway and they need to slow down too.

…that’s when you accelerate back to 30

wrightyson – I drive a white 4×4 pick-up. Who am I to stereotype? 😉

It’s one of my simple pleasures too. We may need a support group.

I assume you’re one of my favourite people who do 38 in a 40 zone and slow down to 20 for a speed camera.

I find that when someone is needlessly tailgating me drifting slightly towards the edge of the carriageway throws up such a satisfying cloud of grit / pebbles / bits of old tyre that the offending person very rapidly pulls back. Obviously, this only happens if I need to avoid a last minute obstacle in my own lane and if someone happens to be so close behind that they’re caught in the crossfire, it’s a tragedy…

This is what cruise control is for, setting it at 29mph (hey 30 is the LIMIT) and relaxing 🙂

[makes mental note of miss daisy type in derbyshire area driving white 4×4 pickup]

i must admit, i dont generally speed.
but if someone is 6″ away from the back of the car i will be 1mph under the limit.
not all WVM do it.

i borrowed a vito at the weekend that has an adjustable speed limiter. it is actually quite a useful device – you can set it in 5mph steps. you just stick it to the speed limit and then concentrate on where you are going instead of worrying about if you are speeding or not. as a balance to the op, i took great pleasure in holding up car drivers who seemed to be in a hurry…

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR – Member
I drive a white 4×4 pick-up.

I find that pick-up drivers are one the worst offenders for the whole tailgating/impatient/swerving across the centre line to give a peek of headlight thing…. 😉 Normally silver or black ones though, with one of those hard-top back things and some property management branding down the side (and a badge that says Warrior or Titan for added GGRRRRRR).
Not sure if it’s the commanding driving position or whether it’s ‘cos they mainly seem to be tax-dodging would-be Audi drivers….?

Good effort though, I’d have done the same.

2.5litres of turbocharged diesel engine roared into life

#strangest

there’s a lot to be said for small victories like this. well done.

Knobs deliberately annoying knobs. 🙄

Cause and effect.

The sensible thing would be to just get out of the way – you’ll probably learn that when you grow up. Not that I’m condoning the van driver’s behaviour – just that life is far to short for that short of thing.

Watch out kids, Dad has just arrived.

It’s like driving my vw California. It’s quite quick but most car drivers seem to need to try and pass it no matter what. Coming back from biking last weekend I had a guy try and overtake me even though I was 20k over the speed limit. What he couldn’t see but I could was the cop car in the distance.

I apply the trick (said above) of slowing down, gradually decreasing 30..28..25…20………. until almost a crawl, by which time they really do get the point you are trying to make. This action, for me, has never produced anything more than a blast of the horn from the driver behind.

The sensible thing is to proceed at the correct speed, not be bullied off the carriageway or into breaking the speed limit just to please some tit in a van/Audi/pickup?

Enjoy winding up d-heads, you want to teach.

The sensible thing would be to just get out of the way

You know this was possible?

The sensible thing is to proceed at the correct speed, not be bullied off the carriageway or into breaking the speed limit just to please some tit in a van/Audi/pickup?

It’s more sensible to avoid risking an accident or road-rage incident. It’s easy enough to let someone by in these circumstances, without needing to speed if that’s a problem for you.

You know this was possible?

What – no possible passing place in 10 to 15 minutes of driving at 5am?

I find frequent washer wipe use which wets their windscreen too quite amusing

I apply the trick (said above) of slowing down, gradually decreasing 30..28..25…20……….

My approach too.

Amateur. I’d have waited until he was along side me before clearing off into the distance.

Let them get a taste of victory before you pull the rug 😀

For all you know it was Keanu Reeves with a bomb connected to a speed sensor. I’m sure people thought very similarly about his driving without understanding what was going on before they saw the documentary afterwards. 😉

I had to pause coming round the Elephant and Castle this morning as the cyclist just to my right failed to clip in and wobbled. Anyway, this gave all the traffic coming from the right time to catch up with the peloton as we crossed over two lanes to get to the approach to the underground station, including one car which came up behind me and leaned on the horn.

So I did what I usually do – slowed right down to a leasurely pace and, when he went angrily past on my left, smiled and presented him with the digit…

You do know it’s 33 in a 30 zone and 44 in a 40 don’t you? And that most speedometers are set 2mph slower, so you probably could have been doing 35 and 46 respectively?

Just saying.

^^^
Fail.

LOL, good on you. I do this all the time.

It’s more sensible to avoid risking an accident or road-rage incident. It’s easy enough to let someone by in these circumstances, without needing to speed if that’s a problem for you.

B******S. Why should anyone yield to someone breaking the law?

It could be 25 in a 30, TBH, if the OP is that way inclined. Doesn’t have to be 30, 33, 35 or whatever else people think might be unenforceable by the cameras.

Watch out kids, Dad has just arrived.

To be honest there is some truth in that! My kids are 22 and 18 and I’ve tried to teach them that, even if you’re in the right as far as traffic law is concerned, it’s better to drive defensively and avoid accidents as far as you can. There are lots of times when driving according to the traffic laws isn’t the same thing as driving safely!

B******S. Why should anyone yield to someone breaking the law?

I just don’t think taking the moral high ground is enough to risk an un-neccessary accident.

At least the original poster acknowledges he was being a tit.

B******S. Why should anyone yield to someone breaking the law?

so are you one of the self-appointed vigilantes who drives in the overtaking lane parallel with the car inside at exactly 1 mph under the limit and refuses to either speed up and complete the overtake or get the **** out of the way?
[/audi mode]