Motors Is it me or are there more idiots on the road?

Oh, here's one. Some old duffer driving at 45 constantly in a 60 zone and then continuing at 45 when they go through a 30 zone.

That happens too often for my sanity.

 

I hate when you stop at a junction in a line of traffic so you stay behind to let people into the junction and not to block it and some **** behind you drives right round you and blocks it....

As soon as he does that someone on the other side of the road wants to get in and he can't even though i deliberatly left it open for them!!

No benefit just get him one car ahead...

 

this sort of thing is why you need the extra power.

and why young drivers should be limited to driving 1000cc engine cars for first couple of years.

p.s. i only commented on original post and didnt read all the other posts

 

On the way back from Cardiff going east on the M4. Massive stretch of 50mph average speed check crappiness. It would've helped if I could do 50mph though..

Some prat in a Peugeot 206SW thing refused to do more than 40 for the entire of the single lane parts. And then, when it opened up to 2 or more lanes, they'd speed up to 50! I was contemplating using a bit of simple time/speed calculations to see if I could go faster for a short stretch but I was getting rather mad at this point and realised I'd probably overdo it, I likely could have sailed past at 70 for the required time then pootled along at 50 for the rest of it in hindsight. Must have been 20 or more cars backed up behind this pillock.

I think a power to weight ratio restriction would be better. My 1.4 Golf is no faster than most 1-1.2 cars simply because of the extra weight, apart from the very top end maybe.

 

I have often thought that myself. Don't they do that somewhere already? (Japan?).

It'd be far more sensible that the idea of nighttime bans for new drivers or limiting how many friends they can carry. That's just daft.

They do it for motorcycles I'm not entirely sure why it doesn't apply to cars.

 

Re-iterating a point I made earlier. People drive a lot slower than they used to. Excessive speed is still apparent on the motorway, but that is because of the volume of traffic. Back in the 90's the dual carriageways and other A Roads of Cheshire and surrounding were always full of people racing one another, doing general boy racing, traffic light grand prix .... you name it. You NEVER see anyone speeding anymore except very rarely, and they stick out like a sore thumb.

It has to be to do with people's perception of the law and what will happen to them. By all accounts the roads should be safer, but there appears to be more people driving slowly who have no clue what they are doing, not that driving fast makes you know what you are doing.

But I see people dawdling in a 60, doing 35, then slam on for an empty roundabout, super over cautious, then drift over 3 lanes cutting people up....WTF is going on, this is the norm these days.

 

or just make the testing a lot harder and much more advanced....

 

The only restriction to power of cars is cost of the car and cost of the insurance, which aren't really direct things. A kid down the road was bought a Clio 197 by his parents, a reasonably nippy car, I would personally find average but he had been driving about in Punto 55 or something for 3 months after passing his test. He went out in it, maybe for 10 minutes and rolled it down a bank. All he did was break his collar bone. But he could have rolled it into some kids.

He has already dented and crashed the Punto, a bit, not major damage and ripped bits of it mounting kerbs. The straw that broke the camels back was he was able to pick up more spped in the Clio and therefore had more velocity but no idea of how fast he could take corners safely.

As his parents knew he was unskilled behind the wheel, they should really have known better, in fact, I would say they are expletive deletive idiots.

 

this will make you lot cringe, i was driving on the m6 the otherday, and some guy was all over the place at 70mph, when we got closer, it was apparent he was reading a book or something @70mph ffs.

 

There've been other motors threads where this has come up. They've already beaten the horse to death on how poor drivers can be a threat to themselves and others in any power of car, not to mention the alternative of power to weight ratio restrictions.

This would really help, imo. A more advanced test to show that the driver really knows how to control his/her car rather than just navigate it around the local streets and flimsy parking lot simulations.

I think a mandatory test upon purchasing a new car would also be a great idea, to prevent accidents like with the Clio above, but it'd be too hard to enfoce.

 

It wasnt Jeremy Clarksons Autobiography was it?

 

I was behind a tractor doing 25 all the way from Ryhall to Toft on the A6121, just as pretty much everyone was going home from Stamford at half five-ish. The tailback went for as far back as I could see, which was at least a mile. There were many opportunities he could have taken to pull off the road. What a total and utter prat.

 

Had a quick read of this thread and thought I'd throw in my 2p.

I definately agree there are some complete and utter morons on the road atm,

Where I live there is a round-about and that links 2 major roads and the main road into the centre of town as well as the entrance to the motorway. People always park on the side of the road right after the round-about which really annoys me, the amount of times I've nearly had an accident due to some numpty just pulling out, really infuriates me

 

I live in the south of Spain, and after 10 years and daily 60km commutes, I still shake my head with disbelief on a daily basis at the shite driving standards down in this part of the world. The arrogance, selfishness and sheer disregard for laws and safety is just unreal. Being overtaken down the inside, hogging fast lanes at 1am with no other cars on the motorway, driving through red-lights, driving with kids standing in the front foot-well and the list just goes on and on and on. Unbelievable. I spent 4 days back in the UK recently and never got cut-up once. Maybe I was lucky, but it was a pleasure and a relief for a few days from the chaos down here.

 

Once saw something like this on the motorway just outside Milan, Italy, except that when we finally drive by the guy was trying to read a broad-sheet newspaper spread out over steering wheel. Silly frakker.

 

thinking about it, non of our suggestions will work at the moment, as some of the idiots on the road don't even have licenses, or insurance.

 

I have a new one to add. People who pull out to overtake with out checking their mirrors to see if anyone behind them is already overtaking.

 

Especially in Lincolnshire.

Mind you I can see the temptation for rally driving on some of the Lincolnshire roads, you'll end up in a field if you don't know them or find yourself up the back end of a tractor as you turn a corner.

 

Have been doing a lot of driving into Middlesex over the last month and there is this series of three roundabouts, one after the other. Nothing remarkable about them except joining is two lanes and the exit on the route is one.

I don't know what it is but it's outside cut-up magic fun-time happy adventure land for white van drivers. Not transits but the combo-ones (car front). Every bloody time one makes a dash and cuts me up only to have to stop because of the traffic in front.

It achieves absolutely nothing.

 

we have an awful lot of poorly maintained taxis around here.. lights not working or badly set, I was blinded last night by a motorcycle as its light was way off... oh no turns out it was a @uck**g taxi ... thats just as dangerous as a bad driver, a driver with a poorly maintained car ...but worse still one who charges people to drive them to an fro in their poorly maintained car.. feck knows what state the rest of the car was in ...breaks? No thanks I have just had a cup of tea... ..jesus I have started to sound like my dad ...