Tailgating king, Not BMW,not Audi, its Merc C Class!

[GreenArrow]

...Driving along the M25 and M3 on Friday night and again yesterday, my wife and I were debating which is the most aggressively driven car these days as we observed the usual appalling bad manners and downright aggressive driving on those roads. As a marque I reckon Audi probably has the edge for overall motorway tailgating, but the standout model for me is now the W204 Merc C Class. Yep, whenever a C class diesel is around, especially in sporty wannabee AMG spec it spells trouble IMO and the chump out of these is the C200 CDI. Yep, with its modest 134 BHP, pilots of this car obviously feel the need to impress on everyone how fast their rattly four cylinder diesel is, to justify the 30 grand list price (or £350 per month PCP payments) and boy is it wearing, especially as they really aren't all that impressive, as I proved with my 9 year old modestly powered petrol Mazda 6 today. Just for a bit of fun and to give matey a bit of his own treatment, I harried one up a slip road today from about 30-70 and watching it trying to get away whilst blowing its cheeks out with diesel fumes was pretty amusing! I eased off and watched him fly off up the boot of his next victim... My theory as to why Merc has got so bad is that they were sold in massive bulk with mega cheap lease deals in recent years, meaning that the really brand obsessive wanna get on company car drivers to some extent deserted the less (in their eyes) illustrious Audi and BMW brands to buy Merc.

So what do you think?

[T0MMY]

I think the SUV versions of any of those or other marques still take the biscuit for most tttish driving.

I particularly enjoyed watching a Range Rover try to jump a few places in a traffic jam by trying to stop people move back out after we'd all pulled in to let an ambulance by.

[Bullett]

I've been thinking that Mercs in general had taken over in the idiot stakes from Audi and BMW. I'd also assumed that it was cheaper than the alternative lease deals that had moved the users over to them.

Mercedes have the added bonus of still being driven by old codgers and 50 something women in the case of the SLK/any convertible.

[lauda]

GreenArrow said:

So what do you think?

That there are examples of bad driving from every car marque, every race/age/gender/other stereotype of driver. Just get out of their way and let them go and have their accident with someone else.

[PK0001]

Sounds to me like you have just been blown away by a measley C200. He was probably late for his next customer meeting to sell the latest photocopier.

At the end of the day he was driving like a knob, so were you and his car will look better on his driveway than yours.

In my opinion Audi, Mercedes and BMW are all guilty of persuading people that they are driving fast and sporty cars, S-Line, M and AMG. All trim levels on 4 pot diesels.

I have had my share of Mazda 6's inches off my bumper as well. I think those tend to be driven by photocopier engineers.

IMHO the worst offenders are always Audi's.

[petrolsniffer]

I did a 182mile drive from the south last night it was pretty even between all three audi,merc and bmw

[Quhet]

Always seems to be Sprinter vans for me. Driven by absolute s

[av185]

With the latter day rise in the tailgating and outside lane hogging low rent BMW Aldi and Merc repmobiles largely poorly driven by fkwits thinking they are piloting something special, its not hard to see why these marques have fallen from grace from premium brand to white goods.......don t suppose Tini Tempah being recruited by Merc to promote the gangsta brand strength :scratchin: has helped the image much either innit bruv....

[Raman Kandola]

White Audi a3 tdi kitted up to look like an s3/rs3

[DervVW]

Quhet said:

Always seems to be Sprinter vans for me. Driven by absolute s

same, often wondered how fast they'd go round the ring, either go 55 or 105 IME

[gizlaroc]

GreenArrow said:

So what do you think?

If you have constantly got people trying to push you out of the way I would think that you're probably hogging the overtaking lane a bit too much?

[av185]

DervVW said:

Quhet said:

Always seems to be Sprinter vans for me. Driven by absolute s

same, often wondered how fast they'd go round the ring, either go 55 or 105 IME

105....if you mean the north circular ring....

[Captainawesome]

Not tailgating but 13/14 plate 320Ds driven by sole occupants weating shirts and sunglasses. In the space of about 2 mins today I had one move from lane 3 to 2 without checking his mirrors and nearly wipe me out and then straight after had another move from lane 2 to 3 also without looking in his mirrors and having to take evasive action back into his lane to avoid hitting me. Neither of them bothered to use the magic stalk which makes the little orange lights flash.

I had my wife and baby daughter in the car at the time. Luckily one of us actually has some sort of idea of what is going on around me on a motorway and spotted the early signs of their numpty driving.

I'm moving in a weeks time far, far away from motorways and am very glad about it. They really do seem to be the natural home of unobservant dheads.

[MagicMike]

I was on the autobahn this weekend in my C63. Only one manufacturer of cars was aggressively accelerating towards me on each occasion, and made me move across from the fast lane for safety's sake.

And this was with me hitting 155 mph most of the route....

Must be an international thing with Audi drivers

[Blakewater]

None in particular in my experience, although there are a few locals round my way with black on black on black C63 AMGs with smoked light lenses who drive a bit idiotically.

When Honda launched the Jazz they marketed it as the anti road rage car for calm and considerate drivers but I still see those being driven aggressively sometimes.

Someone else on here said the Mazda 6 is the car most commonly seen hogging the overtaking lane so there could be a relationship here...

[BGarside]

Up here (Aberdeen) I'd say it's Audis, but then they are perhaps the commonest marque here.

Plenty of tttish driving in the city, but then it's full of overpaid oil-industry muppets with more cash than brain cells.

Range Rovers seem to be pretty consistently up there when it comes to speeding and tailgating with the 'get out of my way, I'm important' attitude.

[powerstroke]

Blakewater said:

None in particular in my experience, although there are a few locals round my way with black on black on black C63 AMGs with smoked light lenses who drive a bit idiotically.

When Honda launched the Jazz they marketed it as the anti road rage car for calm and considerate drivers but I still see those being driven aggressively sometimes.

Someone else on here said the Mazda 6 is the car most commonly seen hogging the overtaking lane so there could be a relationship here...

Yes the Mazda 6 seems to be owned by the older tut tutting smug middle class middle lane hoging DM reader types

[gizlaroc]

Anyone who holds me up is a dopey old get, and anyone that wants to go faster and get passed me is a maniac who really shouldn't be on our roads.

[romeogolf]

I find it's Vauxhalls, Nissans and other run-of-the-mill cars which are most likely to be up my arse. Teenagers who want the thrill of foot-to-the-floor driving. Middle-aged men in S-line A4s and 3-series M-sports don't even come onto my radar most days.

[Devil2575]

lauda said:

That there are examples of bad driving from every car marque, every race/age/gender/other stereotype of driver. Just get out of their way and let them go and have their accident with someone else.

This.