What's your proudest driving moment?

[dxg]

lord trumpton said:

dxg said:

By "proudest' I mean that moment that made you think "I can actually do this. I'm a competent driver."

Here's mine - I'm interested to see how it stacks up against those of others:

So, I'm heading up bottom end of the M42 one day and traffic is heavy. I'm in lane 2 and there's a flatbed car transporter in lane 1, loaded up and playing the game of conserving momentum. I'm almost in its blind spot to continue past it but, as it's rapidly coming up to the back of an artic and I can imagine how long it would take to build up speed again, I check for an indication that it wants to come out in front of me. No sign.

I then - and this is where the proud moment comes from - check its door mirror and catch the eye of its driver staring back at me desperately and - for once - actually looking in his mirrors before signalling to pull out. I catch his eye, a quick flash of the headlights and he's out without bothering with his indicators.

This was several years ago. Still makes me smile.

Edited by dxg on Sunday 25th January 11:56

That's a real heart warming story.

You must be so, so proud, It's actually brought a little tear to me eye.

That poor lorry driver owes you big time

It's moments like this that I live for...

[daveofedinburgh]

Had just finished work on a cold, rainy night a couple of years back. Was in my newly purchased mk1 MX5 auto, and was blowing off some steam on a spirited drive home.

Coming round a tight right-hander, I was giving her a generous helping of throttle when the auto box decided to kick down and spit the car towards an MX5-killing high kerb.

Using one hand, I immediately applied a perfectly judged dab of opposite lock and caught the car straight away.

Why one handed? Because for some reason I decided that my left hand was better employed in this potentially ruinous situation reaching out and (successfully) catching the pair of Raybans which fell off the passenger side sun visor!

So car saved, and Raybans (unnecessarily) caught, all in one very deft split-second manoeuvre.

Hesitate to say its truly my 'proudest driving moment', as most normal human beings would've just let the sunnies land harmlessly in the footwell. It does stand out in my mind as being the best example of my relatively good reaction speed, and was also one of those moments where you just wish someone had been there to see it!

[gavsdavs]

FreeLitres said:

Not having a dig, but overtaking mid bend and slotting in-between cars still sounds dangerous to me, especially as the other motorists wouldn't be expecting this move and could themselves have drifted over the line if it was as visually clear as you describe. Plus, it relies on the other drivers maintaining a set speed. Too many things could go wrong.

The emotional state of your passengers has no bearing on my view of road safety. I would prefer to hear from an IAM member or traffic officer to get their views as to whether that approach is deemed safe or not.

I'm not suggesting that this could be or should be recreated (outside of a movie set). I was fully anticipating probably having to brake into the gap between cars 1 and 2, but they all stayed in their lane and maintained speed, the road just moved left and right and I went straight through. Speed differential was maybe 10-15mph.

Do you not assess the road posture of all cars near you to get a feeling of the attitude/awareness/intent of the driver ? I continuously look at the behaviour/relative position in the carriageway/to the car in front of every car that I might have to be near. Thinking ahead. That's roadcraft, isn't it ?

In this case the drivers of these cars weren't asleep, but their spacing and speed (which I'd watched for a good while whilst catching them up) suggested they weren't going to try and overtake each other.

MANY things we do on the road *could* go wrong if someone does something unexpected and you as a driver haven't anticipated it, but in this case, they didn't, they did exactly what I wanted/guessed they would do.

Quite honestly, the stars lined up and this fell in my lap.

Edited by gavsdavs on Tuesday 3rd February 20:05