An epidemic of insanely slow drivers

[croyde]

popeyewhite said:

Monkeylegend said:

croyde said:

Big shout out to the Grey Evoque that literally was invisible

Well not quite

Exactly, let's not get ahead of ourselves here

Oops

[Tommo87]

[]

Unreal said:

I can't say I've noticed a correlation between tailgaters and people driving below the limit.

Tailgating is endemic at almost any speed.

I’m not the tailgating type, but I HAVE sat behind someone at a safe distance doing 60mph in the outside lane of an NSL dual carriageway for many miles wondering when they will finally look in their mirrors and pull left.

Are they ALL friends of yours as well?v

[Tommo87]

CT05 Nose Cone said:

Roundabout discipline seems to have fallen off the cliff recently, twice this week I've had to take avoiding action because people are incapable of staying within the lines and are oblivious to what they did wrong.

Were the lines arranged so that the cars moved outwards like a spiral as they passed each exit.

There was a thread very recently where a number of posters suggested that they personally remain in the outside lane across multiple exits, irrespective of road sign or lines in the road.

[Unreal]

Tommo87][ said:

Unreal said:

I can't say I've noticed a correlation between tailgaters and people driving below the limit.

Tailgating is endemic at almost any speed.

I’m not the tailgating type, but I HAVE sat behind someone at a safe distance doing 60mph in the outside lane of an NSL dual carriageway for many miles wondering when they will finally look in their mirrors and pull left.

Are they ALL friends of yours as well?v

I don't know any van drivers.

[heebeegeetee]

Tommo87 said:

There was a thread very recently where a number of posters suggested that they personally remain in the outside lane across multiple exits, irrespective of road sign or lines in the road.

I bet you won't be able to quote it.

The thread Tommo is referring to is the one where he was looking for an argument but struggled to find one, got people mixed up, got entirely the wrong end of the stick, made stuff up then and to my surprise is still making stuff up about it now. It was one of those PH threads where the likes of Tommo were *desperate* to prove someone wrong.

[fflump]

8IKERDAVE said:

Another example of pathetic gormless driving is the speed in which people pull away from traffic lights. We all know how they work by now it's a very simple concept. Yet when they change it seems to surprise everyone that the car in front has moved off so they decide it's probably time to select 1st gear and pull away as slowly as physically possible. 3 - 4 cars get through and the traffic jam behind increases.

I genuinely think if people just got on with the job in hand traffic would reduce 10 fold.

^^^100%

It's aggravated when there are temporary traffic lights e.g. a contraflow due to roadworks. Folk don't seem to realise that if they do not keep up with the car in front they are causing several poor sods to fail to get through on green and have to wait another 5 mins while the 5-way contraflow works its way through.

It's not restricted to driving though. I'm frequently in a line at the supermarket checkout and when the items are scanned and the amount requested this seems to take the customer by surprise who only then starts to root around in their bag for their sodding purse, followed by a flick through a wad of library cards, train tickets and god knows what to find their clubcard.

[Veryoldbear]

It is now normal when cars stop at traffic lights, the driver immediately starts looking at his / her phone in case they have missed something ...

[croyde]

Had the quick van in front of me this morning stop to let a chap out from the right as there was a red traffic light ahead.

Fella then reacted so slowly to the green and took light years to get moving only to virtually stop as he then manhandled the steering wheel of his Fiat 500 as if it was from a WW2 truck sans power steering, in order to turn left.

Only the van and I got through and that was on the amber.

2 lanes of traffic held up. That kind of thing happens so often, usually weekends and out of rush hour, that it's better to drive when all the other speed freaks are trying to get to work/home and don't suffer fools gladly.

London

[anderson64]

Try living in Dorset.

One main dual carriageway in from and to Southampton. I use this twice a day and most of the time we're sat in a line of cars in the outside lane
with speeds regulary around the 50 - 55mph mark, and often dropping down well below that, sometimes even getting down to 20ish. As you join the A31 from the M27 there's a long hill with a bend at the brow which usually drops the speed down to a standstill because people cant negotiate a bend on a dual carriageway!

It seems one of the major causes is the seemingly increasing number of people that are in lane one, but maintaining a steady 50, no doubt for economy, that force all the slower moving vehicles, trucks etc. into lane 2. Also the number of young drivers that will sit in the eoutside lane on a clear road and refuse to move over.

[Tommo87]

heebeegeetee said:

Tommo87 said:

There was a thread very recently where a number of posters suggested that they personally remain in the outside lane across multiple exits, irrespective of road sign or lines in the road.

I bet you won't be able to quote it.

The thread Tommo is referring to is the one where he was looking for an argument but struggled to find one, got people mixed up, got entirely the wrong end of the stick, made stuff up then and to my surprise is still making stuff up about it now. It was one of those PH threads where the likes of Tommo were *desperate* to prove someone wrong.

I went back to read it and sure enough, you said that you had been using the outside lane to drive all the way around the roundabout for years.

And that’s a quote.

[Gad-Westy]

popeyewhite said:

I quite often tailgate whilst waiting for the most convenient overtake. If it's not on I'll drop back. (shrugs) Not increasing my TED for anyone.

But if you start from further back, not only can you see far better but you will be starting to accelerate while still having nothing alongside you so if you've missed something you have an escape route. The actual time you spend alongside the car being overtaken is far reduced because you're travelling faster when you reach them. To me that is more important as that is the only time where you won't have the option to abort.

Edited by Gad-Westy on Thursday 28th March 07:34

[popeyewhite]

Gad-Westy said:

But if you start from further back, not only can you see far better but you will be starting to accelerate while still having nothing alongside you so if you've missed something you have an escape route. The actual time you spend alongside the car being overtaken is far reduced because you're travelling faster when you reach them. To me that is more important as that is the only time where you won't have the option to abort.

Edited by Gad-Westy on Thursday 28th March 07:34

Oh

[popeyewhite]

croyde said:

Only the van and I got through and that was on the amber.

Frequently a large number of the queuing cars don't get through lights as the front car lets another out into the road from a new mini Tesco. The queue has been there for 2/3 minutes, the car escaping from the mini Tesco about 30 seconds. This situation has now resulted in the queuing cars beeping at the lead car to remind them they are not, in fact, the only car in the whole bloody road that wants to use the lights. This sort of kindness, where a slowly moving car grinds to a halt to let another out from a side road thereby holding up all following traffic, is becoming more regular as it seems slower drivers are being more selfish, not less. I also notice whereas many years ago the use of foglights sans fog was restricted to boy racers and general idiots it's now almost exclusively small, slow moving cars with a concern for their own safety but none whatsoever for anybody else's.

[Hol]

anderson64 said:

Try living in Dorset.

One main dual carriageway in from and to Southampton. I use this twice a day and most of the time we're sat in a line of cars in the outside lane
with speeds regulary around the 50 - 55mph mark, and often dropping down well below that, sometimes even getting down to 20ish. As you join the A31 from the M27 there's a long hill with a bend at the brow which usually drops the speed down to a standstill because people cant negotiate a bend on a dual carriageway!

It seems one of the major causes is the seemingly increasing number of people that are in lane one, but maintaining a steady 50, no doubt for economy, that force all the slower moving vehicles, trucks etc. into lane 2. Also the number of young drivers that will sit in the eoutside lane on a clear road and refuse to move over.

Cool lurking.

I assume that’s the stretch out of Cadnan up the hill adjacent to Stony Cross?

That was just as ste when I lived in Lyndhurst 25 years ago.

But nowhere near as bad as the road captains blocking both lanes on the A36 between Whiteparish and Salisbury.

Agree that Dorset has some right muppets.

[irc]

Van in front of me at lights today hadn't moved off after 4 or 5 seconds on green.Even though I couldn' see the driver I said "get off your phone" tooted my horn and the van moved off. I undertook it before the next set of lights. It stopped behind me. Female driver. Sure enough head down looking at her lap. Lights changed. I went. She didn't and when I last saw her maybe 7 or 8 seconds later she hadn't moved. Obviously the drivers behind her were more patient than me.

I felt my undertake well justfied.

[M4cruiser]

Gad-Westy said:

A lot of problems on the road would be solved by people allowing appropriate distances to the vehicles in front.

^ Yes, included in that lot of problems is the occasional crash, causing huge jams.

[irc]

popeyewhite said:

Frequently a large number of the queuing cars don't get through lights as the front car lets another out into the road from a new mini Tesco. The queue has been there for 2/3 minutes, the car escaping from the mini Tesco about 30 seconds..

My pet hate also. The cars in the lights queue for 2 minutes have priority over the car from the side st waiting 30 seconds.

Especially as the drver letting 3 or 4 cars out gets through on green while 3 or 4 cars at the back don't get through, there place having been given up by the driver up ahead.

[M4cruiser]

bigothunter said:

Humans are naturally pedestrian who only need to look a few feet ahead. Moving at more than a few miles per hour is alien. Tailgating is ingrained.

The "natural human" bit is that most drivers aren't actively thinking about their driving, they just wait until something pops up in front of them, and the natural result of that is a gap of 0.8 seconds - that's when the car in front "pops up" at a size that makes a non-thinking person realise it's there. There's probably a psychological reason for that, but if you look at most moving motorway queues the gap is mostly 0.8 seconds. You have to actively think to allow the 2 seconds.

[Pit Pony]

popeyewhite said:

Gad-Westy said:

But if you start from further back, not only can you see far better but you will be starting to accelerate while still having nothing alongside you so if you've missed something you have an escape route. The actual time you spend alongside the car being overtaken is far reduced because you're travelling faster when you reach them. To me that is more important as that is the only time where you won't have the option to abort.

Edited by Gad-Westy on Thursday 28th March 07:34

Oh

Overtaking in a slow car is an art.
1) Coming up.to a bend you can't see around with a slow car in front. Make a big gap.
2) Start accelerating, mid bend, and hope that on the exit, that the next straight is empty.
3) if it is, you are already 20 mph faster than the slow car, and with luck they won't be a dick and accelerate down the straight.
4) if its not clear , hope that you have good brakes and try again at the next bend.

Practiced for 2 years driving from Settle to Burnley every day down country A roads in an AX 1.4D (with GT wheels)

[Pica-Pica]

Pit Pony said:

popeyewhite said:

Gad-Westy said:

But if you start from further back, not only can you see far better but you will be starting to accelerate while still having nothing alongside you so if you've missed something you have an escape route. The actual time you spend alongside the car being overtaken is far reduced because you're travelling faster when you reach them. To me that is more important as that is the only time where you won't have the option to abort.

Edited by Gad-Westy on Thursday 28th March 07:34

Oh

Overtaking in a slow car is an art.
1) Coming up.to a bend you can't see around with a slow car in front. Make a big gap.
2) Start accelerating, mid bend, and hope that on the exit, that the next straight is empty.
3) if it is, you are already 20 mph faster than the slow car, and with luck they won't be a dick and accelerate down the straight.
4) if its not clear , hope that you have good brakes and try again at the next bend.

Practiced for 2 years driving from Settle to Burnley every day down country A roads in an AX 1.4D (with GT wheels)

You missed out one point.
I was following a BMW which in turn was stuck behind a large truck. He was way too close. I hung back and could see past both on the long left hand bend, so was assured that the distant road ahead was clear. As the bend was finishing I could close the gap, pull out for a final check for nearer traffic and any RHSide junctions on the now straight road, and then go. That was in a 1.2 Fabia