Road rage attack M25..

[Tallbutbuxomly]

Blakewater said:

Tallbutbuxomly said:

It's quite easy really.

1st you shouldn't BE in lane three if there is free space to your left. Even excluding that fact if you are in lane 3 and there is space enough to your left its quite easy to tell if someone behind will want to get past because you will see them approaching in your rear view mirrors at which point it is simply polite to move left to let them pass.

If there was so much space to her left why didn't she move over and go round the guy in the Mercedes as he tried to stop her? If she wasn't paying attention how come she didn't drive into the back of him?

As I've said before, I've encountered many people tailgating others in the outside lane of the motorway angry they aren't getting out of the way when there is no room to the left and no way they can drive faster for the traffic in front. People don't always behave rationally on the road, whether they're holding others up or expecting traffic to part like the Red Sea for them to get through. Would you say that every victim of a random shooting or terrorist attack had it coming?

Ok thats a reasonable commentary. True he may have been mistaken however my argument here is that I very much doubt the scenario that there was too much traffic for her to move left on that section of the M25 at that time of day. It's not impossible obviously but I feel very unlikely.

As to the why didn't she go round him? I have seen this sort of stupid road rage before and seen a similar situation and the person being brake tested tends to slam on anchors and not change lane. I don't know why not but it is what seems to happen almost like a panic reaction.

As to why she didnt slam into him when he braked she was most likely paying attention forward but not back. A large proportion of people seem to think there is only cars in front of them. They have no consideration of traffic from their sides or rear.

I have had more people than I care to remember pull out on me as if I wasn't even there when approaching to their right. I have had people try to pull right into the same piece of road I am occupying right next to them.

I am frankly astonished that I have yet to actually get hit.

I would judge around 80% of people behind the wheel of cars in this country incompetent and unsafe and unworthy of having a license hence my view of her driving. There was at best a 20% chance she did not provoke him. Odds are stacked against her in my books.

Crumbs I have even had a trafpol car pull out on me without looking from the hard shoulder forcing me to emergency brake as I couldn't move left and I was within the speed limit.

I treat every other vehicle on the roads as an accident waiting to happen and involve me. Its like a horrid paranoid nightmare that never ends.

[Strawman]

Tallbutbuxomly said:

I would judge around 80% of people behind the wheel of cars in this country incompetent and unsafe and unworthy of having a license hence my view of her driving.

Assumption,anyway would it be better for the countries economy if A) 4 in every 5 people no longer were allowed to drive, despite the UK having among the safest roads in the world, habitually in the top 3, or B) you did a different job where you didn't have to drive 30,000 miles per year?

[Tallbutbuxomly]

Strawman said:

Tallbutbuxomly said:

I would judge around 80% of people behind the wheel of cars in this country incompetent and unsafe and unworthy of having a license hence my view of her driving.

Assumption,anyway would it be better for the countries economy if A) 4 in every 5 people no longer were allowed to drive, despite the UK having among the safest roads in the world, habitually in the top 3, or B) you did a different job where you didn't have to drive 30,000 miles per year?

Sadly B: Hence why I am presently actively looking for a job and in fact country move.

A shame since the roads are pretty damn decent all told. We are too far down the road now to change anything although the shift to truly dense is happening worryingly fast of late.

[Blakewater]

Very true. You have to be ready for anything to happen and drive as if everybody is at the lowest level of ability. However, you still have no idea what actually happened in this particular instance, especially as the supposed facts of the case haven't necessarily been accurately presented by the press. In all your experience of driving on busy motorways, have you never been tailgated by someone, however briefly, before you managed to get out of his way or shake him off? Have you ever been tailgated by someone in solid lanes of traffic where you couldn't move over? If it happened, did you follow Highway Code advice and increase the stopping distance between yourself and the car in front to allow you to slow gradually if the traffic ahead stopped and avoid being rammed by the tailgating driver? This would be seen by the tailgating driver as deliberately slowing down and not keeping up with the traffic and an attempt to further antagonise him. You must at some point have been a victim of road rage and I don't suppose you thought that person would have been justified in forcing you to stop on the motorway, damaging your car or attacking you. What they felt was dealt with by a rude gesture, mouthed obscenity or blast of the horn a driver from a country where disagreements are sorted through fisticuffs in the middle of the road might have decided to take further.

[DonkeyApple]

Story reads like it was just another backward, low functioning, Eastern European mong driving like a tt and acting all third world.

J9 to J20 are riddled with them in their clapped out German wagons.

[uk66fastback]

Tallbutbuxomly said:

technically a very minor thing and certainly not worth getting overly worked up about.. or so you would think. But then consider if he had just driven like I described 60 odd miles and was consistently held up by other road users in the wrong lane in a little universe all of their own.

Held up once for a mile or three by a dimwit is no big deal even twice or three times. But if you were like I was friday to do a whole 60 miles and consistently get held up by the self same type of wrong lane idiot you can very easily go from "no big deal" to full scale rage at their utter incompetence.

Don't drive a Merc do you - I reckon you're the man. Hand yourself in.

If you don't like sitting nose to tail for 60 miles, move out of the south-east - simple!

How you get IN your car with a fking head as big as yours I don't know

[Blakewater]

My nextdoor neighbours moved to Spain full of talk about this country being finished and were back within a year. Someone I used to work with didn't last there more than a couple of years and came back because the schools and the healthcare weren't good enough. Plus, as much as they like you as tourists spending money there for a couple of weeks and then going home, if you move there you suddenly become the hated immigrants taking local people's jobs and forming ghettos and doing everything we complain about Eastern European and Asian people doing. As for driving, there are idiots everywhere but Britain is relatively good by a long shot. A few ditherers in overtaking lanes are more annoying than anything else but the balls out risk taking people routinely take in some countries, and the violence that ensues over every little disagreement, are truly terrifying. Beware of thinking the grass is greener on the other side because it rarely is.

[Tallbutbuxomly]

Blakewater said:

Very true. You have to be ready for anything to happen and drive as if everybody is at the lowest level of ability. However, you still have no idea what actually happened in this particular instance, especially as the supposed facts of the case haven't necessarily been accurately presented by the press. In all your experience of driving on busy motorways, have you never been tailgated by someone, however briefly, before you managed to get out of his way or shake him off? Have you ever been tailgated by someone in solid lanes of traffic where you couldn't move over? If it happened, did you follow Highway Code advice and increase the stopping distance between yourself and the car in front to allow you to slow gradually if the traffic ahead stopped and avoid being rammed by the tailgating driver? This would be seen by the tailgating driver as deliberately slowing down and not keeping up with the traffic and an attempt to further antagonise him. You must at some point have been a victim of road rage and I don't suppose you thought that person would have been justified in forcing you to stop on the motorway, damaging your car or attacking you. What they felt was dealt with by a rude gesture, mouthed obscenity or blast of the horn a driver from a country where disagreements are sorted through fisticuffs in the middle of the road might have decided to take further.

Never been a victim of road rage that I can recall. I have had people sit right up my arse before but it really doesnt phase me at all whatever speed we may be doing.

Do I increase my following distance to the car in front? Certainly all the time as it happens on a regular basis when sat in traffic.
However by and large I keep the distance by simply using throttle modulation to maintain a safe enough distance and to keep an escape route open should I need one.

someone constantly braking to keep a gap open ahead will always wind the following car up.

[Tallbutbuxomly]

uk66fastback said:

Tallbutbuxomly said:

technically a very minor thing and certainly not worth getting overly worked up about.. or so you would think. But then consider if he had just driven like I described 60 odd miles and was consistently held up by other road users in the wrong lane in a little universe all of their own.

Held up once for a mile or three by a dimwit is no big deal even twice or three times. But if you were like I was friday to do a whole 60 miles and consistently get held up by the self same type of wrong lane idiot you can very easily go from "no big deal" to full scale rage at their utter incompetence.

Don't drive a Merc do you - I reckon you're the man. Hand yourself in.

If you don't like sitting nose to tail for 60 miles, move out of the south-east - simple!

How you get IN your car with a fking head as big as yours I don't know

I have to admit it is quite tricky part of the reason I have toyed with getting a convertible instead.

[Transmat]

Tallbutbuxomly said:

I would judge around 80% of people behind the wheel of cars in this country incompetent and unsafe and unworthy of having a license hence my view of her driving. There was at best a 20% chance she did not provoke him. Odds are stacked against her in my books.

Crumbs I have even had a trafpol car pull out on me without looking from the hard shoulder forcing me to emergency brake as I couldn't move left and I was within the speed limit.

I treat every other vehicle on the roads as an accident waiting to happen and involve me. Its like a horrid paranoid nightmare that never ends.

Would you say you were in the 80% or 20%? And in your opinion what's the criteria to get into this 20%?

[pthelazyjourno]

Tallbutbuxomly said:

And finally. He would not have attacked her car if she had done nothing wrong. Therefore it is safe to assume she did in fact do something to provoke him.

You do realise that people are capable of acting without provocation?

I've seen it on a number of occasions. And because I've experienced it (happening to other people, not me), by your rationale it's safe to assume she didn't do anything to provoke him?!

Of course it's not safe (to use your term) to assume anything - she may well have played a part in the issue, she may not have done. To presume she did because you've seen other people drive like idiots is just daft.

[DuncanM]

swerni said:

DuncanM said:

swerni said:

Bet lane 2 and 3 were empty.

Bet she'll be more careful with her lane selection next time

Poor lane discipline = justifiable dangerous driving (coming to a halt in the F'ing fast lane) AND violent attack on someone's property?

Either you're completely mental or joking, which is it?

I left a very subtle clue as to which at the end of my post.

For the hard of thinking, I shall do it again

Soz, poor thinking/reading on my part.

[Tallbutbuxomly]

Transmat said:

Tallbutbuxomly said:

I would judge around 80% of people behind the wheel of cars in this country incompetent and unsafe and unworthy of having a license hence my view of her driving. There was at best a 20% chance she did not provoke him. Odds are stacked against her in my books.

Crumbs I have even had a trafpol car pull out on me without looking from the hard shoulder forcing me to emergency brake as I couldn't move left and I was within the speed limit.

I treat every other vehicle on the roads as an accident waiting to happen and involve me. Its like a horrid paranoid nightmare that never ends.

Would you say you were in the 80% or 20%? And in your opinion what's the criteria to get into this 20%?

Clearly I judge myself to be in the 20% of whom I would say 15% like myself are average drivers and 5% good/excellent.

Criteria is the ability to drive courteously and safely. The ability to drive the road without running into other moving or stationary objects.

I judge myself to be somewhere in the top 20% on the grounds that I have managed to drive 400k miles without causing an accident or getting my license endorsed.

[Horse Pop]

There is no justification or mitigation for this at all.
You'd have to be a nutter to do any of that.
I know everyone on an internet forum is Sheldon Cooper, but still.

Edited by Horse Pop on Monday 17th June 13:57

[oyster]

Spoof said:

From the woman drivers I know, including my wife, I'd wager she had done something to get on his tits. (Probably nothing in the eyes of the law, as they're only interested in excessive speed -as is obvious by the standard of driving in the UK these days) but courtesy, lane discipline, holding speeds, manoeuvring without giving a damn for closing speed of the vehicle you are pulling out on or size of gap (the old simultaneous indicate / manoeuvre - very popular these days, indicators give you instant right apparently) all just seem the norm now.

I'm not condoning the actions he took though, he has obviously got some issues.

I might be wrong, but having been wound up, even sat in the passenger seat while my wife drives, I can't imagine this is all the one sided story we're being fed.

It's extremely one-sided. It's about as one-sided as it gets.
One driver brake tested another on a highly dangerous road, then attacked their car. The other driver didn't.

[Transmat]

Tallbutbuxomly said:

Clearly I judge myself to be in the 20% of whom I would say 15% like myself are average drivers and 5% good/excellent.

Criteria is the ability to drive courteously and safely. The ability to drive the road without running into other moving or stationary objects.

I judge myself to be somewhere in the top 20% on the grounds that I have managed to drive 400k miles without causing an accident or getting my license endorsed.

Absolute nonsense criteria. For starters you can hit something and it not be your fault. You can also have a clean license and just be lucky.

[0000]

Transmat said:

Absolute nonsense criteria. For starters you can hit something and it not be your fault. You can also have a clean license and just be lucky.

400k miles is an awful lot of sheer luck!

[Transmat]

0000 said:

400k miles is an awful lot of sheer luck!

In the same way someone can be a great driver and have an awful lot of sheer bad luck be being hit twice in a week. You can't base good driving on not having an accident.

[Tallbutbuxomly]

Transmat said:

Tallbutbuxomly said:

Clearly I judge myself to be in the 20% of whom I would say 15% like myself are average drivers and 5% good/excellent.

Criteria is the ability to drive courteously and safely. The ability to drive the road without running into other moving or stationary objects.

I judge myself to be somewhere in the top 20% on the grounds that I have managed to drive 400k miles without causing an accident or getting my license endorsed.

Absolute nonsense criteria. For starters you can hit something and it not be your fault. You can also have a clean license and just be lucky.

Oh this is going to be good. Please explain how its possible to hit something and it not be your fault.

I am not "lucky" not to have been caught speeding. It is using observation that has stopped me getting a ticket. Do you think I drive everywhere below the speed limit? I do most of my driving on motorways and DC and am rarely below the speed limit if it can be helped.

I regularly come across mobile speed camera vans but amazingly because I am looking ahead I see them long before they get the opportunity to see or ping me.

[Strawman]

Arguing whether TB is in the top 20% of drivers or not is fairly futile, as he's acknowledged already the road network wasn't solely built to convey the top 20% (more like 90% +).