Please allow me a little rant about overtaking
Discussion
I'm sorry that this HAS been done before but I feel the need to have a bit of a rant.
I'm getting rather fed up of people's hostility when overtaking, not the usual about people getting overtaken spitting their dummies out because in this case the chap was fine. The person showing hostility was the person coming towards me... Not only that, the person behind did the same. Now some people will have already taken the 'well if two people objected then you must have been doing something wrong' attitude but just hear me out.
Coming along your usual country road behind a chap driving fine but merrily sauntering along at 40 in a NSL. This is fine, of course, and I keep my distance. We approach a section where I know one can overtake, this section snakes along (left then right) through a dip and you can clearly see whether there is traffic. In this case there were two cars moving towards but I knew I could easily and safely overtake without causing the chap in front to need to take any negative action.
I pulled past him and as I was pulling back in (in plenty of time) the chap approaching beeped his horn (plus angry face, grr) and then the woman behind him started flashing her lights at me. Neither person had to brake or avoid me in any way, they just objected to my overtake.
Now up to this point I've deliberately not mentioned my speed. At no point did I exceed the speed limit, the overtake was so safe that I had time to glance down at my speedo to confirm this.
This type of behaviour is very frustrating and it spoilt the nice drive out as I immediately start questioning whether I was in the wrong. I'm always happy to admit when I'm wrong by the way and I'm always critical of my driving. I genuinely don't think I was wrong... In fact, I KNOW I wasn't.
Rant over, sorry for no sweary words
I'm getting rather fed up of people's hostility when overtaking, not the usual about people getting overtaken spitting their dummies out because in this case the chap was fine. The person showing hostility was the person coming towards me... Not only that, the person behind did the same. Now some people will have already taken the 'well if two people objected then you must have been doing something wrong' attitude but just hear me out.
Coming along your usual country road behind a chap driving fine but merrily sauntering along at 40 in a NSL. This is fine, of course, and I keep my distance. We approach a section where I know one can overtake, this section snakes along (left then right) through a dip and you can clearly see whether there is traffic. In this case there were two cars moving towards but I knew I could easily and safely overtake without causing the chap in front to need to take any negative action.
I pulled past him and as I was pulling back in (in plenty of time) the chap approaching beeped his horn (plus angry face, grr) and then the woman behind him started flashing her lights at me. Neither person had to brake or avoid me in any way, they just objected to my overtake.
Now up to this point I've deliberately not mentioned my speed. At no point did I exceed the speed limit, the overtake was so safe that I had time to glance down at my speedo to confirm this.
This type of behaviour is very frustrating and it spoilt the nice drive out as I immediately start questioning whether I was in the wrong. I'm always happy to admit when I'm wrong by the way and I'm always critical of my driving. I genuinely don't think I was wrong... In fact, I KNOW I wasn't.
Rant over, sorry for no sweary words
Something similar happened to me about a year ago - an overtake down a twisty hill on the common lead to some bloke in the Audi approaching from about a kilometre away flashing his lights wildly and pointing angrily.
Such was the distance between us that a friend who was behind me also had plenty of room to overtake and in his words "saw the Audi flashing at you from the bottom of the hill so I gave him the finger when I went past" - a move which, though I don't condone it, did make me giggle quite heartily at the time.
Another favourite is to do the left-right-left-right indicators to thank the very angry man who has taken it upon himself to flash and point and wave his fists. In my case, he flashed his lights in even quicker succession and proceeded to clench his pointing hand even harder.
It turned out he lives a few doors down from me and voiced his displeasure at a later date
Such was the distance between us that a friend who was behind me also had plenty of room to overtake and in his words "saw the Audi flashing at you from the bottom of the hill so I gave him the finger when I went past" - a move which, though I don't condone it, did make me giggle quite heartily at the time.
Another favourite is to do the left-right-left-right indicators to thank the very angry man who has taken it upon himself to flash and point and wave his fists. In my case, he flashed his lights in even quicker succession and proceeded to clench his pointing hand even harder.
It turned out he lives a few doors down from me and voiced his displeasure at a later date
MagicalTrevor said:
I should have said, I was I the Clio so was probably branded as 'boy racer'. I did think that afterwards.
Clio 172 and BMW... Can't win really can I!
No you can't I have the same issue in my Celica. Perfectly safe overtakes get barrage of lights/horn/etc... Clio 172 and BMW... Can't win really can I!
I've even had driver get very angry because I overtook him on long straight road me doing ~60mph, him doing ~40mph.
I've discovered the secret to overtakes without any single negative reaction so far.
Only difference I can see is I'm now a motorbike.
I too have had many occasions like yours in cars, very annoying. I think its ignorance based, they (the great unwashed) see a huge straight but know their own s
t box would struggle to get by, so therefore any other car will also struggle, so therefore (in their tiny little minds) if they don't think they could overtake you are obviously some idiot intent on killing everyone around you.
If you are on a motorbike they just think "bikes are fast it'll be out the way fine, don't need much road" or "I'm in my car its only a bike, so I don't care it coming the other way towards me".
Only difference I can see is I'm now a motorbike.
I too have had many occasions like yours in cars, very annoying. I think its ignorance based, they (the great unwashed) see a huge straight but know their own s
t box would struggle to get by, so therefore any other car will also struggle, so therefore (in their tiny little minds) if they don't think they could overtake you are obviously some idiot intent on killing everyone around you. If you are on a motorbike they just think "bikes are fast it'll be out the way fine, don't need much road" or "I'm in my car its only a bike, so I don't care it coming the other way towards me".
I've learnt to ignore it and not give it a second thought. On Friday I managed a superb overtake of 5 cars and a truck on one straight, they had all been following the truck at 40mph for miles and miles, there had been several long straights but nobody even made a move to overtake. We reached another long straight and I just trundled past them all. I didn't notice any abuse but I suspect most of them remained asleep and didn't notice I had passed.
The art of overtaking has left the building!
The art of overtaking has left the building!
I braked hard from 60/70 to 30 and flashed my lights the other day to 'avoid' an oncoming car overtaking; in retrospect I may have been unfair but it caused me alarm at the time. Look at it from their perspective - you know your own intentions, competence and probably even closing speed; they don't know whether you're going to make it fine or whether it's Stevie Wonder's big day out. The first car brakes hard unnecessarily and the second has to as well, with the assumption that it was you wot caused it.
trashbat said:
I braked hard from 70 to 30 and flashed my lights the other day to 'avoid' an oncoming car overtaking; in retrospect I may have been unfair but it caused me alarm at the time. Look at it from their perspective - you know your own intentions, competence and probably even closing speed; they don't know whether you're going to make it fine or whether it's Stevie Wonder's big day out. The first car brakes hard unnecessarily and the second has to as well, with the assumption that it was you wot caused it.
I'm sensitive to this possibility of course. The gap really was big enough to, IMO, not cause alarm to the oncoming traffic. Don't let it spoil the drive. If you're in the right just ignore them.
I love going out for drives these days. All the sheep just line themselves up to be overtaken. You can see the steam just pouring out as you go past them and they get wound up by the sheer audacity that somebody would want to make progress.
I love going out for drives these days. All the sheep just line themselves up to be overtaken. You can see the steam just pouring out as you go past them and they get wound up by the sheer audacity that somebody would want to make progress.
Another Ph'r summed it up perfectly for me the other week
"Overtaking" = "queue jumping" to 90% of the thunders on the roads today
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Get used to it it's only going to get worse
PS earliest ref to the queue jumping thing was
"Overtaking" = "queue jumping" to 90% of the thunder
s on the roads todayking arthur said:
It's because they think that driving is like queuing at the post office. By overtaking them you've pushed in.
From this threadhttp://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Get used to it it's only going to get worse
PS earliest ref to the queue jumping thing was
y2blade said:
they see overtaking (in a non-dual carriageway or motorway situation) as something along the lines of "oi Mavis look, that bd is jumping the queue"
d is jumping the queue" Edited by B'stard Child on Monday 25th July 22:48
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