Biggest Fear About Driving?
Discussion
Living in the country and driving down single track lanes almost daily, I shudder at tractors with hay spears/spikes attached to them. They normally lift them above traffic but I have been faced with one of these emerging from a hedge (gate) at head level before.
Edited by Pannywagon on Thursday 8th April 12:27
I'm a pretty relaxed driver but I do sometimes have in the back of my mind that someone is just going to something inexplicably stupid and dangerous. Like you see on some of the dash cam footage where there's literally no rhyme or reason for a big smash.
Had something random but not overly dramatic but joining the M25 and junction 12. I'm in the right hand lane due to join, cars in the left lane that merges further up. Middle ages guy in a silver Citroen indicates and literally tries to merge into my car. I had no where to go other than across solid white lines so I gave as much space as I could but at one point we were both technically in the same lane almost next to each other. He literally had no concept of giving way and seemed to have no idea that he'd just moved lanes into the side/path of a faster moving vehicle.
Then once behind my vehicle I got a load of gestures. I think he'd completely misread the signage and thought he had to merge there and that I was stopping him. When it wasn't the case at all.
I suppose in short, it's just cretinous morons on the road I fear most!
Had something random but not overly dramatic but joining the M25 and junction 12. I'm in the right hand lane due to join, cars in the left lane that merges further up. Middle ages guy in a silver Citroen indicates and literally tries to merge into my car. I had no where to go other than across solid white lines so I gave as much space as I could but at one point we were both technically in the same lane almost next to each other. He literally had no concept of giving way and seemed to have no idea that he'd just moved lanes into the side/path of a faster moving vehicle.
Then once behind my vehicle I got a load of gestures. I think he'd completely misread the signage and thought he had to merge there and that I was stopping him. When it wasn't the case at all.
I suppose in short, it's just cretinous morons on the road I fear most!
oceanview said:
Getting done for speeding.
Years back, 100mph plus on DC/Motorway, no worries but now, very rarely do it- and then hope Waze is working well for plod/camera alerts, and there's no road captains with a dash cam, that they want to send footage of! ( Not sure if most old bill would bother with this though unless something bad happened).
Yep tYears back, 100mph plus on DC/Motorway, no worries but now, very rarely do it- and then hope Waze is working well for plod/camera alerts, and there's no road captains with a dash cam, that they want to send footage of! ( Not sure if most old bill would bother with this though unless something bad happened).
ts all of them! as well as vigilante cyclists with cams (check out CyclingMikey on YT, that makes my blood boil!). However I think you’ll only be prosecuted by police for dangerous driving caught on cam, not for speeding by itself. As others have posted, I would have to go with falling asleep at the wheel. When I was doing around 52000 miles a year for work, it meant quite a lot of very early morning, very late at night driving, and I nearly fell off the perch a few times.
It is frighteningly insidious, because one second you are awake behind the wheel thinking about driving / something, the next second you are asleep behind the wheel, but dreaming (not thinking) about something.
Fortunately I only did this early on in the job, and learned to recognize the warning signs, and `made' myself stop at the nearest safe place, even when when either get home-itis, or get to the job site on time-itis was trying to make me carry on. Better by far, to get there late, than never at all.
It is frighteningly insidious, because one second you are awake behind the wheel thinking about driving / something, the next second you are asleep behind the wheel, but dreaming (not thinking) about something.
Fortunately I only did this early on in the job, and learned to recognize the warning signs, and `made' myself stop at the nearest safe place, even when when either get home-itis, or get to the job site on time-itis was trying to make me carry on. Better by far, to get there late, than never at all.
Stick Legs said:
Rexii said:
Fair enough dude but you do realise that flying has such a low probability of getting into a bad situation
I do, but you are miles up in a paraffin budgie driven by someone else. The brain does funny things. 
Planet Claire said:
There has been one time where I woke up bolt upright having this nightmare just before I "crashed" into car in front. I thought that kind of thing only happened in films.
When I was 18 I used to work in a pub on the opposite side of town. I used to drive back home about 1am along some NSL dual carriageways with concrete pedestrian bridges over. Obviously I used this as an opportunity to see exactly what my 1.3 Fiat 131 was capable of.I distinctly remember a vivid dream where I was hammering down one of these DCs, when for reasons unknown I lost control and the car left the road sideways and airborne, heading for the pillar of one of the pedestrian bridges. Just as the car door was about to make contact with the concrete pillar of the bridge, I awoke in a state of panic, the like of which I've never known since. Heart racing, cold sweat, the lot. A very strange experience!
Pulling out in front of someone at a T junction and causing an accident.
I know we’re all supposed to be driving gods etc but a moment’s lapse in concentration and it’s done.
I’ve done mileage of well into 7 figures mostly town/urban driving and admit to doing it 2 or 3 times, fortunately without any consequences apart from feeling extremely stupid. Funnily if someone does it to me in the car (as has happened to everyone let’s face it) I’ll swear a bit and carry on my drive. Do it yourself and it’ll bug you for a long time.
I can’t say anything else bothers me, at least not in the car.
On the motorbike is another whole new question.
Joey Deacon said:
5)Overtaking stationary buses whilst forcing cars on the other side of the road to stop.
This seems to happen to me on a daily basis on the way back from work. People just blindly follow the car in front of them round the stationary bus and expect oncoming traffic to perform an emergency stop. If I see them doing this towards me, I always stop level with the front of the bus so they can't get through. This means they have to back up, though if someone has followed them through they have to wait for the bus to drive off, leaving them sat awkwardly on the wrong side of the road! To accommodate their behaviour is to encourage it.MrGTI6 said:
Joey Deacon said:
5)Overtaking stationary buses whilst forcing cars on the other side of the road to stop.
This seems to happen to me on a daily basis on the way back from work. People just blindly follow the car in front of them round the stationary bus and expect oncoming traffic to perform an emergency stop. If I see them doing this towards me, I always stop level with the front of the bus so they can't get through. This means they have to back up, though if someone has followed them through they have to wait for the bus to drive off, leaving them sat awkwardly on the wrong side of the road! To accommodate their behaviour is to encourage it.
MrGTI6 said:
This seems to happen to me on a daily basis on the way back from work. People just blindly follow the car in front of them round the stationary bus and expect oncoming traffic to perform an emergency stop. If I see them doing this towards me, I always stop level with the front of the bus so they can't get through. This means they have to back up, though if someone has followed them through they have to wait for the bus to drive off, leaving them sat awkwardly on the wrong side of the road! To accommodate their behaviour is to encourage it.
This is dangerous driving.... you’re stopping the flow of traffic for you’re own entertainment... stop being a princessGassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff