Other peoples very irritating driving habits! : <

Silver/grey cars driving in poor visibility with no lights on.

BMWs without the optional indicators.

Cyclists who don't give way when crossing the end of my road on the cycle path despite the give way lines on the pavement.

Cyclists who don't use lights

Finally a 'there is a god moment'.

I was turning right on a roundabout when a pillock in an open topped BMW tore out in front of me and cut up another car on his way on to the local by-pass. About a mile up the road we were hit by a horrendous downpour - visibility was zilch. Prat in the beamer had pulled over and was putting his electric roof up before said beamer converted into a cold bath.

quote:

Originally posted by rodwsmith:
I live in a part of the world where the French and the Italians vie with each other as to who can drive the most, er, creatively.

When I was in Germany last on the Autobahn I was impressed by German drivers, but I had a French car tailgating at one point. Six feet at 110mph is bloody scary! Naturally I pulled into the first available gap in the slow lane and let the maniac past...

Well lets all get the opinion of a professional and very highly qualifed police driver Over to you AndyC

Beware the French driver in an 06-plated car.

They have Italian blood in them. And sometimes on them.

Cars here are either very new, or very dented.

I drive an auto too. Sitting stationary with the brake lights glowing is frequently blamed on drivers of autos but when recently walking beside a long queue of stationary traffic I did a quick poll of manuals versus autos. Every single car in the queue was showing brake lights and they were all manuals. I don’t find this habit particularly irritating compared with some of the other antics I see, but at night in particular it is inconsiderate and can add a little bit more to the aches and pains. I am aware that some people find it extremely irritating and painful to look at and I try to drive with this in mind. Having a hand brake that can actually hold a car against creep is useful and not something you can take for granted. When stationary in traffic I display brake lights until the car behind me has come to a stop. My parking brake comes off the four main callipers so it’s a good firm hold. A secondary, more conventional parking brake is engaged if the engine is switched off. I can also programme my parking brake to come on automatically when I roll to a halt, and disengage when I move forward. It’s a good system. One of those things that seems of no practical use until you try it. Then you wonder why every car doesn’t have it.

Cheers

The interesting thing is that drivers are not really told not to do this. When I learnt to drive I was only told to engage the hand brake if I was three or more cars back from a red light, or in a long line of stationary traffic, (or parking obviously) , its use at roundabouts or stopping-starting traffic wasn't encouraged. When I did my "Pass Plus" my instructor told me "don't bother with the hand brake, you don't actually need it, they just like to see that you know what it does on the test"...

I do use it somewhat more now, partly due to the fact that the Audi's handbrake is actually easy and quick to engage and disengage, whereas the one in the fiesta I learnt in was a pig to release and needed to be pulled quite hard to be put on effectively.

You wait all "Summer" for a little sun and what do you get - Dog Day Afternoon.

I know hi-fi, driving and love-making prowess are the red buttons of male pride - let's try to NOT to conflate them.

quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:

I know hi-fi, driving and love-making prowess are the red buttons of male pride - let's try to NOT to conflate them.

That's what I do with the latest object of my passion. Or is that "Inflate"?

I'm sure Tony is talking balls!



Inflatable balls that is ...

Having read all the things that we dont like i find it rather amazing that only one person has mentioned people who drive in the middle lane on a motorway when the nearside lane is clearly empty.
I find this particularly frustrating - it is quite normal to see six/seven cars all in the middle lane with the outside lane full of vehicles waiting to overtake. If those in the middle lane pulled over it would speed things up a bit for all.
Anyway, i thought we drove on the left in this country.

It seems that only other people have irritating driving habits. Similarly, we are never the cause of "traffic" but always just stuck in traffic that is caused by others - "Just where the hell could all these bloody plonkers be going!?!? Just get out of my f%$#ing way!"

Sell the car. Live locally. Don't drive. Walk. Ride your bike. Take the bus. It solves it all. The car will be viewed (by those few remaining on the planet after the current primate infestation has destroyed the natural world) to be mankind's greatest folly. By allowing mobility it has conned us into a distributed and unsustainable existence.

I saw a great piece of logic a while back: If we eschew the car and the distributed lifestyle, we eventually end up with more of what everyone values:

1) We save money.
2) We live near our friends and family. Ok it's hard to reverse this one once we've moved away from our families and made friends elsewhere, but if we never did this in the first place - well I hope you see what I mean. If we didn't have mobility we would never have moved away.
3) We become more physically active and fitter
4) We save time. The car once allowed us the opportunity to save time, but foolishly, we traded that for greater distances travelled so that we now spend more time traveling than ever. Again, hard to reverse once your employment is remote from your home, but this is, in-fact a choice we make at various times.
5) We remove stress from our lives. Road rage anybody?
6) We reduce our environmental impact. A lot.
7) We save lives. Driving and riding in cars is the most dangerous thing most of us do, and by a fair margin.

My point is that cars ruin everything. Discuss.

Groundhog day?

/dl

quote:

Originally posted by David Legge:
Groundhog day?

/dl

Huh?

winkyincanada - i do see your point, but the car is a 'must have' for many people. I am sure i have bad habits as does everybody else but there is nothing wrong with having a little moan!
Take the bus? I live in a small village with few amenities and the last bus to anywhere leaves at 6.45pm. Not the greatest of service! I work shifts, regularly starting work in the early hours of the day so for me a car is a 'must have'.
Has anybody else got a terrible bus service?

Mike
terrible bus services......
We also live in a small village, in North Essex.
We get total 4 buses a day, 2 to Braintee & 2 to Chelmsford. Our closest town is Great Dunmow, approx 4 miles away. There are NO buses at all to there!
Bad driving habits?
Coming back from Cambridge last Saturday, down the M11. Absolutely pouring down with rain, very bad visibility. The M11 stretch there is only 2 lanes wide. I'm in the outside lane, doing about 60mph max. Some twat in a BMW 3series coupe does the typical BMW thing & "undertakes" me, just (& I mean JUST) squeezing in between me & the lorry to the inside of me. How we didn't crash is still a mystery. If I could have stopped the world, got out of my car, kicked the living sh1t out of him & thrown his car keys into the bushes I would have done.
Rant over.
Matt.

Matt (manicatel)
4 buses a day? That is not a terrible service - it's a complete joke! Does anybody actually use them? No wonder we all have cars...

People that slow down or stop at every opportunity. Roundabout approaching, nice and clear, good visibility... stop. AAAAAARGGGHHH!

A big bunch of keys that a Tower of London jailer would be proud of hanging from the ignition. Worn lock anyone?

Lobbing dog ends out of the window. Oh I'm so glad your car doesn't smell like a smoker's car. Dikkedd.

On a positive note, I love to see simpletons with Twat Nav drive into a kerb because they were so busy looking at the huge display blocking their view and killing their night vision. Really cheers me up.

Tony

My wife has recently developed the annoying habit of parking her car into the wall that runs up our drive. Twice.

Ho hum

Bruce (who has of course never scratched his car by careless driving such as entering a busy station drop off zone via the No-Entry sign or had a fine for parking on double yellow lines partly blocking access to the car park of a large city Police Station. Ever.)

I understand that what I have suggested is very hard to impossible for a lot of people as individuals to do. They are choices that we as a society could perhaps make over time, though. If the bus service is non-existent, then an individual can't do much about it. If there are no local amenities, what can one person do? If jobs are concentrated in the centre of expensive cities, well that's the way it is.

These things change slowly by way of collective decisions. We effectively vote with our individual choices. Infrequent buss? Patronise them when you can. Changing jobs? Choose the one nearer home when possible. Thinking of moving house? Just make travel needs a higher priority. "Penalise" distance more in your evaluation of factors. Move closer to the "travel-centre" of work/family/friends/hobbies - make the choice to minimise travel needs (distance x number of trips). These choices are are a trade-off. If everybody wants to live "closer" it necessitates smaller private spaces. Contrast London and Phoenix. In London, I'd have to live in "shoe-box, in middle'o'road", but I would still choose that over car-addicted Phoenix and a sprawling McMansion in the desert.

My point is that there are alternative models that we as s society could perhaps work towards. Can you imagine how good public transport would be if that is all there was? If there were no private vehicles, demand would mean that it would economic to provide bus and train services that are frequent, flexible, safe, clean and inexpensive (or at least less expensive than owning and operating cars). If people had to live locally, it would be economic for business to respond and provide local services. It used to be this way before we all had cars. We didn't travel as much, but I like to think that this wasn't so bad. Most travel, for most of us, has become a routine, expensive and stressful chore.

Sorry to hi-jack the thread, You're right, it's great to have a little moan. I was lucky enough to be in a position to sell my car years ago and I have never been happier (or had more spare cash).

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
My point is that cars ruin everything. Discuss.

Winky,

I have a lot of sympathy for what you’ve said here.

But although the problems are known to us all, the solutions aren’t so easy to reach.
If we look how long (over a century) the world has been gradually ‘socially conditioned’ into accepting car transport, and eventually the greater masses becoming dependant upon it, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that any about-turn would take a few more decades to reach appropriate alternatives. This is an point of view I remember reading about 25 years ago in ‘Friends of the Earth’ literature. Since then, not only has nothing been done about it, but the situation has gotten much worse and keeps getting worser.

The motor car is a very desirable object to an overwhelming majority of people and for all kinds of reasons but mainly the sense of practicality and freedom it can give.
But the deeper meaning, to my cynical mind, is that it gives corporations, industrialists and politicians the means to sell, charge, tax and profit hugely from people who have become unable to adjust or adapt to non-car ownership.

Bit of a catch-twenty two situation really! : (

nymph

nymph,

I guess I would argue on the basis that if we think about what is really important to us, we can make decisions that also move society the "right way" without being martyrs. For example we gain immediate overall benefit from a decision to live closer to our work in the city, provided we recognise that time is our most valuable asset, not big entrance ways to impress guests, not large rumpus rooms, not three-car garages, not extra bathrooms that never get used and not ornamental private gardens and yards; all of which we may have to give up to live closer.

As more people think this way the benefits compound. Public transport improves, local commumities thrive, local facilities develop and we slowly extricate ourselves from the gridlock ruining our lives. To get an idea, contrast European cities with North american ones. It's not black and white, they both sprawl and they both have unbelievable traffic - but could anyone realistically live in Dallas without a car? Many people in London and Paris do just that.

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
nymph,

For example we gain immediate overall benefit from a decision to live closer to our work in the city,...

Winky : )

You’ve reminded me of 1991 when I moved home to be within easy bicycle range of a mile away from my place of work. But little did I know that in 1993 my place of work would relocate itself to the other side of town, some 8 miles away… over 1 level crossing , 17 sets of traffic lights, three fair steep hill climbs, and not to mention my 10pm finish time that would have me riding though town while the pubs were closing and chucking out the worse kind of motorist to contend with. But even worse was to come…

The Office Manager spoke to a group of about hundred of us saying that the company would kindly pay ‘travelling expenses’ to us people who incurred more distance to get to this new place of work, and a rate would be accessed using a system of; if you’re car engine was 1600cc or larger you got 34p a mile, if you’re engine was smaller that 1600cc you got 24p a mile, a motorcycle was 18p a mile.
Someone asked how much you got if you used a bicycle, to which the Manager replied 7p a mile. So I asked him how much if one uses a pogo-stick!
This brought about some laughter, but I think it may have ruined my promotional prospects

nymph

7p a mile. I'd take that. Commuting by Pogo-stick - that sounds like fun. I sympathise with the Pub thing, though. The football-thug-drunken-louts who take over the cities after 10pm is by far the worst of the UK IMHO. Worse than gridlock on the M25.

I was almost transferred to London from Bristol a year or so back. In Bristol I was travelling 10 minutes by bike to work. For the purposes of financially assisting the forced relocation, the company evaluated "equivalent" suburbs. The criteria of proximity to work was addressed by considering all places within 60 minutes commute by car or train "close enough". For me this was 8u!!$h!+. I needed to be close enough to ride my bike, like I did in Bristol. In London, the financial cost of living in town is obviously huge - it meant living in a shoe-box. I moved to Vancouver instead, where I live almost downtown and ride to work through Stanley Park. You can't get the smile off my face. Like I say, it's about choices.

Anyone being on the road when I am.

At least petrol is under £1 a litre now!