Wouldnt say I would laugh.But would say we dont have enough police to enforce the law here.Not by a long way..the bad drivers get away with untold amounts of bad driving..And hardly anything is done about it..Totally wrong!
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Steve
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Yeah, I know - just the other day a car was tailgating me so close he must have been able to see the DVD I was watching...
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When I'm driving, I try a slightly different approach. Rather than estimate how good I am, I try to look for how bad I am -- looking for faults to correct rather than opportunities to pat myself on the back.
Most of the ones I notice are to do with observation (e.g. not spotting a blind exit ahead, inadequate use of mirrors) ... but I think I'm probably a bad judge of myself, and I'm sure I have plenty of vices that I don't notice. I prefer someone else to critique me.
I usually encourage my passengers to do that, but the one exception is my father -- his idea of good driving is to barge around in traffic, keep a 2mm gap from the car in front, etc. So he is banned from any go-faster comments on my driving, on pain of being put out to walk :)
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I prefer someone else to critique me.
Happy to oblige.... ;op
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Wait until the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, which just slithered through unopposed in the last few days of the last Parliament, becomes law. Your own unsupported complaint against one of the offenders mentioned above could then result in their forcible fingerprinting and conviction on a charge of 'anti-social driving'. Or it could, of course, be the other way round and any one of you (or me -- perish the thought) could end up in chokey because some individual doesn't like the way you drive. See tinyurl.com/djrev .
No evidence necessary. The police state marches ever nearer -- or it would, if we had any police.
There is a positive side -- look at all the 4 x 4 drivers we can now get banged up. And white vans. And ... and ..
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My driving is appalling.
But what upsets me even more is that it is also above-average.
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Yep - it might sound silly, but I agree.
I do not consider myself to be great driver. I have my weaknesses, especially in terms of anticipation on the motorway, when I usually rely on sheer grunt of big/turbocharged engines to get me out of trouble.
But I do not do the things noted in DaveKent's post and I am really irritated by people who smoke, eat, drink, phone whilst driving, as they all reduce attention to the road. When even I seen those people, you can tell by their eyes that their minds are elsewhere than the road.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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...and I am irritated by people who get irritated on the road. What a waste of time and energy... :-)
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Smokie - couldn't agree more.
I was following a van up the M40 this morning, in the "fast lane". He was mooching along at a reasonable speed overtaking stuff and I was a more or less respectable difference behind him. There was a little man behind me in a silver Mazda - he must have taken 10 years of his life and burst some blood vessels in his forehead because we were in his way.
Gesticulating, waving, shouting and goodness knows what. Strange what some people think is worthwhile.
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No need to get upset in the mornings on the northbound M40. We all just follow the marked police van.
After all, he's going quite fast enough. I've noted 90mph before now, although he seems to have slowed down recently.
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Its not him you have to watch out for, its the silver Omega.
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What is the police van doing every morning up there?
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What is the police van doing every morning up there?
Answer i.
"About 75-80, typically"
Answer ii.
"Setting a shining example to us all ... not"
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Its not him you have to watch out for, its the silver Omega.
Actually, you do need to watch out for him He has an alarming habit of catching up with people, tailgating them, and then suddenly pulling out into lane 2 in front of someone else.
He's nearly caught me like this before now. These days, I keep well clear.
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I?m generally a well intentioned 9/10 when I set off and a wound-up and exasperated 3/10 when I arrive, depending on the type of journey.
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My dad started me doing this receently starting with a 10 when I leave the house and take a point off at everypoint i do something wrong, usually end up bout 7 at the moment.
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Im a student ive got time!!!
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I'm not as good as I think I am, but everyone else is worse . . .
Yesterday I found myself thinking that a driver in front of me was rather good. And then I reflected on how rare that is.
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I thought about this too. How nice it is when you see somebody else driving well. I normally only see it on the motorway, where somebody anticpates you needing to change lane, so by the time you indicate, they have moved over etc. Rather than the drivers who stick to the middle lane and never let you out.
Although then some smarty pants here will no doubt tell me I should be anticpating better.
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I vote against the passat driver this morning who nearly took me out while I was walking on the pavement to the train station.
I noticed him pull away from the side of the road on a small quite vilage road and promptly start wandering everywhere across the road, then noticed that he appeared to be looking down domewhere near the gear stick. The car then promptly veered towards the pavement and mounted it just as I jumped out of the way. Car was going slowly enough that the mounting of the kerb was enough to stop it and avoid running into a drystone wall.
His excuse....programming the satnav. Why couldnt this be done before pulling away I dont know.
StarGazer
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Where I live:
(a) machismo rules, so if you are male, you are an excellent driver if you are always first, or merely a "good" driver if you are only trying to be first; thus very big SUV 's are driven by excellent drivers, BMW's by merely "good" drivers, while the no-hopers in everything else are the also-rans, and may be treated with utter contempt. If you drive a bus you can do even better. Guy won't move over? Force him off the road, you've got a schedule to meet and we can't keep the passengers waiting;
(b) UK concepts of good driving would probably get you shot or worse for holding everyone up; per another thread you definitely do NOT use the gears to slow down for the lights, you use them to speed up and beat the lights;
(c) women are terrible drivers, their vehicles invariably resemble mobile beauty parlours so that they can paint their nails while waiting at the lights and simultaneously text on their cell-phone, which they seem to be able to do without looking at the key-pad. Or else eat cup noodles with chopsticks while drifting from lane to lane. Since this is a two-handed job when ever I've tried it (eating I mean, not while driving), the elbows come in handy.
But full marks to the woman this morning in a CR-V. Her cellphone conversation was so absorbing that while she clearly looked at me approaching on my Kawasaki, she somehow missed the fact I had a 9" headlight on full beam accompanied by two 5" driving lights, open unsilenced pipes bellowing in a wonderful 2nd gear symphony and an (illegal) police wah-wah siren given to me by my police captain pal wailing, and promptly pulled out about 2 metres in front of me, as I knew she would do. Women on cellphones are immediately transported to a state of other-worldliness it seems.
I gave her the evil eye and she stopped. "Sori po (sir)" she said. "I didn't see you, I was too busy".
Ah well, the weather is warm (too warm right now), the beer is cold and the women are beautiful.
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Ah well, the weather is warm (too warm right now), the beer is cold and the women are beautiful.
We really should try harder to arrange for that state of affairs to apply here. It would solve so many issues.
Or, at least, it would feel as if they were solved.
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