Our regular monthly trip to visit relatives takes us clockwise round the top half of the M25 on a Friday evening, always a pleasant motoring experience.
Last Friday I chose a perfectly adequate gap to move into the outside lane and accelerated briskly to the same speed as the car which had just overtaken us.
The nice young man in the Corsa behind, closed the gap and was considerate enough to enable my wife to read the paper by driving with full beam about three feet from my rear bumper.
When the opportunity came to return to the centre and then the inside lane, the nice man in the Corsa waved cheerfully as he passed and was trying to tell me that I had one and then two rear lights out. I checked later and found he was mistaken but it is an easy mistake to make. He was very closely followed by his friend in a Golf and they must have been en route to an emergency as they raced ahead very quickly and each seemed to be trying to get to their destination first.
Ten miles or so further on the traffic came to a halt and when it started moving, imagine our dismay to find that the cause of the hold up was our newly found young friends. The Corsa and the Golf had come into contact with each other, the central reservation or both.
Thankfully the drivers did not appear to be hurt but we were very concerned that this would have delayed thier journey not to mention increased insurance premiums.
We were very sympathetic and hope that we lifted thier gloom somewhat with a cheer and a wave as we passed.
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I hope you also blew them both a kiss as you went on your merry way, as well as stopping and informing the Police that they had been racing.
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Now how many of us have been a witness to this sort of driving and thought "He'll come to grief one day"?
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I have. Someone driving exactly the same car as me, who felt that taking a sharpish bend at 50 was pipe & slippers territory. He made it past without colliding with anything at the time, but 10 miles further on, he had rear-ended another car. I felt the same sort of concern for his welfare as Billsboy did.
However, having just returned from a trip which included four days in Bangkok, I can say that this sort of driving no longer seems unusual. Quite entertaining to be a passenger though!
--
andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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This thread has reminded me of a favourite phrase of my aged mothers; 'They wont get there any faster', usually aimed at the Cortina that had just passed her Mark 1 Polo.
Thing is, she was right - we always caught them uo at the next services/ traffic light/ traffic jam.
Ahh, memories...
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They won't get there any faster....
Yesterday, coming back on an A road I came upon an Austrian camper van doing 30. As there was nowhere safe for me to overtake I simply followed him for a few miles. Chap in a mondy thought otherwise. I pulled back to give him space to pull in infront of me but he decided to overtake both my van and the camper in front.
A few hundred yards up the road there is a short cut that I often use to get in front of slow vehicles. I took this, came back onto the main road where the traffic was crawling because of a tracter, and found I was 3 cars in front of the camper. Matey in the mondy was only one car in front of said camper.
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About 20 years ago I was driving towards Southend on the A127. Its a fast dual carriageway, and I was doing about 75. A Jaguar XJS came hurtling along doing in excess of 100 mph (I estimated). About 10 miles further on the XJS was on its roof down an embankment. It had probably rolled a few times first. The following day there was a note in the Telegraph that a driver had died on the A127 in an XJS.
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About 10 years ago I was heading back up the M6 to bonny Scotland.When a metro yes a metro went screaming by doing a 100 at least. Anyway 10 mins later passed him stuck to the central resveration. Looks like he had a blow out. There he was standing at the central reservation looking at his car in total shock.
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Coming home from Knockhill on Saturday, I was faced with an old Renault Clio, containing six spotty youths, travelling on a quiet motorway in the outside lane. He was flat out at 75mph. Not wanting to undetake him, I closed up behind him and waited. It took a quick flash of my lights to get the message across. See a car ahead, I stayed in the middle lane. Said Clio stayed in the outside lane and using the benefit of the downhill stretch, came alongside me. The burberry hat wearing passenger then proceeded to wave his hand at me, in a manner that suggested he practiced a lot because he couldn't get a girlfriend. I evetually got fed up and decided to wave my Police warrant card back in his direction. Clio went into rapid reverse and wasn't seen again. Oh how I chuckled!
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Driving south from Brussels on the motorway we ran into one of the worst thunderstorms I have ever seen. Day turned to night, visibility was down to about a hundred feet and traffic had to slow down to 30/35 mph. Past me sailed a nearly new Porsche doing (my estimate) in excess of 90 mph. Of course he could do that speed. He had a Porsche, didn't he? Now that particular stretch of motorway is very much up and down and as I topped a rise I saw that the rain had flooded the area at the bottom of the slope. The Porsche had hit it and become a very expensive motor boat, but one lacking in draft. He must have spun quite a few times before he hit the central barrier and he stood there, in the pouring rain with water up to his knee caps and the car's hub caps. The Germans have a word for it - schadenfreude.
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You reap what you sow...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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You reap what you sow...:-) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
Not with the weather we've been having lately you don't.
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Today's the first day for several weeks that we, including the competitors in the British Women's Golf Championship, have had anything to complain about weatherwise...:-)
A benefit of living on the mild North West coastline...
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What's for you won't pass you by
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BillB
Your story reminds me of last "Summer"
We were up in Scotland near Perth and on our way to Dunkeld in the Discovery, which was the only type of vehicle anyone would want to be driving in these conditions. It was the same day the A9 was buried under a mudslide!
As we were travelling between one massive flood and the next, we came accross a queue of 5 vehicles with drivers assessing the risk of going through the flood. We simply passed them slowly and drove with the diff lock though the flood and out the other side.
As we were some 3/4 of the way through, a small merc C class came at around 40 to 50mph around the blind corner that swept around into the water......
We never worked out whether its brakes or the 18 inches of water actually stopped the car. I suspect it was the latter.
When we were coming back a few hours later we saw the same car parked by the roadside in the same area. I suspect the water did nothing to improve the electronics under the bonnet. Oh how we laughed!
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