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Slight thread hijack here, for which I apologize. Last night I saw Police Camera Action and they featured Sweden's zero tolerance approach to accidents. This involves putting a crash barrier (or at least a fence) down the middle of single carriageway roads outside town. If you get stuck behind a mimser in Sweden, you will not be able to pass, no matter how straight the road because overtaking is considered to be dangerous.
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As a driver of a vintage car my brakes can be an issue, so I do sometimes have to drive slower in order to be able to stop within the distance I can see. I do however, if reasonable make myself easy to overtake, and do sometimes pull into laybys etc.
However I do get a lot of "I'm not having that in front of me" (happens in my landrover too) where people overtake and then drive at such a speed in front of me I have to slow down.
I do however sometimes get my own back as I can pull away very quickly, and corner well, as the BMW who'd been sitting on my tail at 30, in a 30 limit found out at the roundabout when a car over 70 years older than his left him for dead!
Pulling in is in the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Club's advice. As believe it or not it's in the Caravan Club's advice as well. (I have actually seen it done, but it's rare).
Edited by SlidingPillar on 02/07/2008 at 19:29
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I pull in regularly. If somebody else wants to go more quickly than I do then we will both have a happier day if he's tailgating somebody else.
Particularly true when abroad - particularly in the Alps when having a steering wheel on the wrong side (and an understanding of danger...) can slow one down compared to the rest of the world...
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Sounds an excellent machine SP... might one enquire what it is?
The brakes would be the most offputting thing about most vintage cars on crowded A roads. Mechanically operated front drums can give good retardation, but beam front axle and friction dampers can mean a bit of brisk steering work if the road is at all rough... A chain-drive Frazer Nash I once had a ride in responded well to a good prod of the pedal despite its tiny drums (and open cable and pulley operation), but it wasn't going all that fast. Perhaps the cantilever front suspension helped with directional stability under braking.
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I think this whole issue is purely down to damned selfishness.
Drivers in England nowadays (deliberately left Scotland out of it), are increasingly more selfish as time goes by.
I have no problem with people wanting to drive slower, none whatsoever, their prerogative (within reason)...but I do have a big problem with those that wish to regulate everyone else to their standards by being awkward.
By that I mean;
- hogging the crown of the road, when they could quite easily move left a bit...
- deliberately keeping close to the vehicle in front to prevent a gap for an overtaking vehicle (or mimsing and being oblivious to the needs of others for that gap) or
-closing the gap on purpose
- gesticulating or flashing main beams after a perefctly acceptable and lawful overtake
that is the real problem and for some reason the Highlands of Scotland are totally different...it's an absolute pleasure to drive there
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Yes Westpig, but there are many who do the things you list not deliberately, in order to control everyone else, but because they simply don't know any better and feel safer going slowly close behind someone else with plenty of room on both sides... No one has ever explained to them about making proper use of the available road width, sharing the space in a rational manner to ease traffic flow, that sort of thing, and they haven't thought of it for themselves.
The road laws seem to be keeping pace with this element which may well be a majority. Horrible, but true.
A lot of the passively aggressive driving you analyse is purely instinctive, done without thought, by people who feel essentially persecuted and threatened when they are driving and whose driving is often irrational or 'counter-intuitive'. Of course they shouldn't be able to get licences, but unfortunately they can.
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Yes Westpig but there are many who do the things you list not deliberately in order to control everyone else but because they simply don't know any better
yes...and then piously complain about the danger caused by other road users when they actually 'overtake'. Goodness, how dangerous.
The road laws seem to be keeping pace with this element which may well be a majority. Horrible but true.
Yes, i've sadly noticed that as well. Another institutional dumbing down.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 05/07/2008 at 22:16
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I hate to mention it to the fast boys on here, but the demography of the country is shifting towards a higher proportion of old 'uns within the population. Do you think this will help things - you know, experience counts and all that?
Whilst you chaps suffer apoplexy, I'll go and make myself a nice mug of Ovaltine - it's way past my bedtime!
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I absolutely agree with the above post.
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I mite just point out that I am not a blanket slow driver - I tend to hover just below the limit in 20,30 and 40 zones and usually 50 ones aswell. I also do 65-70 on dual carriageways. But I do take care on country lanes despite the theoretical 60 limit, rarely exceeding 40 as these roads tend to be poorly surfaced around here.
I actually had an arctic overtake me on single carriaeway section of the A5 tonight - I was doing 50 ( which is surely hsi limit ) but he was stuck up righty behind me so when I saw him move out I slowed a bit and let him past. Odd but I didnt get annoyed, more impressed that he tried it what with all the hidden entrances and it being dusk!
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it will affect everyone eventually
if I and others are being irritated now by pettty unthinking speed limits and mimsing driving, it will gradually get worse (as it has been for the past 15 years plus) until those of you who don't mind now will have to be subject to complete 20mph limits through whole towns/cities..or who knows maybe even 15 mph...10mph anyone?
there will be vast tracts of the country banned to vehicles e.g. town centres
look how much CCTV coverage there is, the future will only be more
Utopia or nightmare?
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Totally agree. Short of political activism though, theres nothing one can do but try and get used to more cars and lower speeds along with higher costs or smaller cars.
Some fights arent worth it hence my sit back, relax and potter along attitude - its going that way regardless. Choose your fights.
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No need to be fighting all the time though. Slip rapidly and invisibly through the meshes. There's still a bit of leeway, just less than there was a few years ago let alone in the golden time a few decades ago. No need to get too down in the mouth and give up, I mean...
I must say stunorthants that just below the lower limits (in speedometer terms presumably) sounds a bit slow to me for most situations in a modern car in good order, but if neatly done it isn't true mimsing.
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Unfortunately I'm not one of that majority of drivers blessed with above average driving skills (LOL!), so therefore feel unable to look down with disdain on those who don't drive as fast as me. I do, however, make the best of my meagre skills and generally drive bang up to the limit unless there is a reason not too. However, if I'm behind a convoy of trucks on a single carriageway road then I probably wouldn't bother trying to overtake - sorry.
I don't mind if others don't wish to overtake, whatever the circumstances. That 'mimser' sitting behind a truck could well be someone's 17 year old daughter just passed her test last week, or grandad, who's eyesight and reactions aren't what they used to be. Let 'em mimse away, I say.
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It doesn't actually matter one jot. The world will go on turning whether you drive at 40 or 80, and whether your journey takes 60 minutes or only 55.
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There are a lot of factors in wanting to press on whilst negotiating A and B roads, but if one were to think that one of them is to save time, then I think five minutes with Excel or other calculator and some realistic figures in it (not hopelessly optimistic "I'll be doing 85 the whole way and mimsers will be doing 30") may well disabuse one of any notion that time savings are considerable or even particularly significant.
Take the last non motorway journey you did. Be completely honest about the highest average speed you think possible over that journey. Now very generously assume a slow driver travels at 10 or even 20 mph slower on average over the whole journey and I'll warrant the time savings don't add up to much longer than waiting for a kettle to boil in most cases.
In the real world, if you have a satnav, then over that journey get it to tell you the average speed if it will do that. Try it both ways - press on and on another occasion just go with the flow. Compare the average speeds.
Even in optimised motorway conditions the time savings are often not really very great.
Edited by Dipstick on 03/07/2008 at 10:05
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"Even in optimised motorway conditions the time savings are often not really very great."
Quite right Dipstick. I repeat the tale of my journey from Gdansk to Warsaw a couple of years ago. At the end of a large family holiday on a camp site, my parents were with me so my wife travelled in my BIL's car. We left at the same time, he as usual set off on the wrong side of the road, indicators on, looking for something to overtake, foot to the floor, veins popping out of his head. I as usual flicked the cruise on at slightly over the limit and put some Johnny Cash on for the old man and settled in for the 250 miles ahead. I reached my house just in time to see BIL pulling away. We were less than 15 minutes behind him and the reward for his efforts were to have to unload a packed-full estate car on his own.
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Same thing happened with me on way to Norfolk. 130 mile journey.
Me and misses left at same time, parents left 15 mins before us. They tried where possible to stick around 80 on A14, speed limit everywhere else.
Me and misses did between 50-60 mph all the way. In the end we arrived 8 minutes later than them ( I did know where I was going however and they got a bit lost following a phantom diversion that ended them in a farmyard ).
Ive always though it comes down to an excess of a certain male hormone than any real need to go fast, but more to exert ones dominace over other road users!
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>>What is wrong with driving at a reasonable, but not fast pace? Is it not so much the pace of >>the slower car, but the driver behind thinking that they are infact far more important and >>people should yield to their will?
I failed to notice a NSL sign when taking my driving test (partly obscured by hanging branches), so stuck to 40. Examiner counted it as a minor error. Road ahead was clear, conditions dry, and any of the two or three cars behind could have overtaken if they wanted (but didn't). So, if it is an error, it would seem no right exists.
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In heavy traffic I will almost always choose the inside lane. More space, better mannered drivers. Lower blood pressure, and a constant 56mph, when the outside lane goes from fast to slow and back again. Makes stuff all difference to the journey time, and yet makes a huge difference to pleasure.
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it would seem no right exists.
That tallys with the advice I was given during the prep for my HGV test - I was told not to mimse, as the examiner would prefer to see 32mph rather than 28 in a 30 zone.
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Morgan Super Sports Aero. Not that dissimilar to a Nash as both have gearing by chains, although I suspect the Nash brakes are better.
Edited as the soft wear made it a silly answer. Lud asked what the car was earlier and my reply fetched up here.
Edited by SlidingPillar on 03/07/2008 at 17:35
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my reply fetched up here.
In the right place (threaded).
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In the right place (threaded).
I'm glad someone else understands.
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Thanks SP. I asked before actually but had forgotten. Sorry.
I won't bang on about the very few successful cyclecars except to say that the Nash too was descended from one. You must enjoy it a lot. Be careful out there!
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In the maximum progress/minimum stress project, under today's conditions, compromises are necessary. No one can doubt that. I would like to make some observations though.
It isn't really about journey times. In adverse conditions a driver working hard to go fast doesn't gain much even in a long journey, as several have pointed out. But a journey I have often made over the last 40 years, 54 miles of mixed south-east roads including 10 or 12 in London, which these days I estimate at an hour and a half plus in the daytime or at weekends and which can easily take two hours or more, I have twice done in under an hour not in fast cars. You would be hard put to it to equal that now what with all the cameras and lower limits. But brisk progress and amazing journey times without great risk are possible.
Secondly, it seems that quite a lot of people take exception to posts critical of bad and slow driving. Shorthand terms like 'mimser' are cited as evidence of an arrogant attitude that assumes one's own driving is beyond reproach and most other people's is despicable. Am I (to take one example) guilty of wanting to dominate other road users because of an excess of testosterone? Less and less likely I would say at my age although there's life in the old dog yet. But it's true there's a certain pleasure in catapulting one's elderly chavmobile past a mimser in a 140mph car who has been getting in the way round an open roundabout, a road hazard that always makes the mimser mimse. However I don't think I am arrogant and I do understand the variety of human behaviour. Can't help laughing sometimes, but...
I imagine those who are defensive about mimsing secretly fear that they may themselves be mimsers. I hope stunorthants won't mind if I use him as an example. By his own account, as I have already said, he isn't a mimser at all. He drives close to the limit when left to himself, leaves a decent gap when following other traffic, watches his mirrors and backs off slightly in a helpful manner when being overtaken. I too do all of these things. And like him, I too have sometimes had to do more than back off but actually brake when being overtaken by some person who has miscalculated or fallen asleep. A couple of miles an hour are neither here nor there as a difference.
It isn't about journey times and it isn't about domination or feeling superior. It's about aesthetics and pleasure and efficiency and making the best of an increasingly tiresome situation.
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I guess the only thing that annoys me is the often implied notion that driving slowly is also driving badly. I used to drive for a living and what I learnt was that journey times were often far more down to seizing opportunities, taking an efficient route and knowing where you are going than outright speed.
I was recently overtaken by a baseball capped loon in a tatty Saxo VTR on double white lines at 50 odd on an A-road - 4 miles down the road, I pulled up behind him following a lorry - net result, he did all that for absolutely nothing.
Secretly, 50% of people who overtake me do seem to have a kidney shaped brille - hmm, is there room in teh law to aloow you to launch objects from the car at BMWs that attach to your back bumper? It seems to be a requirement when driving one, male or female :)
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50% of people who overtake me do seem to have a kidney shaped brille ... BMWs
The other 50% of the people are Subaru drivers.
of course these two makes are the only ones that have the power, torque, handling characteristics to be able to speed to safely overtake mimsers driving their 40mph Picantos or Charades. ;-)
Edited by jbif on 03/07/2008 at 22:36
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Just to add, I overtook an elderly lady yesterday doing 40 on a 60 stretch, but I only got up to 55 in doing so. I too overtake, shock horror. I just didnt feel any negativity towards the other driver.
Funniest bit was she was driving an Alfa, a 156 TS, nose to the steering wheel, the whole blind granny bit. Didnt annoy me but sure did make me smile seeing it!
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I used to get frustrated by slow drivers - usually the ones cruising at 40 who then brake for bends you could safely take at 50.
So I got a bike. :-)
I now travel on the A roads out of choice, it takes me longer to get there than going straight down the motorway, I don't break the speed limits, but I don't half enjoy myself!
Edited by Sheepy-by-the-Sea on 03/07/2008 at 22:46
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We need to allow for slower road users and not get impatient with them. They may be elderly, or not feeling well, have just received bad news, are travelling back from visiting someone in hospital, have just lost their nearest and dearest, their car may be limping home or to a garage, etc.
Please give people space and allow for these type of factors. Life isn't about getting from A to B as fast as possible, unfortunately too many people have yet to learn that fundamental life lesson.
Edited by MikeTorque on 04/07/2008 at 00:19
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I think you will find that faster drivers have little compassion for the slower ones as they are 'in the way'. I would bet almost none give a second thought to why they may not be going as fast as possible, only that they are wrong for being there.
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I imagine there are limits to the compassion slow drivers feel for those they are holding up too stunorthants.
Frankly though I don't think invalids needing compassion should be driving. Ordinary slow drivers don't need or deserve compassion. They are adults, technically at least, and it isn't a damn nursery for heaven's sake. It's an overcrowded road system.
'Compassion' indeed! Tchah! You'll be suggesting some form of positive discrimination next.
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I was replying to MT's post, I was not suggesting compassion was due, I was suggesting that it was unlikely. Please read before responding and no cussing now fella :-)
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Harrumph... sorry, er...:o}
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Thats better, shall I get the Humbugs? :-)
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We need to allow for slower road users and not get impatient with them. They may be elderly,
Indeed. The highway code says:
www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycod...8
"204-225: Road users requiring extra care
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Older drivers. Their reactions may be slower than other drivers. Make allowance for this.
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Learners and inexperienced drivers. They may not be so skilful at anticipating and responding to events. Be particularly patient with learner drivers and young drivers.
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