Drivers and their problems

I was chatting to someone about this in the week, I recognise that when you change speeds it can be hard. I find it difficult coming off a motorway coming into a residential. But if you drive you know this, so concentrate or use a limiter (bloke I was chatting to used the limiter, I don't)

It's not just judgement, it's how you react to other cars.

My biggest problem a few years ago was the "creeping speed" problem on motorways. You come up behind someone who is going slightly slower, and to pass them you speed up a little, but you want to leave a gap so you keep going for a bit, and you creep up behind someone going a little slower so you speed up a little to pass... etc.

I can remember journeys where I set myself a challenge of driving my regular journey down the M40 at 70, and yet by the end I was hitting 90 - back in my brand new Cavalier 2.0iL days.

The other problem is reacting to other people, so these days I am far more comfortable dropping back if someone accelerates when I overtake -typically they are not racing, they are just incompetent and I know they will slow or sit behind the next vehicle and I can ease round them while they sulk about being trapped as they didn't read the road ahead. Both cruise control and speed limiters, depending on traffic conditions, are useful crutches to speed control.

My car (Hyundai Kona) has a speed limiter and cruise control but the minimum speed that may be set is 20mph - I have no idea why. Also the CC is pretty good at keeping the car at 20 and doesn't let the speed come up when you go downhill for example, but the speed limiter readily allows the speed to come up and will bong at you when more than 2mph over the set speed. The car is electric and is fully capable of slowing itself down. The speed limiter is just crap and I wish it were better.

I had a limiter on a 1999 Mercedes, and that could only use engine braking to hold the speed. On my 2012 they integrated it with the ABS/stability control system and now it will apply brakes to hold the speed. When approaching a speed limit it is easy to gently knock it down in 5s or 1s to hit the new limit bang on the line - which of course pisses off drivers behind who think that you have a few hundred meters of allowance so you shouldn't start braking until some point after the limit sign (but before any obvious speed cameras of course).

Exactly, some cars have much better systems than others. There is no reason why the Kona shouldn't be able to apply engine braking (or whatever the equivalent on an electric vehicle is called, and it really is VERY effective if you fully lift off) but instead I get a stupid fucking bong as though it's up to me to limit the speed when the speed limiter is engaged. I find it so infuriating. I do love how effectively the CC knocks the speed down like you say though.

I trust you were too much of a gentleman to turn that particular image into a comment about lady drivers...

Something like this?

I sort of imagined the Horse drawn carriage was on a tree lined Parisian boulevard given the original caption and wanted to create a juxtaposition which hilights the particular un-necessity of driving large SUVs in urban environments, the special incompetence demonstrated in managing to turn them upside down and their existential threat to cyclists and pedestrians in such an environment.

(Some of those words need to be said in a posh art critic type Brian Sewell voice).

Did someone say Allo, allo?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycqc0L4a2wQ

David9694 wrote:

Or a Jacques Cousteau accent?

Bois de Boulogne was my guess for a location.

Can anyone make out le caption?

Roughly translated it reads "New Paris: Our pretty female coach drivers. Nice to look at but you don't want to get too close." So ironically, given the way it's being used now, it's actually taking the piss (albeit in a sexist manner) out of dangerous drivers who run into cyclists.

Bois de Boulogne a good shout, or possibly Bois de Vincennes.

Jacques Cousteau you say?

https://youtu.be/Kpe_KHDEfgw?t=27

Sorry Mate, Horse Didn't See You.  Although it does seem to wearing tinted blinkers - hope they're carriageway-legal.

Alternatively - "although a lifelong careful driver, my client was momentarily and unavoidably distracted when their postillion was struck by lightning..."

You should have say that it was a curious picture but then reminded them of e.g. Pierre Curie being killed by a cart (although this was considered distracted walking in part).  Then point out that there are a lot more carts now with a lot more horsepower and speed.  But the drivers are still humans.

Alternatively you could connect this with the Matthew Parris / Rod Liddle "banter" and compared this to a lynching postcard.  But then everyone would definitely know you were a nutter and you'd probably get blocked.

Quote:

Driving a blue Volkswagen Beetle, he sped through 30 mile per hour zones at an average of 45 miles per hour. The highest speed he was clocked at through a zone with the same speed restrictions was 69 miles per hour, more than double the limit.

Was he driving a classic (real) Beetle or a nu-Beetle?

Would a classic ever reach 69mph ?

Have you seen the way brooksby drives ?!

hirsute wrote:

Have you seen the way brooksby drives ?!

Actually, my kids always complain that I drive far too slowly, and certainly slower than my wife...

Awavey wrote:

Would a classic ever reach 69mph ?

I have once.  On a motorway.  Downhill.  With a tailwind...

The interesting part about that is why 58 offences were racked up. It was stopped elsewhere for having no insurance, but implicit in that was the registration did not tie up to an address and they needed the information from another force to identify the driver. They then sent 58 notices all at once.

Clearly a deliberate attempt to drive outside the law. They must have known they were setting off speed cameras and not getting tickets so they believed their ploy was working.

I can't see that ban being abided by given that no other aspect of vehicle law was abided by. Watch this space.