to wonder what driving a 4x4 has to do with it?

[MasonPearson]

I was doing a couple of errands earlier, one of them was to pick something up from the chemist. They have closed the little car park outside it so I parked legally on the road.

Its cold, dark and rainy and its school run traffic. I need to do a 3 point turn so that I am facing the correct way to go back home. At this point there is no traffic coming, though there is a t intersection a few metres up the road.

As I am making my manoeuvre a car turns left out of this t intersection, and comes up so close to me that I can't complete my manoeuvre due to parked cars on the other side of the road.

She then winds her window down and comes out with a tirade of abuse about drivers of 4 wheel drives and got a bit personal, which made her sound very chip-on-shoulder bearing in mind she had caused the situation.

I retorted with a simple, "how classy are you! and politely asked her if she could reverse back. She wouldn't so I graciously did so myself by going on the pavement and waved her by - its not worth getting into scraps or mexican standoffs, I just want to get from a to b quickly and safely.

But it made me think - why do people have such ishoooos with 4x4's? My one is not all that big as they go, is not bad for the environment as far as cars go, it has new technology that I wont bore you with that means a very good miles to the gallon rate...but to be honest I'm not going to go on, there's no real need to justify my choice of car. I'd rather hear some 4x4 haters justify why its apparently acceptable to verbally abuse someone because of their choice of car...or isn't it?

AIBU, or was this a random mardy trout with a chip on her shoulder?

Also, how were you able to hear her diatribe, unless you have left hand drive with window down ?

Cumfy, I have shouted at someone through my open passenger window, I can assure you they heard it, then again I have a big mouth :o

We have a 4WD fiat panda. Small, fuel efficient and copes with anything! (lots of small single track country roads round here which are a bit miserable in the snow otherwise).
Love it - so if anyone wants a 4WD but can't afford tax / fuel etc - the panda rocks!

Hehe 4WD pandas are great. We got one nearly all the way up Plynlymon once.

LTW is right about 4x4s being vanity purchases, though. When I lived in deepest darkest Wales, all the farmers I knew- the ones who actually had a proper excuse for needing 4x4s- drove knackered Sierra estates with half a dozen dogs rattling around in the back.

Ta for that - will tell FIL about 4WD Panda as that is likely to be of serious interest.

My dad used to have a FWD Vauxhall Cavalier when he was an engineer in the middle of nowehere, with a boot full of switchgear, but I think he gave serious consideration to a Range Rover after one winter when the snow was terrible and he was driving out to farm after farm to inspect remote power lines (they were allowed to choose their work cars from an approved list and Range Rovers were certainly on there). But then he got a different job which required more desk work so he didn't need it after that.

The irony of things like Range Rovers is that the bigger they are, the higher the centre of gravity (generally- please don't google for the lone exception...).

So if you are needing to drive it up a mountain, or round some twisty roads, you are slightly more likely to meet a Tom-Archer-style ending in a mahoosive Chelsea tractor than in a normal car.

I had some advanced driving training recently and the instructor encouraged me to make judgements about what other drivers were likely to do (i.e what sort of drivers they were) based on their cars and what they looked like.

So - personalised number plate - arrogant fuckwit who's likely to cut you up.

Estate car with kids jumping around in the back - mum who's likely to do something daft because she's distracted.

Old Rover - elderly driver who will go very slowly and not indicate.

4x4 - will barge through and not give way - we're surrounded by country lanes and this 4x4 driving style is typical amongst the Chelsea tractor types. The actual tractor drivers are, on the whole, charming.

So, OP, this is why people are prejudiced against them - and I would like to hear your accuser's version of events - was the street really the best for a 3-point turn?

But it irritates the hell out of me that people feel the need to do three point turns in the middle of the road blocking the whole road for everyone else 4x4 or not just so they're 'pointing the right way'..

Why the hell can't they just drive round the block or whatever instead of causing an obstruction for everyone else???!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a lovely new, unnecessarily large and gas guzzling Landrover.

My spurious justification for this purchase is that I now live in the sticks and got stuck in the snow once (yes, just once) in the MPV I owned previously last winter...

I was towed out by an elderly Landrover driven by the even more elderly vicar.

Really.

So it would seem rude not to have gone swiftly out and bought a new one.

It is powered by biofuel distilled from cyclists.

So then Redrobin, is that what you do then.... Go shopping, see something you like, think 'ooh i can afford it' and then not buy it incase people think you might be a bloob? FFS get a grip!

We have worked bloody hard to get what we have and our cars are our treat. Yes its frivolous and there are many other things that i could have bought with the same money HOWEVER I liked it and bought it. Why the hell not. It's not a vanity thing at all. I didnt buy it because i wanted people to notice me, I dont have blonde hair, i dont wear designer clothes, i'm not bling at all.

My all time favourite car (before this one) was my bright green fiesta 1.4tdi. It was lovely. Fuel efficient, £50 for tax, easy to park etc etc BUT my family got to big for it and i needed to change it.

I'm a confirmed 4x4-phobic. They're mostly TOO BIG for Britain i.e made for autobahns and freeways and not the confined twists of town-centres and housing estates. I don't like the way they straddle narrow lanes at traffic-lights, blocking the junctions. Park next to one in the average city-centre multi-storey or supermarket car-park and you can't open your doors. Drive behind one and your view is obscured. Drive beside one and you suspect the driver, from his lofty perch, doesn't even know you're there. Even if the driver is the last word in courtesy, the car itself is annoying.

I ALWAYS make sure that i am parked within the lines of a space, if i cant open my door then i move and find a space where i can easily get in and out of. I make sure that my car door doesnt open onto another car and also so that that car doesnt dent my car by doing the same. I drive my car in the same way that i did my other smaller cars. I use my mirrors so that i can see where other drivers are. I reverse into spaces as that allows you to park much easier. I have watched much smaller cars take forever to drive into a space that i can reverse into on first time of trying.

I have learnt how to drive my car properly, there are many more people in smaller cars that could well do with doing the same!

Why do a turn in the road in a completely unsuitable place? I suppose the 4 x4 bit comes in because it may have been rendered unsuitable/more unsuitable by the fact the car was so large.

Surely you're never supposed to obstruct oncoming traffic? ie. If the other driver had decided to "try and get past you" (ie. drive into you), oddly enough, you would have been found to have been at fault because you were obstructing the road.

When other cars hang back and let you complete the manouevre, oddly enough, that is a courtesy. I have a suspicion that legally they don't have to do that.

Aren't you supposed to perform a three-point turn in such a way, and such a place, that, at any point during the manouevre, you are supposed to be able to stop, and move to a position where you can get out of the way of oncoming traffic.

The fact that you either a. didn't see the other driver in time to do that b. couldn't do that, speaks volumes.

Having said that, it's the sort of rubbish driving I do, all the time. And only realise, after it's all gone pear-shaped, why it wasn't very well though-through in the first place.

I'm sure you'll improve, and learn to drive your 4 x 4 appropriately.

alouiseg 'Id actually love to fill my 4x4 with Rottweilers then I would just gently lower the window if some twerp hassled me.'

My 4x4 is usully full of rottweilers. Transporting the huge dogs, along with living in the arse end of nowhere is the reason we have the bloody thing in the first place!

OP, I think she was being a mardy trout, probably because she realised she was in the wrong by being so close to your car.

4x4s irritate me because the headlights are right at the same level as my rear window & always glare into my car.