to think that when you're driving in heavy rain you should have your lights on???

[pointythings]

Driving home from work today - horrible conditions, dark clouds, heavy rain, lots of spray - and all around me were cars and lorries without any lights on!

Who are these people? What are they thinking? Why are they allowed driving licences?

And we wonder why car insurance costs so much money...

Well I just timed myself saying "only a fool breaks the two second rule". I was taught to say "four second rule" but I suppose it takes the same amount of time to say two as it does four. However saying the phrase actually takes three seconds.

I was taught by my driving instructor to say:

DRY WEATHER

Only a fool breaks the two second rule

WET WEATHER

Only a fool breaks the two second rule
When it pours add two seconds more!

Thing about the lights is, are those driving without lights really not seeing any of the other cars out on the road without lights? I bet they are, as you are, when you've got your lights on and you can still see them. So their counter-argument I assume would be, "I don't need my lights on for you to see me," which is true. I agree lights make it easier (and especially easier to see which cars are moving or parked) but in those kind of conditions I don't think you NEED them to actually see the cars. (I should point out here, I do tend to put my lights on when the visibility gets bad anyway, just because as I say, it makes it a bit easier. And I figure if someone does hit me and I didn't have my lights on, insurance would not come out in my favour...)

One thing I have always wondered though, when people get annoyed with others for moving into their braking gap - how else would anyone ever overtake you the majority of the time? Do they just have to wait for you to slow down for no reason or for the driver ahead of you to speed up for no reason? I can understand when they slide into stupidly small gaps like when you're pulling up at lights or something (drives me insane) but just driving in general along say a dual carriageway...I dunno, whenever anyone pulls into that gap I just slow down a bit until I have a two second gap to them and carry on. Then again people overtaking me doesn't really bother me as almost everyone else on the road seems to be speeding, even if only by a couple mph, whereas I try my hardest not to ever.

Glitter, I don't mind overtaking like you describe but generally it's some idiot who races by really fast and then realises he's in the wrong lane, hasn't enough time to overtake the next car as well so goes in the gap and brakes. Making me brake. That gets a tut in my book.

"One thing I have always wondered though, when people get annoyed with others for moving into their braking gap - how else would anyone ever overtake you the majority of the time? "

I assume you mean on single carriageways? The braking gap thing only really annoys me on dual carriageway/motorways, when I'm in the overtaking lane in a queue of traffic, and someone pulls out in front of me from the inside lane.

VivaLeBeaver, okay, that makes sense. Stupid because they're going behind a car they were travelling faster than (the one that was in front of you) and then forces you to brake sharply in case they don't brake enough. That sort of thing does annoy me but then it's not so much about moving into the gap as speeding in the first place around other cars that aren't speeding, I think.

EmmaBemma, I mean on either. The scenario you describe would annoy me but for the same sort of reason as the at the lights thing - gap is small and going to be not a gap at all any more very shortly, whereas on a motorway although you're travelling faster which is why the gap is bigger, you've got a bit more space to brake before you find yourself in their boot.

Re gaps and motorway driving - I'm not reasonable about this. If taking that gap cuts my two seconds in half then it was never a gap and the person in question should have waited until there was a gap.

If the traffic is so busy that there is no gap, chances are the speed differential between the two lanes is such that it isn't worth overtaking anyway.

"If taking that gap cuts my two seconds in half then it was never a gap and the person in question should have waited until there was a gap."

Definitely.