If you see it as your job to control the speed of traffic and you're not in a police car...

[BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot]

...why do you do it? Why do you sit 300 car lengths behind the one in front in heavy traffic? Why do you go 10mph under the speed limit in the overtaking lane on a clear road? Why so you sit at 40mph regardless of the speed limit? Why do you pootle down the slip road towards an A or M road at 30mph?

Why do you see it as your job to control traffic?

Ooh ooh I have more gripes. I live in a national park. People come here for a nice drive out, and the roads get hairy in winter.

1. Tourists that drive at 20mph cos they aren’t confident driving on bendy rural roads.
2. Tourists driving at 20mph that brake when cars pass them on the other side of normal width roads. Why...? WHY?
3. Tourists that aren’t confident reversing 5 metres back to a passing point on a single track so you have to reverse 500 metres.
4. Locals with 4x4s that can’t cope with it spatially and refuse to reverse either.
5. Tourists in winter trying to go over the tops in Volkswagen Golfs. You will get stuck. We will all get stuck behind you.
6. Tourists in summer getting angry with all the cyclists going up the hills. They’re to be saluted, not beeped at - and on flats and downhills, they’re faster than you.

I live here. I should get barging rights... ;-)

Reddington if you don’t understand why driving at 100mph is dangerous then perhaps look at the physics of what will happen if a car crashes at 100 mph and then compare it to a crash at 60mph

At 100 mph the occupants will undoubtedly die a pretty horrific death and they will not be easy to undentify
At 60 mph the occupants may have a chance of survival

I was driving on the A1(M). I drive properly as in I use the left lane unless overtaking. It was busy and I came up to a driver doing 30mph in a 70. You would think I would have noticed he was going slow but it happened so quick because of the speed. It's very very dangerous.

I also seem to come across a fair few drivers doing 50 in the outside lane on otherwise empty motorways.

You don’t have much choice but to undertake them, it is either that or sit behind them in the outside lane until they decide to speed up. At least if you undertake in the inside lane there is a completely empty middle lane between you and them in case they wake up and decide to move back into the correct lane for their speed.

I live in a ruralish area. Most of our local country lanes are NSL - completely inappropriately. Because we have a number of big towns around us, people are always looking for ways to escape the traffic jams and therefore tend to use the country lanes to try and cut through.

The NSL is 60, I would estimate it is physically possible to drive at 40-50 with the occasional higher stretch. These are unlined roads, mostly two cars can pass, but some tighter stretches and some passing places. But while those are the NSL and the possible speeds, I'd say it isn't actually safe to do above 30-40 at most, due to the high number of horse riders, carriage drivers, cyclists & walkers who are likely to be walking in the road around the next bend. So that is the speed I do - what I consider safe for the road conditions. But I almost always, on certain stretches, end up with a load of people sat behind me, as they usually race inappropriately fast through these lanes. Is it my job to police them? No, absolutely not. But neither am I going to be bullied into going faster than is safe or appropriate. And no, I'm not going to pull in either - there are no parking pull ins so it isn't safe really, and these are roads where I live, work and pass leisure time - why would I want to make it easier for people to drive dangerously and fast, when I don't want them driving on lanes I may be walking/riding, going excessively fast. These are not local people, these are people commuting mostly, using M, A & B road speeds on roads that are proper country lanes.

And yes, I do know the size of my vehicle, and yes, I can reverse it, and yes, I have passed an advanced driving test, so no, I am not lacking confidence on these lanes.

Then there's the blind twats who use the cats eyes to drive by braille... Terrifying!

@Lethal

' Driving slow is as dangerous as speeding' - all those slow driver awareness courses I keep hearing about that people choose instead of points hmm

Driving too slow causes accidents because the drivers behind end up frustrated, take risks and then an accident happens. It's two separate instances of poor driving choices, but equally dangerous.

@NoSquirrels
It’s just not true. You find me a newspaper report of a fatal crash caused by a slow driver.

You find me a newspaper report of a fatal crash caused by a slow driver.

The fault will be with the over-taking driver, of course. But the person driving too slowly will have been a contributing cause to that accident. I'm not excusing the drivers who get frustrated - that's their own fault. But it's silly to say driving too slow is not dangerous.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016721/Slow-drivers-dangerous-roads-cause-crashes.html

Article above from The Fail says "Transport Department figures show 143 accidents a year are caused directly by slow drivers"

Yes yes yes to the wierd blanket 40 mph driver thing. Wtf is that about

There is a huge increase in the severity of an accident at a higher speed, as well of course ss the greater chance of having an accident in the first place.You might be prepared to take that risk, but you are then forcing your decision on every other road user in your vicinity.

To the doctor up thread that drove like a knob...
Did you have your emergency green light On? If not then you were the knob not them.
Also how can you see people weekly die and be seriously injured and still drive like that. I think you're a disgrace to the healthcare profession.

Having done a speed awareness course, I drive to, or just under, the speed limit especially when it is 30 or 40. I drive a lot on country roads and am cautious when they're not familiar to me - I am also aware that there may be water on the road covering potholes, lots of mud on the road from cows or tractors, horses around the corner and so on. I also drive a slightly elderly Ford Fiesta and have grey hair. As a result of all of the above, I am constantly having dickheads driving up my arse, large 4x4 drivers whose lights blind me at night, cars flashing me for not driving faster, and a lot of overtaking in dangerous and inappropriate places. I refuse to let any of that intimidate me and force me to drive in a way that isn't safe! Drove back home earlier this evening, and I considered it a good drive as the only weirdness was when I was driving in a residential area at the speed limit and was undertaken by someone entering the bus lane to get past me.

Undertaking isn’t being in an lower lane of a multi lane motorway and passing slower traffic in lanes to your right ,it is the normal flow of congested traffic - you don’t have to go out and around them nor do you have to slow down to match that speed, it isn’t the offside rule, ffs. If that was applied on the M25 that I drive on every day and which has many a mysterious slow down in one lane or the other because of whatever is happening way ahead , it would look like a tangled plait and very quickly come to a halt.

Undertaking is the dangerous and prattish manoeuvre of someone coming up fast behind someone in the 2,3,4, or 5 lane, can’t go to their right to overtake because of traffic but sees a gap to the left, dodges in there and then straight back in front of the car in front, gaining ooh, an impressive whole car space.

Also, if you want to come off a motorway and are in the outside lane, do try and think about moving over in some sort of reasonable time, rather than do a last minute, high speed, 4 lane drift to the exit slip, cutting across at the last possible bit , at the V . It is skilled, but nobody is actually impressed, they are thinking you are an immature twat (Junction 14, all the time)

MoonlightKissed - I didn’t mean everyone should drive at 60mph on rural roads. I certainly don’t.

Just not 20mph blanket, with white knuckles.

Also, if you want to come off a motorway and are in the outside lane, do try and think about moving over in some sort of reasonable time, rather than do a last minute, high speed, 4 lane drift to the exit slip, cutting across at the last possible bit , at the V . It is skilled, but nobody is actually impressed, they are thinking you are an immature twat This a thousand times, also why do they break the speed limit to get past you and then immediately cut in front of you, forcing you to break, so that they can exit the motorway. By immediately I mean within 5 seconds of getting past you.

Lane 1: drive here unless you're in...
Lane 2: drive here when you're overtaking someone in Lane 1, or...
Lane 3: drive here when you're overtaking someone in Lane 2

I drive to, or just under, the speed limit especially when it is 30 or 40. I drive a lot on country roads and am cautious when they're not familiar to me I wish everyone was like you. Until recently I did a 5 mile drive down a country road to work. It is fairly narrow and very twisty. I can't even tell you the number of fatal accidents on that road in the 20 years I've used it let alone all the other bumps. I refuse to break the speed limit however much the bully behind me tries to force me to do it, If you are half way down the road you are 2.5 miles from a nice dual carriageway so what is so urgent that people risk their lives? (the most dangerous bit is about half way along the road where there is a blind bend that some people like to take at 60 without any worries about the pedestrians who have no pavement to walk on or the cows that cross the road at milking time.)

My Mum does this and it is control, as it is with all the twats on here who parrot ‘the speed limit is a limit, not a target’.

If she’s in a shop and she can see the person behind her is in a rush she deliberately takes her time too. Total control thrills.

The motorways here for miles around are being dug up to make them 'smart' and it's been 50mph limit for years. The bits that aren't are so congested that 40-50 is the norm.

You still get people trying to push it. Seems no matter how fast the speed limit, there's always someone who wants to go faster. They're the twats.

Have this constantly on the dual carriageway I use to commute several times a week. This morning car was sat doing 5/10 mph under speed limit on right hand lane with huge backlog of frustrated cars behind, while the driver in said car would consonantly point out in exaggerated manner the speed limit signs whenever she passed one by way of highlighting to us she thought she was the speed police and was extremely pleased with herself

Whitelisbon cars that do that i.e. insist on pulling out from side road bang infront of you, forcing you to emergency stop, but then pootle along are just the WORST!!

Yes! 40mph drivers! I do a daily school pick up through 30mph, 50mph, NSL zones, all single lane. Loads of people who just drive at 40, so they’re up the back of you in the 30 zones, or if in front, holding up the flow in the NSL zones. Hate it!

Lots of roads near me are National Speed Limit Roads - but you are a twat to drive at anything much about 40 on them. Lots are single track roads, or very tight for two cars to pass. Added to that since the snow recently all roads have developed awful pot holes. So even the wide road I used to do comfortablely at 50, I now slow to 40 or less at night, as I just can't see the killer pot holes at a higher speed.

I do some of these things sometimes. I'm not 'controlling the traffic'. I am driving in the way that seems safest to me.

Thanks for calling me a twat @mightymucks

Care to explain why.