To still be upset about this dreadful driver?

[Netcurtainnelly]

Mr net Curtain and I were driving down a country road on Friday and realised we were being tailgated.
I looked round and the driver was featuring us to go faster. We did not as we were already driving to the speed of the road

We just ignored him and carried on. Next thing he or someone behind him starts blasting the horn furiously obviously trying to get us to go faster
We did not eventually the driver turned off

It really unnerved me and made me nervous. I can't believe that people are prepared to cause a crash on a road just because they want you to hurry up.

Has this happened to anyone else? have experienced tailgaters before but never someone blasting their horn etc. So dangerous.

If someone is on my tail and displaying road rage on a country road i wouldnt deem it safe to pull over. You dont know if they are doing it to pull in front and block you.

Not easy always, and what if an accident happens while your doing that

Agree.

Because I said so and I made the post. We've already established that tailgating and blasting the horn isnt acceptable anyway

Not nervous and was driving to the speed of the road. Utterly taken aback at being tailgated and bullied just because someone is impatient. They could have caused an accident .

Ahh OP, I once posted a similar thread and my replies were pretty much the same as this with loads of people accusing me of being this person that creeps around at way under the speed limit which is just not the case.

It astounds me on an almost daily basis some of the driving I see around me. People just do not give a toss about others, they are only concerned about themselves and reaching their own destination as quickly as possible with no regard for who they put at risk to achieve that.

On another note, I was leaving an event car park recently and people were just pushing their way out with just no decency at all. Some people have such an ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude and that’s not how I like to conduct myself. Being within their car gives them a boldness as well.

I’m sorry you’re still feeling shaken by this. No one should be displaying threatening behaviour on the roads.

Their driving isn’t acceptable however what was your driving like? It very much depends on the road and your speed.
I was stuck behind someone driving 26MPH on a 60 limit road. It was infuriating! The road is reasonably straight with no twists and turns it was a beautiful dry day and yet they were tootling along in a world of their own oblivious to the 6 or more cars behind them. I couldn’t overtake immediately because of traffic coming the other way but I did at the earliest opportunity, not before I’d said some very choice words.
driving too slowly is almost as bad as speeding especially if the road and conditions are good.

My driving instructor had something to say about drivers who fail to proceed properly.

He said they often remarked. "They'd never been in a crash." To which his response was. "Yeah but I bet you've seen loads."

The speed limit is the maximum speed you can do to remain legal. A competent driver will remain in the limit but also drive to the conditions of the road.

If it's a 60 but it's only safe to do 50 then you should do 50.

However, you should not do 45/40/35/30 etc.

Going too slow is dangerous.

I've had it happen a number of times on slip roads when going onto the motorway. Stuck behind someone lolly gagging along at 30. It's terrifying. Then they inevitably have to bloody well stop which is about the only sensible thing they've done so far in their f'up but could have been completely avoided had they got up to speed and merged like how you're supposed to without nearly killing multiple drivers.

I would have blasted my horn right back at him.

You stay in the left lane right up until you need to turn and then get into the right lane. You don’t sit in the right lane for an unnecessary amount of time stopping people from being able to over take in the correct manner.

Same here and those kind of roads should never be 60 mph. Navigating sharp bends and narrow roads requires anticipation of oncoming traffic. The times I have to pull over when I've got less room on my side for an oncoming speeding car.

That’s exactly what I do. People still tailgate me

to add it’s not really overtaking in a correct manner if you’re doing 20mph over the speed limit but…

Jesus, do you really need people to tell you, you're not wrong here. Well done for driving within the speed limit l. However, you're obviously one of those drivers who likes to control everybody else's driving, which pisses people off and will absolutely cause an accident. But, you're right, so well done you!

struggling to comprehend the attitude of some of the posters on this thread. Thank god the drivers behind us when I was being driven home after being discharged from a lengthy hospital stay following a serious spinal injury had a bit more patience and foresight that actually there might be a reason someone isn’t driving as fast as you’d like them to be. I was literally begging my husband to slow down because of the pain of the motion of the car and holding myself upright.

But you haven’t confirmed despite being asked multiple times whether that’s the limit or what you feel comfortable with. My assumption is that the speed you feel appropriate for the road, isn’t. Two people were frustrated enough that they made sure to tell you.

there's no excuse for never getting up to the road speed.

See, there can be reasons, so maybe that’s not an ‘excuse’
<wonders how people don’t know what they wrote 🧐>

Yes precisely, that’s why I said I was surprised. It seems so odd to me that the limit on these roads is way higher than what is safe.

@ThisOneLife sorry should have said two- way road.

Overtaking someone doing 40mph in a 40mph zone isn't ‘the correct manner’

@scrollingleavesThe speed of the road does not mean you drive at the designated speed limit, it means you drive to the suitability of the road conditions and do not break the limit set. Not many people can drive at 60 on country roads as the conditions mean it is unsafe to do so. But some people are also not as confident (you can also read 'stupid') as some other drivers may be.

I agree with this. OP has been asked by dozens of people what speed they were doing and what the limit of the road was. It’s been cagily avoided each time. It doesn’t excuse the aggressive driver behind, but if there was a stream of traffic behind you, it suggests you were too slow for the road.

I’ve been stuck behind a driver recently when coming home from work who will not get above 30 on a national speed limit road, 2 way traffic (proper marked up lanes, not some dodgy back road that’s just about passable). Even when they got to the long, downhill straight that goes for close to a mile, they still stuck to around 25-30mph. The fact they didn’t accelerate at that section of road tells me they are either a nervous driver, or an incompetent driver. I am sure that they thought they were doing the right speed for the road - maybe they didn’t see the NSL as they left the 30, maybe they felt that was the safest they could personally drive at. It’s frustrating for other drivers on the road though. I gave them space and waited for the long straight to pass them (had to wait for an oncoming vehicle, which is how I knew they didn’t accelerate).

The guy behind the OP was a prick. But depending on how long he’d been stuck behind them (and if OP was the passenger, did she even know the speed they were travelling at, or was she assuming her husband was driving fast enough) at a snails pace, I can understand him getting frustrated if they didn’t pull over or speed up. If the OP was genuinely doing 60mph on a NSL road that wasn’t a dual carriageway, I really can’t see someone behaving that way unless there was an emergency.

OP, you need to learn a strategy for coping with twats like this because this will happen again and again during your lifetime of driving. Not necessarily this exact scenario but other bullying behaviour - almost exclusively by men, you may be surprised to hear...

I'd always rather have the shitty driver in front of me than behind me. Easier to take evasive action. So my strategy is: deep breath, pull over as soon as safe, let the wanker pass me. Yes, they win, but - more importantly - I stay safe.

In Cornwall last year, some idiot was doing the same behind us, and we did pull over for him to over take, and he did so, shouting and looking at us. Tool.
About 2 mins up the road we were behind him and he had to reverse coz a big old tractor was coming the other way and not moving for anyone. We pulled into a proper lay by but the tool man had no option but to squeeze into the side in to bushes.
I laughed ! Hope his car got scratched.

We were driving on a lane yesterday which was single track with passing places. The speed limit is 60 for most lanes like that. About 30 was a safe speed.

We discussed this and decided that if someone had an accident driving at 60, the fact that they were within the speed limit wouldn't protect them from being charged for driving without due care and attention.

The speed limit is a limit, not a goal

That’s not true. It is a goal because not driving at or around the limit is classed as failure to progress and is known to cause congestion and delays. You will fail your test for not driving at the limit when safe to do so. It’s rarely unsafe to do so unless it’s torrential downpour on the motorway or you’re driving on an unclassified country road.