As is usual every morning, I manage to gather a multitude of idiots. I never know who they are, but being as we are so close, I think I owe it to them and their families to attend their funeral.

Here is a sanitised copy of what I sent out this evening.

Dear Sir or Madam,
"Company Name", registration number "xxnn xxx".
I would like to report one of your coach drivers for tailgating my vehicle on the M4 in poor rain conditions.
The incident occurred on 17 April 2012, around 07:50 - 08:00. I was travelling east between junctions 12 (A4) and 8/9 (A404). I was in the middle lane and noticed the coach was very close to the rear of my car. I could not move into the inside lane due to congestion, the outside lane was also full. I couldn't accelerate to increase the gap because if I did, I would have been tailgaiting myself. I switched on my fog lights to warn him, but he simply moved closer!
After a short time, he moved into the inside lane and attempted to undertake me.
In my opinion, this 'gentleman' should be severely reprimanded. If you wish to call me, then I can be contacted on "my phone". If I am unable to answer immediately, please leave a message or text me to call back.
Yours
"Me"


This is a huge problem, how best to reduce it?

Does that mean a space came available in the left lane which you did not pull in to?

Lorry and coach drivers, being elevated (usually) can see ahead in a way a car driver rarely can. That does not excuse tailgating at all, but those drivers can forget/not realise how murky it is for us mere car drivers. Everyone should select their own opinion of a safe speed, and other road users should respect them, however frustrating the Sunday Bimbler is on a weekday......

Yes, about a three car gap, but the lane I was in was travelling faster than the inside lane.

Regardless of the weather conditions, too close is TOO CLOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And as for 'Everyone should select their own opinion of a safe speed', no wonder we have problems if you don't know about gaps and speeds!!

There's a website where people can "name and shame" bad drivers and I think it's absolutely stupid. The kind of person to take time out of their day to write about something which caused them no ill effect (no offense) normally have marital problems or no life. A description of the driver and their numberplate and the car. Often recalled hours, if not days after the fact with a biased opinion.

The website I remember always made me laugh because one of it said "blue haired woman driving an mx-5 cut me up..." or something... Yeah Marge Simpson driving around everyone!!

The problem with websites like that and complaint letters is that it's only from one PoV. Like one of those dirty movies that you find on the internet. You can't quite get the other PoV and some people get all squeemish if you pull out so much as in the same post code as them, let alone without causing them to brake, the mere fact you are in their visibility range is enough to annoy them. I used to have this on my motorbike, I'd make a completely safe and legal overtake and the oncoming car (about 300 yards ahead) would start flashing at me as if to say "OH MY GOD YOU NEARLY HAD A HEAD ON" when in actual fact I was no where near having a head on, you were still 150m away when I was fully back in my lane.

Quite like when my friend smashed into an owl today and killed it. From only one POV it's quite hard to understand the full effect. A full 360 home cinema experience you know?

That's the great thing about being British. Everyone likes a good old whine, any excuse to get angry and flash your lights or wave your fists at someone..when half of the time you are the sort of dappy idiot driver who causes accidents but somehow by some stroke of luck manages to never actually have one. Everyone makes errors at the wheel don't get me wrong but there are some people who are quick to pick up on other peoples mistakes yet never quite are capable of admitting their own.

A coach fits into a 3 car-length gap, in a slower moving lane, and even attempts to pass?

I most certainly do not condone tailgating - I merely spoke of how those with a 'better' view can forget the situation a car driver may be in. In the case of a coach, possibly with passengers on board, the prospect of having to suddenly brake/steer - and the effect on those passengers - is awful.

My comment about selection of a safe speed was intended as conveying your decision was right and it was not for any other driver to decide you should be going faster and bully you to do so. I don't understand your defensive 'gaps and speed' comment.

Travelling too close is wrong and is one of the major causes of collisions (regardless of speed) after right turns in the face of oncoming traffic.

Well if all drivers stuck to the left unless overtaking not just sticking to lane 2 or 3 because that lane is moving faster then congestion would drastically be reduced

Not a member of CLODS then?
It is attractive to many as it seems to have a large following!!

Sorry excuse my igorance but what is CLODS??

Centre Lane Owner & Drivers Society.

Their main aim and vision is to find a way of entering and leaving the motorway without using the inside lane.

Or just C.O.C.K.S for short.

[quote name='Biker1' date='Apr 18 2012, 12:26 PM' post='58641']
Centre Lane Owner & Drivers Society.

Their main aim and vision is to find a way of entering and leaving the motorway without using the inside lane.
[/quote

ahh now i know what clods are thankyou

Tailgating is dangerous and unnecessary and I don't condone it, BUT if there is room for a bus to pull across and move alongside you, it sounds to me like you could have moved across in your car. Personally I think we should do away with the lane system as it is and go American, using all the lanes regardless of who is travelling faster. Would take a not of getting used to but would alleviate most problems of this nature.

That is in conjunction with a 55mph speed limit I understand.

Speed limits vary the same as ours, I believe freeways are generally 70mph, but 55 is quite common for single lane roads. I will check this though as I only can vouch for the places I have been.

It doesn't matter how many lanes and what the speed limit is, you will find that there is always the selfish, arrogant and down right stupid drivers somewhere not very far away.

I have driven quite extensively in America and I do not like the undertaking
system at all. Cars weaving in and out of the lanes on all sides of you can be
nerve-wracking. lots of signs in the states advise you to "Ride the big 50" as
in Hawaii five oh.
Try driving in India as I have if you really want a nervous breakdown.

If lane two and three are moving faster than lane one, then there is not a lot of congestion.

Like the coach driver in question.

[quote name='NWNREADER' date='Apr 18 2012, 07:49 AM' post='58621']
A coach fits into a 3 car-length gap, in a slower moving lane, and even attempts to pass?

Yes, because he saw a chance to undertake, and being impatient. A three car gap is not a three car gap with clearance. When he pulled in, the car at the back of the gap had to brake to let him in.

I most certainly do not condone tailgating - I merely spoke of how those with a 'better' view can forget the situation a car driver may be in. In the case of a coach, possibly with passengers on board, the prospect of having to suddenly brake/steer - and the effect on those passengers - is awful.

I would say a driver sat higher than most would be at an advantage to see the road better than most, so would know he was too close.

My comment about selection of a safe speed was intended as conveying your decision was right and it was not for any other driver to decide you should be going faster and bully you to do so.

In which case, I misunderstood you and apologise.

I am sure there are many on here who would like to point out to you that there is only one primary lane on a three lane motorway, and two overtaking lanes.

Can't Our Children Know Speed?

Three-lane motorway - you should stay in the left-hand lane unless you need to overtake slower moving traffic. To do this you should use the middle lane. If you need to overtake several vehicles then stay in the middle lane. There is no need to weave in and out of the left-hand lane as you overtake individual vehicles.

You should only use the outer lane to overtake slower moving vehicles when the left-hand and middle lanes are occupied with slower moving traffic.

When in either the middle or outer lanes, you must be prepared to move over, to the left or middle lanes, to let faster moving vehicles pass.

Large and heavy vehicles including buses, coaches, lorries and cars towing caravans or trailers are not permitted to use the outer lane so if such a vehicle approaches you from behind whilst you're in the middle lane make sure you pull into the left-hand lane, when safe to do so, so that you don't block the vehicles progress.

No. It varies by state. In Montana, the overall freeway limit - during the day - is an advised 80 mph. It was previously as Germany (ie no limit).

The blanket 55 mph limit was imposed during the 70s fuel crisis as a temporary measure

Quite a few contradictions in what you're saying there x2, the bare bones it seems to me are that you should not have been in the middle lane. If the coach moved across into the inside lane and he is at least 3 car lengths long, then there was room for him to do so. That tells me more than anything else. He would have had a car length in front of him (you) at least one behind as well so that's 5. However for me the golden rule of driving is to let people make mistakes, and give them the room to do it, so the coach driver should not have tailgated at all, and you are right to report him.

I have likewise driven thousands of miles in USA and I prefer their system. Weaving is a traffic offence ( in PA for example, you are liable to be cited (FPN or judge) for changing lanes more than twice in one half mile in order to overtake.

Although the US system seemingly operates on a de facto on most of the M25, the reason that it works in the USA is that there is no freeway speedway differential between cars and trucks.

Uhm, it's a big fast motorcycle, I could pretty much overtake anything whenever I wanted. The car was about 300 yards/meters ahead when I pulled out and about 150m when I had fully completed the maneover.. easy?




Woah woah little Donkey I think you need to slow down. I wasn't actually accusing you of anything. I was just saying that generally the kind of person to come home and go "you'd never believe what happened to me on the b47372 just off the a47 just outside Derby" would be very unlikely to have a good standard of personal life and is generally the kind of blithering idiot to drive around in the middle lane of a motorway thinking what they are doing is completely okay in every way.

But in short if you were sat in the middle lane and you were not nearly at a point of overtaking another car or going fast enough so that you would be going past that car within a short period of time you should be on the INSIDE LANE of the motorway.

Why do some people struggle to get that in their head. I will be doing 80 or so on the motorway so I'm the faster moving traffic and I am always going back and forth across the lanes when safe because you should always be on the inside lane. The amount of times I have to go from lane 1 to lane 3 because some mong is sitting in the middle lane for no reason makes my blood boil. If I was the avenger or some thing I would just drive into their car and rid them of their existance.



There's a difference between inconsiderate/impatient and dangerously. FWIW I consider driving in the middle lane for no reason to be dangerous because you a) cause road rage which can in turn cause a smash and b.) it's a blatant disregard for a basic rule of the road.

Please quote properly it's easier to read.

Now I am not saying you are a lane hogger because I wasn't there and I don't see how you drive but at the end of the day the inside lane is always the most warm and cosy

There was a thread a while back about driving habits but is couldn't find it, and I fancied a rant this morning so this seemed the most appropriate place to put it. Annoying things about drivers - 1. When someone parks and then puts their hazard lights on, when they are not causing a danger. Often it looks like they are indicating to pull out. 2. When they stop an inch or two over a white line at traffic lights and feel that entitles them to keep coming through even after the lights have gone red. And finally although I have mentioned it before, people who stop ten feet from the car in front, then edge forwards a foot at a time. I feel vented now, thank you!

You ain't alone! You have my vote on all those. The flashing lights whilst parked is often used as the 'I'm illegally parked, but you can't book me because my warning lights are on' signal.

That's pretty bad, happens at Hambridge Road/Bath Road crossroads when the traffic is really bad. Took me 40 minutes to get from Wyvedale Garden Centre in Thatcham to Mercedes in Newbury.
Also people who stop and edge forward perhaps don't want to come to a COMPLETE stop, especially if they know the sequence of the lights and know they are going to change.

What pisses me off is people who sit with their brake lights on at night... they are so bloody bright and it's a level piece of road, either let off your brakes or use your handbrake.
Further to that, if you have come to a stop from a high speed and keep your foot on the brake you increase the risk of warping the discs by creating hot-spots.

That annoys me too, but if you are driving an automatic as I often do now, you need to put the gears in Park and that is a long winded exercise that truthfullynI just don't bother with and thus I have become one of those people that now annoy you...... and me.

Long winded moving the stick from D up 2 clicks into P?
yeah, that's long. It's also better for your gearbox..

Perhaps not long winded then. Cumbersome perhaps and not as natural as using gears. Anyway, knowing that I am annoying car bores will add to my pleasure from now on.

I can agree it's a bit awkward.
Some of the newer proper automatics (as in, not DSG or anything) actually don't roll forwards at all, I believe some of the mercedes models do this.

Actually, some manufacturers, Audi springs to mind, actually engineer creep into some of their boxes.

That was only on the older CVT gearboxes Audi did, this was before they came along with DSG.

People were getting confused having only driven regular automatics and so in their CVT gearboxes which do not creepy, they engineered it to basically creep forward in the same manner as a regular torque converter automatic to gain acceptance into the market.

They still have this characteristic, the new multitronic boxes ' mimic' conventional boxes.

Multitronic is basically a CVT gearbox anyway. The new DSGs creep like that.

Exactly, except that the multitronic box IS a CVT. But we digress.

can we have a discussion about crankshaft diameters next please.

As requested, the main journals on my crankshaft are 54mm with a tolerance of 0.022mm and the conrod journals are 47.8mm with a tolerance of 0.022mm.

Presume you are talking about your car here??

riveting

No I think it is machined out of cast steel!

Actual lol.

One more minor annoyance, people who don't know how to use roundabouts, especially when they drive the wrong way round a mini roundabout (by the clock tower). And those who assume that it is their right of way if there is a 4 way and two cars are on opposite junctions, such as by the council offices in Market Street.