Speed limit and tail-gating

[m80]

You could always put in the effort yourself to keep a safe distance.

read the other of my post on this thread.
With self righteous comments like that it's no wonder people get p*ssed.

 

[markjay]

...Maybe the authorities don't put effort into us all keeping a safe distance is because revenue from speeding fines is more fruitful...

You could always put in the effort yourself to keep a safe distance.

I think what m80 meant to say was that the authorities should keep us safe by ensuring that the tailgating pillock behind us gets his collar felt.

 

[JHS]

You want to try driving towing a caravan, you are sitting there on cruise at 60mph with a safe braking distance and folk pull out in front of you at junctions and you need to brake sharply or more annoying overtake then slow down to 55 then you go to overtake them then and they speed up, so you pull back in then they slow down again so you try again and they speed up again

You got that right!

 

[JHS]

When not having a caravan on behind i usually just nail it for a couple of minutes to loose these types of folks but when towing i wont do that as i worry about stability so usually am stuck with them for miles

I have to admit that I have on the odd occasion with the Eriba on the back, switched to Sport+ and floored it. Quite stable at 80, but do feel rather childish myself.

 

[JHS]

I’ve just returned from Coventry to Leicester on the M69. I purposely traveled at 50 mph for a few miles, I found it fairly difficult to maintain such a low speed as RPM was just above 1200 revs. I soon noticed a group of cars vans and a HGV forming behind my dreary pace, most vehicles then decided to move out to the middle lane, causing other overtaking cars into the 3rd lane, This may have repeated itself for the entire journey until I accelerated to 60 mph, a much better pace without causing any annoyance to anyone or making other drivers move into faster lanes.
I continued the rest of the journey at 65mph keeping rough pace with the traffic.
Then everyone was happy again.

65 and keeping pace with the traffic. Must have been a police car ahead going by my experience of the M69! Particularly when the population of Coventry embarks on a weekend visit to the Leicester relatives.

 

[MEMERC7]

It is annoying - I let them go, I’d rather that he is ahead of me. Same as gaps - just drop back if someone cuts in.

I like space all around (learned on multiple defensive driving courses) which gives me a hole to move into if I need to.

Discretion is the better part of valour so yes let them go whenever you can. I adopt the principle: THE NEARER YOU COME THE SLOWER I GO. Therefore without touching the brakes I ease off speed as soon as I get tailgated to maximise the opportunity to be overtaken & minimise impact should there be a collision. Constant tailgating in built-up areas means I drive at 5mph below the posted speed limit, let all side road traffic out, slow down well before junctions & traffic lights & take a very long to time to move away from a standstill which works best when driving an old Honda Jazz. In my nice Mercedes sports car with the roof stowed of course, I have been known to pull in & wave a tailgater by, usually with a cheerful smile & a dismissive underhand wave as if dismissing an insect. Doing so I suspect annoys them because I have shown that I don't have an ego or a need to prove anything & have destroyed their need to express superiority, power or competitive spirit - sort of taking wind out of the sad sails of their crappy van, dull saloon or vulgar big-wheeled gangster glass Yobmobile. I then continue on my way enjoying the fresh air & with a big smile on my face.

 

[E55BOF]

You're not a singer and part of the (Self)Righteous Brothers by any chance, are you...

 

[Deleted member 126251]

Discretion is the better part of valour so yes let them go whenever you can. I adopt the principle: THE NEARER YOU COME THE SLOWER I GO. Therefore without touching the brakes I ease off speed as soon as I get tailgated to maximise the opportunity to be overtaken & minimise impact should there be a collision. Constant tailgating in built-up areas means I drive at 5mph below the posted speed limit, let all side road traffic out, slow down well before junctions & traffic lights & take a very long to time to move away from a standstill which works best when driving an old Honda Jazz. In my nice Mercedes sports car with the roof stowed of course, I have been known to pull in & wave a tailgater by, usually with a cheerful smile & a dismissive underhand wave as if dismissing an insect. Doing so I suspect annoys them because I have shown that I don't have an ego or a need to prove anything & have destroyed their need to express superiority, power or competitive spirit - sort of taking wind out of the sad sails of their crappy van, dull saloon or vulgar big-wheeled gangster glass Yobmobile. I then continue on my way enjoying the fresh air & with a big smile on my face.

I don’t get to the point of being tailgated. I let them go. If they have caught up with me, then they are going faster than I want to go. I’m not the police. Why would I want to slow them down?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

In my nice Mercedes sports car with the roof stowed of course, I have been known to pull in & wave a tailgater by, usually with a cheerful smile & a dismissive underhand wave as if dismissing an insect. Doing so I suspect annoys them because I have shown that I don't have an ego or a need to prove anything & have destroyed their need to express superiority, power or competitive spirit - sort of taking wind out of the sad sails of their crappy van, dull saloon or vulgar big-wheeled gangster glass Yobmobile.

Doesn’t the dismissive insect thing - and calling another driver’s vehicle crappy, dull and vulgar - suggest the opposite though, and that you do have an ego and do need to express superiority, etc?

Even if you don’t really, then the way it would likely come across to the person you’re aiming it at is that you do have an ego and need to express superiority, and so would have the opposite effect?

Well if they notice then it might.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I can’t say that I’ve noticed tailgating is a particularly common issue. Of course it does happen occasionally, albeit briefly, but the driver takes the next opportunity to pass and so it’s over as soon as it starts.

 

[Trickythemerc]

you have driven in Norfolk as well then! see it all the time, yesterday 60 mph limit oh no lets just do 40 !!!!! then you get the "look" when you gun it past them....

It's a limit, not a target. Yes it can be annoying but not exactly life changing.

 

[ALFAitalia]

I bet people getting annoyed with the 40 in a 60 gang and overtaking in a less than perfect place causes accidents....sure it's the over takers fault but I understand why it happens. I hate the ditherers too.....been a while since I did it but you used to fail your advanced driving test for driving like that......"failing to make adequate progress".
And it's not for safety that they drive at 40 in a 60, it's because they have no idea what's going on around them....and the massive queue building up behind them! You can prove this as often that same slow driver that was holding everyone up continues at exactly the same 40 mph when he enters a 30 zone. So he goes from dithering annoyance to dangerous driver within yards. Because of where I live being like God's waiting room (lots of oldies) I see this every few days (usually in a mint but ancient Micra or the geriatrics favourite, the Honda Jazz)......once, after this happened to me after a bad day at work, as they pulled into their drive I stopped and asked him if it was perhaps time to stop driving.....and worryingly his daughter agreed!

 

[Wolfie1]

Discretion is the better part of valour so yes let them go whenever you can. I adopt the principle: THE NEARER YOU COME THE SLOWER I GO. Therefore without touching the brakes I ease off speed as soon as I get tailgated to maximise the opportunity to be overtaken & minimise impact should there be a collision. Constant tailgating in built-up areas means I drive at 5mph below the posted speed limit, let all side road traffic out, slow down well before junctions & traffic lights & take a very long to time to move away from a standstill which works best when driving an old Honda Jazz. In my nice Mercedes sports car with the roof stowed of course, I have been known to pull in & wave a tailgater by, usually with a cheerful smile & a dismissive underhand wave as if dismissing an insect. Doing so I suspect annoys them because I have shown that I don't have an ego or a need to prove anything & have destroyed their need to express superiority, power or competitive spirit - sort of taking wind out of the sad sails of their crappy van, dull saloon or vulgar big-wheeled gangster glass Yobmobile. I then continue on my way enjoying the fresh air & with a big smile on my face.

Why would you do that, you dont know whats happening in someone else’s life, ever thought that maybe they are taking their sick pet to the vet in an emergency, that they are responding to an elderly persons panic/fall alarm, someone like my wife travelling to an emergency as she is a community nurse or even a member of the RNLI heading out to a rescue, you could be the cause of death with your thran ways

 

[alzieboy]

I bet people getting annoyed with the 40 in a 60 gang and overtaking in a less than perfect place causes accidents....sure it's the over takers fault but I understand why it happens. I hate the ditherers too.....been a while since I did it but you used to fail your advanced driving test for driving like that......"failing to make adequate progress".
And it's not for safety that they drive at 40 in a 60, it's because they have no idea what's going on around them....and the massive queue building up behind them! You can prove this as often that same slow driver that was holding everyone up continues at exactly the same 40 mph when he enters a 30 zone. So he goes from dithering annoyance to dangerous driver within yards. Because of where I live being like God's waiting room (lots of oldies) I see this every few days (usually in a mint but ancient Micra or the geriatrics favourite, the Honda Jazz)......once, after this happened to me after a bad day at work, as they pulled into their drive I stopped and asked him if it was perhaps time to stop driving.....and worryingly his daughter agreed!

I wouldn’t like to have to guess your hat size,

 

[Deleted member 126251]

I bet people getting annoyed with the 40 in a 60 gang and overtaking in a less than perfect place causes accidents....sure it's the over takers fault but I understand why it happens. I hate the ditherers too.....been a while since I did it but you used to fail your advanced driving test for driving like that......"failing to make adequate progress".
And it's not for safety that they drive at 40 in a 60, it's because they have no idea what's going on around them....and the massive queue building up behind them! You can prove this as often that same slow driver that was holding everyone up continues at exactly the same 40 mph when he enters a 30 zone. So he goes from dithering annoyance to dangerous driver within yards. Because of where I live being like God's waiting room (lots of oldies) I see this every few days (usually in a mint but ancient Micra or the geriatrics favourite, the Honda Jazz)......once, after this happened to me after a bad day at work, as they pulled into their drive I stopped and asked him if it was perhaps time to stop driving.....and worryingly his daughter agreed!

@Bobby Dazzler

The above. Plus, it seems to me that nearly everyone driving on the motor way tailgates in clusters. You get a bunch of lorries & cars together in the left lane, then one slow mover (lorry or car) pulls into the middle lane causing a cluster which prompts the driver (with his/her cruise control set to 69 & afraid to touch it incase s/he cannot re-set it) to move into the right lane which causes another cluster of drivers and angry tailgaters trying to get past.

 

[Ted]

My biggest gripe is that I always seem to get the slow doddery drivers in front of me or the stupidly dangerous fast drivers behind me.

 

[JHS]

Having just had 2 speeding fines for travelling at 36 in a 30 limit, I reserve my right to stay under the speed limit, whatever that may be. My fault for not reducing my speed quickly enough.
If it pisses off the various driving gods that infest our roads, so be it.
Our village is a so called "linear" village, as there is but one road through it. It is a rat run for those who want to save a few minutes on their daily commute. No problem with that, but the residents, through necessity, park on both sides of the road, thereby reducing the width. We also have a 30 limit, which a majority seem to think is the lower speed limit. When I enter the village, I reduce my speed to an indicated 30 until I turn off to our property. This severely infuriates the F1 wannabes, who seem to think that driving between 2 rows of cars on a reduced width road at warp speed is acceptable. 2 recent accidents have proved them wrong.
All that is just to say that there are lots of reasons for driving at a given speed.
For those that are about to post that indicated 30 is probably 28, nowhere in my car handbook or on my dashboard, that I have to apply an allowance to the indicated speed.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

..1) I reserve my right to stay under the speed limit, whatever that may be.
2) When I enter the village, I reduce my speed to an indicated 30 ................

1) No problem with that as long as you leave people space to pass you if and when they can. It is amazing how many people want to drive below the speed limit in a zombie cluster of several cars making it impossible for anyone to get past.

2) I drive at the speed limit through all villages but even slower on the windy roads in & around our village. We have a lot of bikers coming through on nice days & they do not seem to think that speed limits apply to them.

I admit to speeding on motorways when I can, but never in built up areas and I am extra cautious there. Years ago, I knew a chap that killed a kid that ran out from between two cars in a town. He was doing the speed limit etc but was still found guilty of something (I don’t recall the details) but worse still, he never got over killing that child.

 

[GrahamT]

Why would you do that, you dont know whats happening in someone else’s life, ever thought that maybe they are taking their sick pet to the vet in an emergency, that they are responding to an elderly persons panic/fall alarm, someone like my wife travelling to an emergency as she is a community nurse or even a member of the RNLI heading out to a rescue, you could be the cause of death with your thran ways

None of which justifies following dangerously close to another vehicle.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

None of which justifies following dangerously close to another vehicle.

Agree but the problem is frustration.

When you’re headed to the hospital with a baby’s head sticking out between your partner’s legs and a numpty is up ahead with his cc set to 68 passing a car doing 67 and will not get out of the way because he does not (or doesn’t know it can happen without upsetting his cc) want to accelerate a little and ruin his fuel economy stats for the trip and his little life.

I just do not get why they will not move over.