The worst driving I've encountered has to be 30ish year old blokes in the lumbering piles of junk like Fronteras, Mavricks and Terranos.
They are always tailgating some poor sod or trying a pointless overtaking manouever in a vehicle obviously designed to compensate for lack of personality / wedding tackle.
I was just on my way back to work from lunch. An old sierra behind me staying a reasonable distance as we drove through a 30 mph limit industrial estate, with lots of people wandering around getting their lunches etc. About a foot behind him is a Frontera. Anyway we all turn off the main road through the estate. At this point it's pretty obvious that you are going somewhere on the estate and will be stopping and turning off again. The Frontera driver decides to overtake the Sierra. However the Sierra driver wants to turn right into his works. Much squealing of tyres and honking of horns later the Sierra has turned off and Frontera man proceeds to race until he's a foot behind me. All I can see is the pedestrian killer bars in my rear view window... Luckily I can swoop away to the left as I enter my place of work. He speeds off - no doubt in a hurry to close some multi-billion pound deals or count paperclips.... I'm sure any accident would have been blamed on the Frontera drivers excessive speed but it would be missing the point. The guy is obviously a to**er.
I think the reality dawns on these people that they've bought 2 tons of a sick automotive joke, invented by a marketing team and cobbled together by half-arsed engineers to hit the forecourts quickly. They must get so little satisfaction from driving these trucks on the open road they need any opportunity to feel superior to other road users. Hence stupid overtaking and tailgating....
On a similar note - I saw the aftermath of a motorbike accident some months ago. Long clear 60 mph road with a roundabout offset to the right so 'straight-on' really is straight-on. Biker managed to hit the roundabout whilst trying to go straight-on and kill himself. The accident report was in the local papers on-line site yesterday. He was travelling at at-least 71mph and was double the drink drive limit. Accident blamed on his speed...... I've gone through this RAB (it's a well designed on that you can see over and observe all approach roads) at pretty high speed when the roads are very quiet. If a modern sports bike couldn't handle it at 71 mph then Honda engineers ought to be lined up and shot... Could the fact he was pissed have been the major factor? OK, so being pissed and hitting a sign at walking pace isn't going to kill you. But surely the coroner could see that his impaired judgement led to him doing that speed and aiming himself at a sign? Muppets....
Rant over, apologies to anyone who has the misfortune to own a Frontera...
Piers
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So a pissed bloke fell off his bike and killed himself and it's
Hondas fault ?
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No. What I was implying was that if a modern sports bike couldn't manage to carry on in a straight line at 71 mph then it's design would have to be considered dangerous. And the designer therefore should be chastised. Of course this isn't the case.
Thus I was suggesting that the main reason for the accident and subsequent death was that the rider was a pissed bloke aiming at and hitting a large road sign (which I can't think why he'd be doing if he wasn't beered up) on a very safe piece of road. I wouldn't consider 71 mph to be a dangerous speed - ie likely to lead to a total loss of control - for this bit of road. There were no other vehicles involved. If there were other vehicles around then 71 would be a bit too much. I doubt if a bike (being very narrow) would even see it as a slight corner.
I think it's the type of car - Fronteras etc - that leads to drivers driving them badly. It's the only car I've ever felt sick in in the passenger seat due to it's weaving and bobbing action. The driver was also pretty sick of the fact that it wouldn't accelerate and broke down often.
Piers
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A couple of years ago the headline for such a bike crash would have mentioned 'Drunken Biker' or similar. However now it's being pushed, by the coroner and the newspaper, to a secondary standing to 11 mph over the speed limit. In a nutshell - the road is a 'safe' one. The RAB is a 'safe' one - good visability and the main route taken by most people comming from the same direction as the biker through the RAB is pretty much straight. My car will do it at 60 without a problem - when it's clear of course. The fact that he had impaired judgement made him hit the sign, doing 71 mph wouldn't. However in this current 'Speed kills' climate other more important factors are being pushed out in order to promote exceeding the speed limit as being deadly to the masses.
It's when you see drivers acting like the Frontera driver I encountered that you realise it's the mentality of people that causes 'accidents'. But this isn't being pushed. I acknowledge it's simpler to slow everyone down so that stupidity results in less energy needing to be absorbed by something or someone in an accident (and so less chance of death) than to enforce better driving standards and care, but it doesn't make it right. Anyone with half a brain sees this. It's driver attitude that leads to drinking and driving, having bald tyres, tailgating, looking for sweets in a jacket on the passenger seat, driving after taking drugs or when very tired.
Piers
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do you think the frontera driver drives normally when driving any other vehicle?
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> do you think the frontera driver drives normally when driving
> any other vehicle?
Normally, dunno; but I expect differently.
I drive quite differently depending on the car I'm driving. And sadly, this isn't limited simply to the different capabilities or limitations of the different vehicles.
Its actually a state of [my] mind. Certainly I have to try not to drive agressively when I'm in the Dodge but I need to concentrate on my right foot in the A6.
A certain amount of that is, of course, performance, but the Dodge isn't slow. Its just that the A6 lends itself to a different behaviour.
Of course, the wrong music is bad.
M.
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Piers, I don't see your point over the bike crash. Surely the bike 'is' safe if you're sober?
I'm right with you on the bullying driver, and it's just typical that he blamed the other driver and could see no fault in his own behaviour. I'd imagine that it's not the vehicle but the driver, put him in an ex-BT Fiesta van and you'll get the same driving style. I saw it only today, lots of swerving, tailgating etc ... frightening.
How long do they survive though, surely the law of averages will get them (and some other poor sod) eventually. I wonder if they carry on like that or learn their lesson, mmm.
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Sorry but that's really nothing. Try driving in Manila where I live! Only 25% of drivers possess any insurance (Gvt figures) there is no driving test and last night it took me 2.5 hours to cover 19km. THe purpose of signals as everyone knows is not to indicate a manoevre but to tell following drivers you are pushing in whether they like it or not.When the trafic does ease up, there's a bit of room for huge unlit semi-trailers to do u-turns across expressways without warning or jeepneys that are so battered they have no compunction about scraping you to get through a gap. Traffic cops have no interest in any of this, but love foreigners so they can make up imaginary offences for which they can extort healthy bribes. Actually I fully support a bribe system, at least (a) I know my money is going direct into policing (Unlike UK) and (b) it saves all that timewasting court stuff.
Why do I live in Manila? Have you seen the women? Oh, and gas costs about 25pence a liter, and my Ford Lariat V-8 4WD (much classier than a Frontera) enables me to shove other people in Toyota Corollas around.
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Some people here are missing the point.Alcohol was the determining variable in killing the biker OK GEDDIT!!
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Have to agree about vehicles such as the Frontera - if not the drivers.
Whilst the 71mph quoted for the motorbike was qualified by"at least" I often wonder how police/technical experts can be so sure about their estimates in fatal crashes.
If I can hijack your thread on the point The Growler made above. H-J wrote on
a thread on Undertaking(11/08/01 at 06:49):-
"Robert demonstrates a curious obsession among the Brits to slavishly follow rules and laws for the sake of it, even if the rules and laws do not represent common sense in the circumstances. He should go to a country like Indonesia, hire the cheapest most horrible little jeep he can find, then take to the roads and find out how to drive the Indonesian way. Instinct, common sense and simply getting on with it take precedence over anything else apart from the occasional red light. No one ever impedes anyone else's progress or gets into a silly huff about bad driving. I didn't see a single accident anywhere."
I wonder if The Growler has any accident figures to support H-J's implication that driving is better there?
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As I mentioned in the thread on driving test changes: when I took my test there were two "laws" in the highway code that were the exact opposite in the police driving manual.
So which "law" does the "law abiding" abide to?
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PS Piers: I understood you perfectly, but if you keep repeating yourself in the hope it will click with everyone else you'll end up being outlawed to the desperados, making us the gang of 5 ; - (
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