Re the the tailgating thread, another hate of mine is the "follower", I have had drivers that for some inexplicable reason like to follow me on the motorway. I speed up slightly and they are still there slow down slightly and they slow down. I have tried flooring it to get a few miles away and all they do is catch up once I have returned to my normal speed and then continue their following. Is it some kind of herding instinct or what!!. I normally have to resort to slowing right down so they have to overtake.and then letting them get ahead.
Mal.
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Perhaps they're flirting with you! ;-)
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L\'escargot.
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I was expecting a reply on those lines :-))>> Perhaps they're flirting with you! ;-)-- L\'escargot.
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Totally agree with you Mal. What gets my goat is followers who will just stick behind you, tailgating you. They seem to have no desire to change lanes. - Not only are they middle lane hoggers but also tailgators.
What I generally do is to slow down to 50, then speed up to 70, repeat a few times, until they think this 'guy can't drive' then they will actually pass.
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Torque means nothing without RPM
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If I am doing a long motorway journey then I usually "hook up" with another driver in front of me especially if it is higher speeds.
I do this on the basis that if there is a waiting police car on a slip road or bridge then if the guy in front sees him, he will automatically brake which serves a s a warning to me. And if he doesn't see the police, then the police will (hopefully) go after him and not me!
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And also on the same subject, if the guy in front slows down to 50, after doing 70+, I would also slow down cos I would assume there was a reason for him suddenly slowing down!
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"Hooking up", or whatever you want to call it it, is at best silly and at worst sinister and threatening. When it happens to me, my first thought is that the follower must be mentally disturbed. On one occasion, the follower's persistence was such that I was left in no doubt about that suspicion. Please don't do it.
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Slow down and make them pass is my way of dealing with them. Of course what usually happens then is I resume my cruising speed, am forced to re-overtake them and then end up in the same situation.
Had one particularly idiotic bloke in a Rover 25 follow me from Lagos, Portugal for almost 100km like this. He also liked to pull into lane 2 and sit there, just in my blind spot, shadowing me for reasons which I couldn't quite work out.
At the first services I pulled in- guess what? So did the idiot. Carried on through and back on the motorway, 5 minutes later I see a purple 25 speeding towards me. Catches me up and just sits there in lane 2 yet again. Tried slowing down but so did he.
.*********
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I had a stalker once, on the a drive from Edingborough (apologies for the carp spelling) to Oxford on the motorways in a transit, it was a bit annoying at first till I realised my tranny was more powerful than his and he was draughting me (i presume as if he got too far behind he dropped back) and i would indicate in plenty of time when I wanted to overtake so he could pull out first and create a gap for me so we could get a shift on and keep our speed up.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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'Followers' are possibly more welcome when driving an older or more unusual car. I remember being 'followed' last year for a good 70 or so miles up the A1 by a fellow Citroën CX driver. It made a tedious solo journey a bit more enjoyable. When I eventually turned off the A1, he gave a couple of headlight flashes - which were duly acknowledged :-)
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I don't think followers are necersarily a problem if they're not tailgating unless, like previous posters have had, they don't take a hint and become stalkers
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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It's not the "followers" that bug me, it's the "leaders" that do my head in.
You're cruising along minding your own business, you come up behind someone doing 60-65 on a motorway. So, you overtake as normal.
However, the "leader" doesn't like this and proceeds to put their foot down, go past you at 75+ and then sit back in front. OK, Fine. The inevitable happens and they soon slow down below 70 again, so I overtake and.....repeat until sanity is lost!!
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Yes oilburner I have come across those particular drivers as well. I think there should be rehab centres for mentally disturbed drivers !.
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Huh, and you thought the prisons were full ...
I claim the top bunk.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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I have to admit being a "follower" on rare occasions -- if I am on a long motorway journey the first instinct is to drive like a loony and follow all rep mobiles on outside lane doing anything up to 100mph - then sanity returns when you realise that at this rate by time you get to destination you will be wound up like a top so if I see a cruise controller doing steady 70ish i will sit a few hundred yards behind and use him as a "pace car" - at no point would I tail gate or drive close enough so it appears threatening. - Make of it what you will but it relaxes me while driving.
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Working in Sweden back in November 2004, I had to drive from Goteborg to Linkoping up the E4, but was lucky to join the motorway in harmony with a V70 taxi from Jonkoping (roughly half way between the two). Twigging that he was probably a regular, I tucked in behind as we set off up the nigh on empty motorway. Sure enough, we would sit at 150-160KPH (100MPH) for a few miles, and then drop to 120KPH for no apparent reason. A few seconds later, a parked police car would hove in to view. This went on for the entire distance to Jonkoping, whereupon my normal 'cruise control at 130KPH' took over, but I still saved a lot of time. Thanks, matey!
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A few weeks ago I followed a car (a 320d IIRC) down the M5 for about a hour, he turned off at the same junction as I and for the next 20 mins wherever he turned I followed, it was only within 100 yards of our drive that he turned right and I went straight on, he must live (or have been visiting) about 200 yards from us.
I started to get embarrased that he might think he was being followed, if I was him I might have been worried.
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I started to get embarrased that he might think he was being followed, if I was him I might have been worried.
That happened to me once a year or so ago. I was taking the country road route home, just for the fun of it. It's a set route I have and I love driving it. Basically, every turning he made was the one I was going to take. It got to the point where we were both the only cars on the road, in the middle of nowhere, at midnight. I must have followed him for 10 miles through the country roads. In the end I started indicating very early (before him) just so he could see that I was not following. It was a huge coincidence because there's really not much around that area where I drive, hence why I drive there. I was reliaved when he finally turned off down a road I hadn't intended on going down!
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Police cars often do this on my route to and from work. They sit in a layby, then pull out just after I have passed. They follow me for a few miles, at a distance just long enough for me to begin to forget they are there, closing the gap when I slow to 30 or 40 for a village, then dropping back again. After a while they get bored and turn round , presumably looking for someone else to make nervous.
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These 'followers' of yours could be practising what I like to call 'Zen Navigation' (credit to the Dirk Gently novels of the late Douglas Adams here). Basically, when lost (I don't believe in sat nav) you follow someone who looks like they know where they are going. I don't always get to where I intended, but I do see some strange corners of the UK by this method.
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Nobody's ever followed me into the "backwoods" I have only ever had this happen to me on dual carriageways where there is plenty of opportunities to overtake.
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I think it is inevitable if you are cruising at a reasonable speed for long distances on the motorway. I spent a long time with a 'white van man' behind me while on the M1 - he was pacing me as I overtook slower vehicles and was a good distance behind - I pointed out o my husband that he must approve of my driving! Later on I got 'stuck' briefly in the inside lane and we reversed positions until I came off the motorway.
I found it reassuring, not threatening, and have done so in the past when the driver is driving safely. Obviously this would not be my view if they were trying to hitch a ride on my bumper and would then get as far away from his accident as I could!
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Maybe these people are trying to save fuel by slip-streaming.
Used to do this in town on my bicycle behind trucks and buses, a bit tricky if they slowed down too quick, had to make sure I always had an escape route to one side or the orher of the vehicle.
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I'm on 9 points now so have to drive at 75 on motorways. I'm not used to it, as I normally do 90-100 and rarely have to pull over to let a car pass at these speeds. I'm finding that people behave in quite an alarming way on the roads - speeding up, slowing down, not using lanes correctly etc. It's actually hard to stick at a speed as when I pull out to overtake, often the car you're passing speeds up a bit etc, resulting in you sitting alongside it rather than passing & pulling in. So I tend to find a car doing 70-80 and just sit behind it instead, becoming a 'follower'.
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I don't think there's a problem provided the the follower leaves a good gap.
I used to do a lot of night driving across country and found it less tiring to follow behind a good driver who maintained a consistent speed so that I had the benefit of his lights without having all the work of switching from dip to main. As a normal courtesy I'd always keep well back so that he wasn't bothered by my lights. If someone wants to follow me at a distance in the same way that's fine.
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I'm not used to it, as I normally do 90-100 and rarely have to pull over to let a car pass at these speeds. I'm finding that people behave in quite an alarming way on the roads - speeding up, slowing down, not using lanes correctly etc.
I find that the least stressful speeds on a motorway are either 90+ or 55mph
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I find that the least stressful speeds on a motorway are either 90+ or 55mph
Explains my skiophrenic (sorry bad spelling) behavour on motorways! - I either follow trucks or try to race along at around 90.
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Torque means nothing without RPM
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That happened to me once a year or so ago. I was taking the country road route home, just for the fun of it. It's a set route I have and I love driving it. Basically, every turning he made was the one I was going to take. It got to the point where we were both the only cars on the road, in the middle of nowhere, at midnight. I must have followed him for 10 miles through the country roads. In the end I started indicating very early (before him) just so he could see that I was not following. It was a huge coincidence because there's really not much around that area where I drive, hence why I drive there. I was reliaved when he finally turned off down a road I hadn't intended on going down!
Had he do you think?
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My former colleague lived in WIndsor & one night was driving home from central london, and recognised some sort of royal car ahead early on on the journey. She followed it all the way back to windsor as it was her route anyway, and when they got to the turnoff for the castle, some time later, the royal car inexplicably went round the roundabout twice so my colleague wouldn't be in behind them any more!!
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