I agree with Merlin, but I find it even more infuriating when, having completed my overtaking manoeuvre, I move over to let the tailgater go, and they have a sudden attack of agorophobia when confronted with a clear stretch of road. { With sincere apologies to genuine agorophobics.} When I come to make my next overtaking manoeuvre, they happily sit on my quarter and adjust speed to stop me moving out. Signals that I wish to move out a lane are, of course, ignored.
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Tailgating. No other habit annoys me as much, and fills me with such instant hatred and contempt for the perpetrator.
Cheers
DP
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People who slow down during overtaking. I drive quite a lot on the A34, and every time, I see cars and vans start to overtake with a speed differential of maybe 10-15 MPH, only to slow down so that the manoeuvre takes 30 secs.even in heavy spray, when they're virtually blinded during the overtake.
P
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People approaching traffic lights - two lanes going straight on and nothing in the right lane which they take - and when the lights change they tootle off at 10 mph whilst 25 cars in the left lane have now gone off leaving you and the 10 mph guy. WHY? Why don't they just pull up behind the car in the left lane in the first place? It is a free country, but I would to know how their thought process works to drive them (no pun intended) to do what they do.
People who block the entrance onto a roundabout becuase their exit is blocked. WHY? Do they feel so much better for causing others to be delayed?
I could go on but I might choke on my jaffa cake.
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People who block the entrance onto a roundabout becuase their exit is blocked. WHY? Do they feel so much better for causing others to be delayed?
Surely staying where you ar if your exit is blocked is the right thing to do. That's why we have yellow boxed junctions and signs on roundabouts saying "keep clear".
If people simply carrried on, discovered their exit was blocked, and then bunged up the roundabout, no one would get anywhere.
So I say - "only proceed if your exit is clear, and if it delays others, it'll be for much less a time than if you proceed."
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>> People who block the entrance onto a roundabout becuase their exit is blocked. WHY? Do >> they feel so much better for causing others to be delayed? >> Surely staying where you ar if your exit is blocked is the right thing to do. That's why we have yellow boxed junctions and signs on roundabouts saying "keep clear". If people simply carrried on discovered their exit was blocked and then bunged up the roundabout no one would get anywhere.
The way I read it you both agree. When I read the first post I assumed "block the entrance" meant, for example, proceeding onto the roundabout intending to go straight ahead, but stopping in a queue on the roundabout in such a position that you block vehicles trying to enter from your left - so not blocking your own entrance, but blocking a different entrance.
So I say - "only proceed if your exit is clear and if it delays others it'll be for much less a time than if you proceed."
I wouldn't go that far. Even if your exit isn't clear, if you can get on and part-way round the roundabout, stopping somewhere that doesn't block anyone else's entrance, I would be somewhat frustrated, and justifiably so I think, if I was behind you and you stayed where you were, waiting until you could get all the way on, across and off the roundabout in one go.
Same goes for pulling out of a side road to turn right in busy traffic. If there's no immediate sign of a gap coming in both directions at once on the main road, then as soon as there's a decent gap in the first lane (the traffic coming from your right, whose lane you need to cross) then please, please, PLEASE consider pulling out across that first lane and waiting for a gap in the traffic you want to join. More often than not, it won't be long at all before someone lets you in, and even if they don't, you will probably still end up getting out of the side road quicker. People who wait for perfection before pulling out when a being a bit more positive could be so much quicker don't just spend their own time, which is up to them, they waste the time of everyone behind them in the queue waiting to get out, which is extremely thoughtless.
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I haven't seen this survey, but the ones I have seen usually have two distinct sets of responses. Those that hate tailgating and 'undertaking' and the rest who hate drivers who drive in the middle (ie the overtaking) lane when they are not overtaking. It seems clear to me that if people drove in the inside lane (as the law requires) then most tailgating would disappear and 'undertaking' wouldn't even be possible.
So when Merlin says "I know I should pull over..." he should be comforted to know that its not about giving in to bullying It's about doing what he should be doing
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>It seems clear to me that if people drove in the inside lane (as the law requires) then most tailgating would disappear and 'undertaking' wouldn't even be possible.
I would wager you're a tailgater and undertaker but have a huge list of mitigating reasons why it's justified. That said I do partially agree. Undertaking some dawdler who's doing 55 in the middle lane of a motorway when the inside is clear but the outside is full of people doing 70-90mph is something I see regularly and that would not be necessary if they kept over.
However, what about when there is a 300 yard gap between two lorries in the inside lane and a line of traffic overtaking them on the outside? If you pull into the 300 yard gap the space you left will immediately close up and then you'll want to pull out again in 10 seconds but won't be able to until either everyone in the outside lane gets past the next lorry or hell freezes over. However, the guy tailgating you swerves into the inside lane, accelerates past and then swerves in front of you, halving your braking distance or worse. I've seen that loads.
I agree to a certain extent that tailgating would disappear if people drove in the inside lane; I think that is true for free flowing traffic on multi-laners, but not in any kind of queue or heavy traffic. It's not that uncommon that I'll pull out to overtake - maybe doing more than the legal limit - into a big gap to overtake a lorry that I've come up behind and see the small car in my rear view grow rapidly because it's doing 90-100mph and then sit 15 foot from my bumper or not even brake but expect me to swerve out of its way as soon as my rear has cleared the front of the lorry. I always try to avoid causing a car to have to slow, but it's sometimes difficult to judge when a car is caning it along. On the flip side, if someone pulls out in front of me at 60 and I have to take off 20 from my speed I'll do so and keep a proper gap, too many people think they'll "teach them a lesson" by not slowing and then making out like they had to take evasive action.
Similarly I learnt yesterday that apparently 65mph isn't fast enough on some single carriageway a-roads for some drivers, particularly for one who tailgated me horrendously and then unsuccesfully tried to overtake me. He had to pull back in after 5 seconds or so because his wheezy little heap couldn't make it. I had cruise on so didn't speed up or slow but was about to "help him out" by carefully braking, good job I didn't as he pulled back in 5feet behind me just before a van took him to the next life. I just think, go past me if you want or get lost but don't drive right up behind me when I'm trying to concentrate and doing a totally reasonable speed.
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SNIPQUOTE (using big pair of scissors as there was so much of it)
In reply to Markoose
It's not me you're replying to above, but I have a thought in this area.
Personally I undertake but I don't tailgate. I have a simple criterion when deciding to undetake, which is to consider the mirror image of what I'm about to do (i.e. same situation, same traffic pattern around me, but in the mirror image world I am passing on the correct side). If the mirror image overtaking manoeuvre wouldn't be safe, I won't undertake either.
In mirror image world, your first situation - dawdler in the middle lane - would pass my safety test. Your second situation (which I see quite regularly too), involving darting between lanes and lots of accelerating through the traffic wouldn't be any safer if it involved overtaking rather than undertaking. The fundamental problem is increased risk fuelled, presumably, by impatience. Undertaking is just one symptom. Most people who do that seem just as willing to change lanes to the right when that helps their progress, it's just that lane 1 tends to have more gaps they can use than lane 3 does.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 27/03/2008 at 18:57
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Markoose you lose...I'm a dawdler too. I Trundle along in the inside lane at 60/65 being overtaking by everything and 'monstered' by coaches, But I invariably find I catch up with people doing 60 in the middle lane and, unless all the lanes are full, have to go around them, probably to the frustration of others because then the motorway is 'blocked' . I take your point about the 300 yard gap but we don't have to be precious about this...If you are overtaking a row of traffic then stay in the middle lane until you've passed it. If however you can see you are not going to be overtaking anyone in the next two miles... then pull back in.
There is a big difference I think between drivers who are bad because they are reckless or useless, like the guy in your last paragraph and drivers who, like midde lane drivers, don't seem to have a clue about how to do things properly.
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