J - this is something in your road isn't it?!

I'm with Trilogy. I like Saabs. I have no idea why!

I can't answer this thread because people won't read posts that are too long. Suffice it to say, the roundabout thread has some good examples. Also cars that look like a Stormtrooper's hat. People who believe that they can just push into the queue for the motorway in the morning even though everyone else has waited in the correct lane - yes you, BMW driver! Tailgating. White van men who think it's ok to use my drive to turn round and drag all my pebbles off into the road. People who can't indicate (or won't).

People who get in a flappy panic on m'way slip roads and force me to enter a busy motorway at sub-30mph speeds!!!

That's only a few.

People who turn right at roundabouts without indicating (but infuriatingly indicate off (left) after the dangerous part of the manoeuvre is out of the way!), as well as people who indicate right and then left to go straight on, meaning if you are going straight in the opposite direction you end up stranded when you could have gone. Unfortunately, (the controversial bit) in the vast majority of the cases I've witnessed, the perpetrators of these pet-peaves are usually not male – unless they are really old then all bets are off. (A bit of ageism to go with the sexism - I'm not ismist!)

Occasionally I pull out on the drivers committing the said turning right offence, knowing they are about to turn right (sixth sense from the positioning and speed of their car) hitting the brakes and horn in unison but allowing enough room for them to get past – scares the bejesus out of them – but they still have the clueless “What did I do wrong?” expression plastered across their ignorant faces. Often you get the boyfriend/partner – head down, trying not to make eye-contact, coz he knows exactly what she's just done but dare not criticise in case his weekly rations are withdrawn.

They closed the SAAB factory at the weekend there were 14000 wheels and 400 complete bodies along with 50 complete vehicles removed from the production line.I wonder what happens to these bits and pieces.

Edited by Collos25 on 08/04/2012 at 15:46

People who can afford shiny new cars but not fuel and think that 40mph is an acceptable speed in national speed limit areas.

The reason the first category are a problem is because if they are driving in the opposite direction to you they are about to turn across your path - very dangerous.

Illegal and/or inappropriate use of front and rear fog lights! If it isn't foggy switch them OFF FFS!

*Pedant alert*

I cringe to the point of screaming when people mispronounce names of cars. Don't know why, but I do! Particular horrors are: Ordy, Rennolt, Pyue-djut, Hi-un-die, See-at, Dye-woo and Voaks-wagon. I think I once heard Orto-bee-ant-chee in the 1980s but might have been dreaming. The pronunciation is more or less right in all the TV advertising, yet some people insist on their own garbled pronunciation. In the "grey/iffy" category (where the widely used pronunciation is not quite right but a sort of half way house that most people use, except for pedantic Mildrews like me) are Larnseeyer and Fer-rarey, Renno and Sit-run. Mercedes is a funny one as it is different in every market: Mer-seed-iz in South Africa, Mehr-the-dess in Spain, Mair-tzed-ez in Germany, etc.

Spanish speakers' attempts at 99% of foreign names cause my hearing to shut down to prevent my brain from exploding - Bolbo, Rennol, Robber, Puyot, Saff, Mathda, Forrr, and the legendary 1960s locally-assembled American Do-khay Darr.

Rant over!

Depends on your point of view!

Should proper names from other countries be pronounced in the perceived English way or in the foreign accent - and if it's an English accent, which regional dialect ? BBC/Queens English hasn't been heard for decades!

Edited by RT on 13/04/2012 at 15:29

If you want to hear interesting ways of saying car names go to a Texan car dealership.

Beem-double-ya

Huun-dee

Strange, isn't it, that most people make a reasonable effort at pronouncing Renault and Peugeot the French way, but don't even try with Citroen.

Being a classics graduate, for most of the time I'm up there with the pedants - but I confess to not saying Shkoda, as the Czechs do with the little thingy atop the S.