slow driving

bigtimecharlie

Heading out of Dublin on Friday 2nd Jan and seen some blatant slow driving. as luck would have it the traffic heading into Dublin was also a long cortege like crawl so the change to overtake was slim to none. The offending driver made no attempt to use the hard shoulder to allow the precession behing time to get away, just hogging the white line like they were sniffing coke.

Surely this is an abuse of the rules of the road. 30KPH and not allowing other driver's to drive just below the speed limit is only leading to road rage.

As it happen's, my house mate was heading from the west to Dublin and it took him 2 hour's just to get to Longford ( same day).

Surely this type of driving behaviour should be outlawed.

I have heard of people failing the driving test for going TOO SLOW!.


Rgd's

Atomic Pineapple

/me holds hand up

i failed my driving test first time for going too slow, was goin 33mph in a 40mph zone and under 30 in the 30 zones got something like 4 or 5 marks for goin too slow :rolleyes:

when i passed it i was actually doin around 31/32mph in 30 zones its all to do with progress.

in my opinion slow drivers are as much of a hazard as speeding drivers, I was a passenger with my father one night and he was doin 55mph, came around a corner and next thing there was a car doin 20mph on the road, had to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid hitting it.

there was no house's or roads onto the road anywhere near were the car was so there was no chance the car had just come onto the road

Capt'n Midnight

Obstruction ?

If they were keeping in to the left fair enough - but when they hog the centre of the road :mad:

Eurorunner

i may be wrong but i believe it is already outlawed. However, when do they ever prosecute anyone for this. Slow begrudging & uncourteous drivers are the cause of road rage and dangerous driving on our roads.


How some of these people can jog along at 30 when they could just as easily do 60 - with a backlog of 8/9 cars behind them - its beyond me.

seamus

Originally posted by draffodx
/me holds hand up

i failed my driving test first time for going too slow, was goin 33mph in a 40mph zone and under 30 in the 30 zones got something like 4 or 5 marks for goin too slow :rolleyes:

when i passed it i was actually doin around 31/32mph in 30 zones its all to do with progress.

It is a bit of a tightrope. In most test centres, testers require you to go on or just above the 30mph limit cos anything less is just too slow in everyday traffic. There's also the fact that they're sitting to the left of your speedo, so your speed reads slightly less to them (forget the name of this property of light). I'm sure most testers are aware of, and try to compensate for this, but with all the different makes of cars and speedos, they can't be right all the time

in my opinion slow drivers are as much of a hazard as speeding drivers, I was a passenger with my father one night and he was doin 55mph, came around a corner and next thing there was a car doin 20mph on the road, had to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid hitting it.

there was no house's or roads onto the road anywhere near were the car was so there was no chance the car had just come onto the road

I think we all have our scary slow drivers moments. I rounded a corner at somewhere between 55 and 60 one day, only to see an old Land Rover in front of me. It was moving and about 400m away from me. But I got then within 150m of it and realised it was stopped. No brakelights, no indicator. There were two big black streaks up the road for months afterwards. I was sliding, and about 5m from him, still moving, but maybe going about 10mph, when he turned, and just got out of my way. And I wasn't even driving my own car....that was a lucky day.

byte

Originally posted by draffodx
/me holds hand up

i failed my driving test first time for going too slow, was goin 33mph in a 40mph zone and under 30 in the 30 zones got something like 4 or 5 marks for goin too slow :rolleyes:

Heh, same thing happened me. I did my first test (and second test) in a Yaris which has a digital speedo in centre of dash facing the driver. I was doing 28-30mph in a 30 zone and about 56-60 on a 60 zone, and was given black marks for going too slow (poor progress, i think they call it). So the second time (again in a Yaris) I just drove a few miles over the limit and passed!

ando

Yesterday I was going onto the m50 at 35mph.... it scared the crap out of me. I was stuck behind a slow driver. It’s incredible. They must think they are being safer by driving slower onto a 70mph motorway

Beëlzebooze

I think there was a judge in Galway that got critisized for berating slow drivers, calling them a menace and a denger.

must see if I can find the article somewhere

kdevitt

I think there was a judge in Galway that got critisized for berating slow drivers, calling them a menace and a denger.

I think that was the case where a guy 'overtook' an elderly slow driver on the hard shoulder after miles and miles of driving at 20mph in a 60 zone. The gardai were stuck in the resulting traffic buildup but still prosecuted the guy. The judge was fairly easy on him as far as I remember - he said he could understand how annoying it must have been and how such slow driving could be as dangerous as speeding...

bigtimecharlie

I can tolerate slow driving IF the driver is fully aware of what they are doing and THEN make an effort to move over to the Hard Shoulder to allow the procession of car's that are behind to pass out and continue on their journey. Alot of slow driver's don't seem to travel a long distance anyway.

Turner

I generally just edge a little closer to the slow moving car and flash my headlights a few times, normally gets them to pull over allowing a safe overtaking.

Chief.

Doctor J

Isn't that called intimidation?

seamus

Originally posted by Doctor J
Isn't that called intimidation?

Only if it's persistant. Flashing your lights at someone to alert them is nice and legal.

Turner

They obviously dont know you are there or dont know that you would like to overtake so a gentle flashing lets them know.

DMC

I dunno. I wouldn't do it, especially since the Garda Traffic Watch has now gone nationwide. Those old boys doing 30mph on a 60mph road have idle thumbs when they get home.

Flashing can lead to distraction, which could lead to a rear-ending. That's not safe driving at all.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by DMC
I dunno. I wouldn't do it, especially since the Garda Traffic Watch has now gone nationwide. Those old boys doing 30mph on a 60mph road have idle thumbs when they get home.

...and what. The gardai call to your house and have a few words with you? I know it wouldn't be long before the door was closed. They cannot do anything:-
G: excuse me sir, are you the owner of this vehicle?
Me: yeah, why?
G: we received a complaint about this vehicle driving dangerously along nnn road. It was reported that the car was driving close to the car in front and the driver was distracted by the flashing lights.
Me: I remember that car - he was driving dangerously slow. I would like to report him for dangerous driving - the driver was obviously not fully aware of the driving conditions at the time - despite attempts by other drivers to alert him to the presence of said other road users, the driver persisted in driving at an inconsiderate rate. This led to many drivers (who I suspect developed road rage whilst waiting to get by) taking dangerous overtaking manouvres.
Anyway, it wasn't me that was right behind him nor did I flash him! Your source was incorrect! I would also like a copy of their slanderous statement for my solicitor.

ur mentor

it sure is frustrating. Had this conversation with a Guard lately. He reminded me that it is a maximum speed limit. It is not wrong to drive slowly. Person may feel unwell, enroute to hospital, be carrying fragile objects, have slow reactions etc.
Check with your insurance company, but mine claims that I am not supposed to drive on hard shoulder. Fine to pull onto for the purposes of stopping but not for driving.
In the USA they have minimum speed limits, this should be introduced here. Also a law requiring you to pull into left hand lane of a dual carriageway rather than staying in whichever lane you fancy.
On the continent most countries have a rule that says you must pull over if there ae more than 7 cars in a queue behind you and you are goinf less than max speed limit.:p

DMC

Fair enough kbannon, your word against his. As I understand it, after a report from Trafficwatch, the Gardai have to act and give you a warning, no matter how much you may remonstrate like you have said there. Warnings carry little weight, I'm not sure if it is even documented.

Its still doesn't get away that flashing is diabolical road behaviour.

Pet hate #1: **nts who flash at other drivers
Pet hate #2: Slow drivers in front.

Turner

Alot of the time I flash on overtaking to alert the driver that I am actually about to overtake them. This is the norm in alot of countries and I think it is quite safe.

Chief.

Tivoli

i think a lot of slow driving at night is caused by dirty headlights, i followed a car for about 10 miles on sunday night, they'd do 55 when nothing was comming then about 30 when traffic approached, i think as soon as he/she dipped they couldn't see anything

believe me i was going mental, as soon as i got a clear way to over take, he/she would speed up too, so it was hopeless,and there was a good bit of traffic that night

there should be clean your lights adds on the radio

Sesshoumaru

Its still doesn't get away that flashing is diabolical road behaviour.

I think it perfectly reasonable to flash a driver in front of you if you want to alert them that you want to overtake. Overtaking when it is safe is perfectly legal and if the driver in front of you is alerted to your intentions and moves in a bit doesn't this make it safer to overtake? Most drivers only check their mirrors about once every hour. A flash of light in their main rearview mirror is usually enough to make them pay attention to whats behind them. I imagine some of them might not even realise they are causing a queue of cars to form behind them.

ando

Originally posted by DMC
still doesn't get away that flashing is diabolical road behaviour.

erm, dont really agree with that. Going onto the motorway the other day at 35 didnt help my state of mind. I flashed at the driver infront to tell them there was something up. If I didnt flash at them, they would'nt know anything is wrong with their driving, and would do the same thing again next time, putting more lives at risk.

How else can you tell them to hurry up?

padraigmyers

Originally posted by DMC
Pet hate #1: **nts who flash at other drivers

If you are driving in the fast lane slowly, or you are holding up a queue of traffic when there is ample room on the hard sholder to let people by, then I will flash my lights at you, and I will keep doing it until you stop being a asshole and let the traffic by. If that makes me a ****, then thats fine because in that situation I think you would be one too.....

DMC

No one flashes at me, but when I do see it happening in the other direction or if I'm behind, especially at night, there is nothing worse to me than someone flashing up the full heads trying to barge through, regardless if it is slow moving or not.

Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is acceptable.

padraigmyers

Tell me where the Rules of the Road says its acceptable to drive in the right lane on a motorway when the left one is empty. I think I'm within my rights to give a quick touch of the lights just to make the guy in front aware of my presense?

just curious, but how do you feel about drivers that hog the speeding lanes. I've seen many times where drivers have been "forced" to overtake using the slow lane simply because theres a car going at 30-40 in the fast lane. What do you do about these drivers? overtake on the slow lane?

padraigmyers

Originally posted by klaz
just curious, but how do you feel about drivers that hog the speeding lanes. I've seen many times where drivers have been "forced" to overtake using the slow lane simply because theres a car going at 30-40 in the fast lane. What do you do about these drivers? overtake on the slow lane?

Thats exactly what I'm talking about, I think the best thing to do here is to flash the light, then if there is no response, try again 30 seconds later, after that I usually just overtake then on the inside, no point in getting flustrated just sitting there.

Capt'n Midnight

Undertaking - what's worse is when traffic is merging and you can't into the left lane 'cos the drivers are even more over the 40mph speed limit than you are...

Re: flashing to overtake - if someone indicates and it's safe to do so I'll pull in towards the left/hard shoulder - but persistant flashing or no indicaticators will cause me to slow down since I have to divert more of my attention to what's going on behind esp. if the driver starts tailgateing

I do sometimes get extremely annoyed with drivers that hog the fast lanes.
Usually when they do eventually pull over, by the look of them they were day dreaming or worse on the phone.

I generally don't flash them as you don't know who they are, but at the first opportunity, I'd zip into the slow lane and back into the fast lane in front of them.

To be honest flashing lights should really only be done as a warning for some danger.
If you have valid reason to be annoyed with a driver, you give them a strong hoot of your horn.


There is a driver in my locality by the way whose nick name is speedy.
He has a full licence.
He never ever goes over 30mph on the road.
His wife insists when they are visiting her people in Kerry that they take the Bus.

If there is something parked on the road where by he has to indicate to pass it out, he pulls in , takes two traffic cones out of the boot and puts one in front and one behind the obstruction and then indicates to pass it out.
And thats not a word of a lie:eek:

sceptre

Originally posted by Man
If there is something parked on the road where by he has to indicate to pass it out, he pulls in , takes two traffic cones out of the boot and puts one in front and one behind the obstruction and then indicates to pass it out.
And thats not a word of a lie:eek:

That's just hilarious. I'd pay to see that. Does he stop after passing the dangerous obstruction to pick up his cones or does he get a subscriber deal for being a regular customer?

I'll bet he wishes he could have a man with a red flag (or a red light at night) walking in front of the moving car:D

DMC

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Re: flashing to overtake - if someone indicates and it's safe to do so I'll pull in towards the left/hard shoulder - but persistant flashing or no indicaticators will cause me to slow down since I have to divert more of my attention to what's going on behind esp. if the driver starts tailgateing

And that is presisely what I do too on a main road.

Originally posted by padraigmyers
Tell me where the Rules of the Road says its acceptable to drive in the right lane on a motorway when the left one is empty. I think I'm within my rights to give a quick touch of the lights just to make the guy in front aware of my presense?

IMO, he's wrong, and you are wrong too. You are more aware of the rules of the road than he is in this example, as I said earlier Flashing can lead to distraction, which could lead to a rear-ending. You dont know what the clown in front will do if you flash at him.

Originally posted by sceptre
That's just hilarious. I'd pay to see that. Does he stop after passing the dangerous obstruction to pick up his cones or does he get a subscriber deal for being a regular customer?

Yes he pulls in then to put the cones back in the boot.
I think his poor wife endured this only once for a 300 mile day long trip to Kerry:D It was the bus after that!

Sesshoumaru

IMO, he's wrong, and you are wrong too. You are more aware of the rules of the road than he is in this example, as I said earlier Flashing can lead to distraction, which could lead to a rear-ending. You dont know what the clown in front will do if you flash at him.

When your driving you are supposed to be in an alert state of mind. You know trying to expect the unexpected. I think if someone is so easily distracted my a mere light flashing behind them, then they shouldn't be on the road in the first place. They should stick with public transport, this should be safer and less frustrating for everyone.

Victor

Oh, to be allowed carry a flashing blue light

Seth Brundle

Victor - I remember heading out past Blanch on the N4 and a car came zooming up behind me (I was doing 65-70) and flashed a blue strobe light. The car then overtook me and went up the sliproad for the centre. It was two young fellas in a vectra (still wonder how they managed to go that fast in a vectra )

BaZmO*

Originally posted by DMC
No one flashes at me, but when I do see it happening in the other direction or if I'm behind, especially at night, there is nothing worse to me than someone flashing up the full heads trying to barge through, regardless if it is slow moving or not.

Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is acceptable.

Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is NOT acceptable.

Tell me where the Rules of the Road says its acceptable to drive in the right lane on a motorway when the left one is empty

You're not supposed to drive in the right hand if the left hand lane is free. The right hand lane is only for overtaking or diriving in if the left hand lane is full.

B.

padraigmyers

Originally posted by BaZmO*
You're not supposed to drive in the right hand if the left hand lane is free. The right hand lane is only for overtaking or diriving in if the left hand lane is full.

I know, thats was actually my point.

Capt'n Midnight

IIRC you can only overtake on the left if
you are turning left and have indicated to do so
if the car in the right lane is turning right and has indictated to do so (and you aren't also turning right)
and in separate lanes in slow moving traffic - no definition of slow moving covers speeds anywhere near the speed limit.

ColinM

Look, this hogging the overtaking lane thing comes up again and again, and there's already been threads dedicated to it. I don't think the two disparate camps are going to agree, or rather that the transgressors are going to see the error of their ways.

What I get from reading all this debate though is that if you can't convince someone using as many words as you like right here that they should move out of the offside lane if the nearside one is free, how can we expect the dorks to know what we mean when we flash our lights at them?

As has been said before, you don't encounter this problem to any noticeable extent in any other country in Europe. Try it in Italy or Spain and you will be gently pushed off the road.

So why is it mostly an Irish phenomenon? Possibly because we've only had 500 metres of motorway until relatively recently. Also possibly because we're a nation of gombeen begrudgers who can't stand to see anyone get ahead of us.

Bottom line is - don't mind what speed you are doing, move into the left-most lane at the soonest opportunity if there's any traffic behind you. If you think you shouldn't have to move over because you are driving at the speed limit and plan to pass out a car a few hundred yards on, then you are an asshole, plain and simple.

sceptre

^ sums it up for me. No learning experience, stupid undertrained cocky drivers, afraid of being passed out even safely. Add in "likes to save money by not using indicators" and there's your typical dodgy Irish motorist. If you're not in any of the above categories you're probably in the best 10% of drivers on the road (which isn't saying very much to be honest).

ColinM

Gosh I do like when people agree with me! Perhaps we could gather a rowdy rabble of us dangerous drivers and browbeat the safe ones now eh!

Victor

Originally posted by BaZmO*
Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is NOT acceptable.

Page 2(?)

INTRODUCTION

...

The booklet is not an interpretation of the law. The overall aim is to promote safety and courtesy in the use of our roads in accordance with the law.

padraigmyers

Ah, come on Victor, that could be used to back up either side of the argument. It not courtious to hold up a whole line of cars when there is a hard shoulder that you can pull into to allow other road-users past.

ken90

Fair enough kbannon, your word against his. As I understand it, after a report from Trafficwatch, the Gardai have to act and give you a warning, no matter how much you may remonstrate like you have said there. Warnings carry little weight, I'm not sure if it is even documented.

Whatever happened to 2 innocent until proved guilty" and due process of Law?

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by ken90
Whatever happened to 2 innocent until proved guilty" and due process of Law?

i would not worry about garda muldoon investigating a claim about my driving but they have sweet fa that would stand up in court (unless muldoon was one of the lads from that prime time broadcast )

Gerry

As someone said earlier, drivers going too slow is a major cause of frustration and road rage. The other day,
I drove from leixlip to athy. I said I would take it easy, and not go mad overtaking everyone. I ended up being stuck behind a procession for ages. When I eventually overtook, on a long, long section of straight road ( the road to athy is mostly like this ) with good visibilty, and no oncoming traffic, I got flashed for ages by the person who was holding up the whole show ( doing about 40mph ).
This is, as ColinM says, the typical gombeen attitude.
These are the same people who don't know the first thing about overtaking, when they are doing it themselves. They pull out first, and then start accelerating, taking bloody ages. They also like to accelerate because you are overtaking them.

On the subject of the overtaking lane, people who stupidly hog the fast lane deserved to be flashed and beeped at, otherwise they won't see that they are doing anything wrong. I normally undertake these people, after giving them a good 5 - 10 seconds to get out of the way.

Turner

People who accelerate when you overtake them should be shot. Its about twice as dangerous as playing russian roulette and really makes me mad.

KlodaX

I think its supposed to be like just between 1 under and the exact speed limit for the road you are on... thats the speed you are 'supposed' to be at... under that and you are an obstruction .. over and your speeding ... not much leeway given

People who accelerate when you overtake them should be shot

I agree .. but its mostly men in mircs *from my experience* ... that do this ... its a matcho thing thats why womens car insurance is cheaper

Turner

Adjust your speed limit to the type of road you are on. For example outside a school at 3:30pm I think 30mph is far too fast. If you are travelling past the school at 10pm 50mph would probably be safe enough.

Motorways after certain times maybe 11pm should have no speed limits on them, while towns and villages during the day should have a 20mph speed limit or less.

TomF

I didn't realise there was any speed limit after closing hours, or at least it seems that every other person driving is going at about 90 mph after then! Don't most of the crashes into walls and trees happen after 11 pm?

Getting into another thread in this tapestry: I think that where there are roads with two lanes of traffic in each direction near cities, then there isn't any such thing as a "fast lane" or a "slow lane". There are just traffic moving lanes, and the idea is to get the volume of traffic moved from A to B, not to have people flashing lights at others trying to get to work in the right-hand lane because they aren't doing 90 mph.

Speed kills.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by TomF
Speed kills.

I think it is more correct to say that inappropriate speed kills. However, most people would not know how to interpret that extra word.