Cruise control v Silly drivers

CoDy1

Drove to Dublin from Limerick and back today and as per usual I set cruise control to my chosen speed. Not for the first time, but it happened a ridiculous amount of times today, as I came up upon cars that were going slower and went to overtake, even though I was maintaining a constant speed, they visibly started to speed up which left me stuck in the overtaking lane until they left up and let me pass.

Maybe it may be down to just a foot on a lever not being able to maintain a constant speed but one car literally started to pull away on the inside lane as I went to overtake leaving me to pull back only to overtake the same car a couple of k's later after they had stopped accelerating.

On the way back down, I'm pretty sure some guy thought I was taking the piss even though I was the one who was maintaining a constant speed. He kept on accelerating and slowing down, I must have passed him 3 or 4 times!!:p

Anyone else experience this or am I over-reacting? Just thought it was funny today because it happened so often.

Rich11

yeah, drove a car on the m1 once with cc and had the exact same problem as you, you come up to a slower car, go to over take them and all of a sudden they speed up slightly and your stuck there, and either you brake, or turn the cc off and speed up, so fustrating

ardmacha

At least on my car if you depress the accelerator you can go a bit faster without turning off the cruise control. 5 kmh gets you past most messers.

CoDy1

ardmacha wrote: »

At least on my car if you depress the accelerator you can go a bit faster without turning off the cruise control. 5 kmh gets you past most messers.

Thing is you shouldn't have to, messers aside, I honestly thought this guy thought I was messing even though I was being consistent. I'm pretty sure he was to but didn't have CC but was probably (thought) maintaining the same speed.

Wetbench4

yes, I drove from Limerick to Dub last week and found it the same, and also,how come as soon as you get near Dublin people just plod along in the overtake lane, most of them well below the speed limit.Good drivers become scarce.I passed at least 3 cars on the inside lane because the wouldn't move or drive at the speed limit......
@OP, i set my cc to 120km, and when i come up on someone i give a good squirt of the accelerator to pass them quick, then the car just goes back to the set speed. You have to pass them fast, if you crawl up on them the inconsiderate b@stards speed up and try match you for some weird reason. You'd be there all day.:D

jk536

I drive up and down from Naas to Limerick and encounter this constantly.
Due to my circumstances I had to sell my bmw and buy a 97 micra (may god have mercy on my soul ) and this multiplied instantly. God forbid that i try overtake a car that cost a lot more and is bigger than my humble run around.

One case of this "micra racism" which i have christened it, happened to me recently. I was coming up behind a truck which i was going to overtake so i checked my mirror and pulled into the overtaking lane. As i was overtaking this truck a saab driver also decided to overtake the truck. When i had passed the truck i waited until i was a safe distance past the truck to pull back into the slow lane and let the saab pass but this simply wouldnt do! As i was indicating to pull back into the slow lane, the saab driver decided to overtake me on the inside, between me and the truck. This case of arrogant and agressive driving almost caused an accident as i had to swerve back into the overtaking lane to avoid hitting him.

Anyways this story may be a little of topic but it has the same moral of the story. Its easier to overtake a car than it is to overtake an ego.

Anan1

Sitting alongside another car is relatively dangerous, even on a motorway. Use the accelerator to overtake, and settle back into your chosen speed afterwards.

CiniO

Anan1 wrote: »

Sitting alongside another car is relatively dangerous, even on a motorway. Use the accelerator to overtake, and settle back into your chosen speed afterwards.

That's exactly what annoys me so much while driving in Ireland and UK.
Vehicles on motorway driving on the side of each other without really any speed difference. This can hardly be called overtaking.

On the Continent (especially Germany) speed difference while overtaking is way more significent. F.e. 3 lane motorway. Usually right lane full of trucks doing 90km/h. Mid lane full of cars doing about 120 - 130km/h. And left lane full of car doing between 160+ km/h.
Then overtaking takes only a second, and there is no problems with cars driving on the side of each other.

djimi

CiniO wrote: »

That's exactly what annoys me so much while driving in Ireland and UK.
Vehicles on motorway driving on the side of each other without really any speed difference. This can hardly be called overtaking.

On the Continent (especially Germany) speed difference while overtaking is way more significent. F.e. 3 lane motorway. Usually right lane full of trucks doing 90km/h. Mid lane full of cars doing about 120 - 130km/h. And left lane full of car doing between 160+ km/h.
Then overtaking takes only a second, and there is no problems with cars driving on the side of each other.

Trucks are the worst for this. I remember driving home one night and being stuck behind a truck that took literally 3 minutes to overtake another truck on a motorway; Id say there was no more than 2-3mph in the difference between their speeds. Ridiculous.

With regards to the OP; I agree I find that utterly infuriating. Some people are just being dickheads about it, having a "youre not going to overtake me" attitude, but also think a lot of people who drive around in a world of their own seem to see overtaking as some kind of kick in the arse they need to drive closer to the speed limit, and as such are not trying to be malicious, but are just plain stupid. Its hard to know with Irish drivers; so many on the road fall into one of the two categories of aggressive & angry or just plain stupid...

cadaliac

CiniO wrote: »

That's exactly what annoys me so much while driving in Ireland and UK.
Vehicles on motorway driving on the side of each other without really any speed difference. This can hardly be called overtaking.

On the Continent (especially Germany) speed difference while overtaking is way more significent. F.e. 3 lane motorway. Usually right lane full of trucks doing 90km/h. Mid lane full of cars doing about 120 - 130km/h. And left lane full of car doing between 160+ km/h.
Then overtaking takes only a second, and there is no problems with cars driving on the side of each other.

You always have a good old rant at "the Irish" and their driving habits.
@ op, yes it happens me too and unlike the poster above it actually happens in Germany too:eek:

Eoin

Germany is probably the only place I've been to where lane discipline is observed noticeably more than it is here. We're very quick to bitch about how bad other Irish drivers are, but from what I've seen abroad, we're not really all that bad.

Chris_Heilong

cadaliac wrote: »

You always have a good old rant at "the Irish" and their driving habits.
@ op, yes it happens me too and unlike the poster above it actually happens in Germany too:eek:

In fairness he didnt mention the Irish but driving in Ireland and the UK compared to driving in Germany, I thought it was a valid comparison

dharn

there was a guy on here recently talking about retro fitting cruise control, i advised him it was not worth it for the reasons described above, he went ahead anyway, i have cruise control but seldom use it now as someone is invariably in your way or you are holding someone up if you are at a steady speed

CiniO

djimi wrote: »

Trucks are the worst for this. I remember driving home one night and being stuck behind a truck that took literally 3 minutes to overtake another truck on a motorway; Id say there was no more than 2-3mph in the difference between their speeds. Ridiculous.

But trucks do it, because they are physically limited with speed limiters.
Car driver do it, sometimes for no reason, and sometimes because they don't want to break the speed limit.
But unfortunately this behaviour IMHO makes even more mess.
One car driving at 118km/h and another overtaking at 120km/h just because he doesn't want to break the speed limit.

As I mentioned above, in Germany where in lots of places motorways are speed-limit-free, this problem doesn't exist, and overtaking is fluent.
Similarlily it looks in countries where driver don't care about speed limits (f.e. many central and eastern Europe countries), where no one is vary to exceed a speed limit, to make overtaking quicker. IMHO this makes more sense, but that's just purely my opinion

CiniO

Eoin wrote: »

Germany is probably the only place I've been to where lane discipline is observed noticeably more than it is here. We're very quick to bitch about how bad other Irish drivers are, but from what I've seen abroad, we're not really all that bad.

From what I've noticed, lane discipline on motorways in Ireland has greatly increased over last few years.
In 2006 - 2008 there was hundreds of morons who had no clue how to drive on motorway. By now, most of them learned what it's about. Only leftover plague in here are people parking on motorway's hardshoulder for a fag, phonecall, pee, etc... but I've seen RSA targeting this as well in advertisments, and I think it starts to work slowly.

CiniO

cadaliac wrote: »

You always have a good old rant at "the Irish" and their driving habits.

As many rants, as many days

@ op, yes it happens me too and unlike the poster above it actually happens in Germany too:eek:

I think you should read again what I was answering to, and what OP was asking, as those were two different things. My answer had nothing to do with cruise control.
Of course that in Germany situation looks the same as everywhere else. If you driver on cruise control, you are going to encounter drivers who don't have it, and therefore slow down and accelerate without even realising.

But obviously it's easier for you to rant about me, than actually read the thread with understanding.

Jimbob 83

This thread makes me want cruise control

Anan1

CiniO wrote: »

From what I've noticed, lane discipline on motorways in Ireland has greatly increased over last few years.
In 2006 - 2008 there was hundreds of morons who had no clue how to drive on motorway. By now, most of them learned what it's about.

Most of them have two lane motorways under control, but the three lane sections are still beyond our average driver.

Leonard Hofstadter

Anan1 wrote: »

Most of them have two lane motorways under control, but the three lane sections are still beyond our average driver.

+1, most people can deal with two lane motorways/dual carriageways (although you will still find some people who hog the overtaking lane even when there are no cars in the driving lane), but Irish drivers are still atrocious on three lane roads, being in Dublin recently reminded me of just how bad things still are in that regard.

CiniO

Anan1 wrote: »

Most of them have two lane motorways under control, but the three lane sections are still beyond our average driver.

To be honest I've very seldom driven on any 3 lane motorway in Ireland except M50 which is a different story.

Lane discipline on M50 as a big city bypass can't be much better, and nowhere in the world on motorway sections like that is any better.
All because there are exits every few km. There are trafic merging and diverging all the time, and generally this just can't easily work as simlple as drive on left.
Coming back to my example on every big city motorway bypass in Germany, it doesn't llok any better than on M50.

Anan1

CiniO wrote: »

To be honest I've very seldom driven on any 3 lane motorway in Ireland except M50 which is a different story.

Lane discipline on M50 as a big city bypass can't be much better, and nowhere in the world on motorway sections like that is any better.
All because there are exits every few km. There are trafic merging and diverging all the time, and generally this just can't easily work as simlple as drive on left.
Coming back to my example on every big city motorway bypass in Germany, it doesn't llok any better than on M50.

There are the mitigating factors that you mentioned, but the M50 is plagued by more middle lane clowns than could begin to be explained by them alone. The real problem is dopeyness.

Stinicker

I notice this everytime I drive on the motorways, a few weeks back I drove from Dublin back to Killarney via Cork on the M8, it was immediately noticeable as soon as I left Dublin so I just sank the shoe most of the ways down, made Killarney from the Red Cow in 2hrs 50mins (340kms) doing close to 160km/h all the way down as far as Cork.

As for the Micra driver, I can only commiserate with you having to downgrade from a BMW to one of those tincans, I guess I am a "Micra racist" as I drive a BMW myself and I would rather go without a car than drive a Micra. Surprised they can even make 100km/h at all, I don't think I've ever seen one driving faster than 60km/h. A friend of mine had one once when she was learning to drive and she said it would vibrate violently if you took it above 90km/h.

baz.snn

djimi wrote: »

Trucks are the worst for this. I remember driving home one night and being stuck behind a truck that took literally 3 minutes to overtake another truck on a motorway; Id say there was no more than 2-3mph in the difference between their speeds. Ridiculous.

Speaking with my truck driver hat on, I find this really infuriating. Personally, when I see another truck is slowly gaining on me, I knock off my cruise control for a few seconds as he goes to pass me. My speeds drops a bit and he gets past me faster and safer.
Simple as that, but there are always plenty of tits who wouldn't even bother to do it, they'd rather leave you crawling past them as the cars building up behind you getting angrier.
Seems to me that commom curtesy and manners seem to be lacking in an awful lot of drivers.

jk536

Stinicker wrote: »

As for the Micra driver, I can only commiserate with you having to downgrade from a BMW to one of those tincans, I guess I am a "Micra racist" as I drive a BMW myself and I would rather go without a car than drive a Micra. Surprised they can even make 100km/h at all, I don't think I've ever seen one driving faster than 60km/h. A friend of mine had one once when she was learning to drive and she said it would vibrate violently if you took it above 90km/h.

You big Micra racist!

Im not a fan of my car by any means but im low on money these days and the car cost less than 6 months tax on my bmw and it can cruise along nicely at 120kmph( as long as there are no hills, no wind, the car is empty and im leaning way forward)

baz.snn

jk536 wrote: »

You big Micra racist!

Im not a fan of my car by any means but im low on money these days and the car cost less than 6 months tax on my bmw and it can cruise along nicely at 120kmph( as long as there are no hills, no wind, the car is empty and im leaning way forward)

A mate of mine in Manchester has an 05 Micra Dci he uses for the work commute. Although he's had a bit of trouble with it, its actually not a bad little yoke to drive. It's a torquey little engine and a great on diesel.

But it's still a Micra :D:D
Sorry.:p

copacetic

Eoin wrote: »

Germany is probably the only place I've been to where lane discipline is observed noticeably more than it is here. We're very quick to bitch about how bad other Irish drivers are, but from what I've seen abroad, we're not really all that bad.

French motorways are good for lane discipline, they go ape**** if someone is in the wrong lane, which probably helps.

I find cruise control nigh on useless on Irish roads, forever having to accelerate to get by people who you zoomed up on, who then speed up and sit on your ass at 10mph more than they were previously doing. A lot of drivers seem most comfortable in convoy with someone else deciding speed.

Either than or braking and switching off cruise due to people sitting in wrong lane.

jk536

baz.snn wrote: »

A mate of mine in Manchester has an 05 Micra Dci he uses for the work commute. Although he's had a bit of trouble with it, its actually not a bad little yoke to drive. It's a torquey little engine and a great on diesel.

But it's still a Micra :D:D
Sorry.:p

Another Micra racist!

i know what ever way i sugarcoat it tomake myself feel better about it, its still a micra but needs must and poor folk gots to get places too!

baz.snn

jk536 wrote: »

Another Micra racist!

i know what ever way i sugarcoat it tomake myself feel better about it, its still a micra but needs must and poor folk gots to get places too!

I've driven that one and many more Micras over the years. Starting from the ones from the Mk1's in the early 90's and then the Mk2 bubble ones. I drove loads and loads of them, even automatics. So, I'm not Micra rasist.:D:D:D:D
I just worked for a car hire company for a few years many moons ago.:):):):):):)

Eoin

copacetic wrote: »

French motorways are good for lane discipline, they go ape**** if someone is in the wrong lane, which probably helps.

Maybe it's just the areas I've been through or something. I've noticed that they're more agressive when it comes to tailgating someone in the incorrect lane, but I really didn't find a noticeable difference overall.

copacetic wrote: »

I find cruise control nigh on useless on Irish roads

I use it everyday! Maybe not constantly for my journey, but enough for it to be useful.

Jimbob 83

Is retrofitting CC expensive ?

Kwiecien

When I bought my car and the sales guy said it had cruise control I didnt really pay much heed, didnt think I would ever use it.

But its great on the motorway, but others using the motorway usually dont maintain a constant speed which is, sometimes a nuisance.

As for the Micra driver, there are other cars between BMW and Nissan Micra class, you could have bought a Polo or something ffs!

Eoin

Jimbob 83 wrote: »

Is retrofitting CC expensive ?

Depends on the car. Some are wired for it and just need the controls added and maybe a software reset. I had it retrofitted to my e39 a few years ago, but needed the loom put in too. Was probably about 3 hours work in total. Well worth it for me though.

PattheMetaller

I rarely use cruise control on Motorways as along with the constant road noise I find it makes it hard to maintain a decent level of concentration.

Colonel Sanders

Eoin wrote: »

Germany is probably the only place I've been to where lane discipline is observed noticeably more than it is here. We're very quick to bitch about how bad other Irish drivers are, but from what I've seen abroad, we're not really all that bad.

In my opinion Irish drivers are terrible, especially when it comes to lane discipline.

The fact that other countries are as bad or worse is completely irrelevant. Irish drivers, and the driver education system, are still awful

Never get the Irish mentality of "we're ****, but someone else is ****ter so it's ok"

Colonel Sanders

**** is sh it without the space!

Colonel Sanders

CiniO wrote: »

To be honest I've very seldom driven on any 3 lane motorway in Ireland except M50 which is a different story.

Lane discipline on M50 as a big city bypass can't be much better, and nowhere in the world on motorway sections like that is any better.
All because there are exits every few km. There are trafic merging and diverging all the time, and generally this just can't easily work as simlple as drive on left.
Coming back to my example on every big city motorway bypass in Germany, it doesn't llok any better than on M50.

Drive in the M50 at any time of the day outside busy periods and people are sitting in the middle lane. I've driven it in the early hours when you meet very little traffic and most of it is still in the middle lane despite the fact you can't see another car either in front or behind

In terms of 2 lane motorways, my wife is from Kilkenny so I often drive there on Friday evening. Couldn't tell you how many times I've thought traffic was heavy only to realise it wasn't, it was just that the left hand lane of the motorway was practically empty the whole way from the start if the motorway (after the Naas dual carriageway) to the exit for Kilkenny/Waterford

hi5

I find the sweet spots for cruise control are 110 km/h to get past the slower drivers and 125 km/h to get past everybody else.
Mosst drivers seem to sit at 100 or 120 km/h

dahamsta

PattheMetaller wrote: »

I rarely use cruise control on Motorways as along with the constant road noise I find it makes it hard to maintain a decent level of concentration.

Indeed, my cruise control causes fierce road noise, and I've nearly crashed several times keeping my foot off the accelerator pedal.....

....or, wtf?

Blazer

Had the same on my trip from Limerick to Dublin last week.
Some knob in a jeep right up my ass and no way would he overtake.
Put the boot down to open up some space and sure as god a few mins later he was back up my ass again.
This time around I took cruise control off, let car slow down to 80kph and he was forced to overtake me... can't understand people like this..wtf was he thinking off?

Anan1

He was most likely asleep.

-Corkie-

I normally accelerate up the 150kph for a few seconds and thats them forgotten about until you meet the next dope....

deandean

I use CC a lot, even around the city at 50km/h, it helps avoid attention from those bastardos in the vans with the lifebelts.

But yea when I creep up behind another car on the m'way I give some welly for a few seconds while overtaking, and get ahead by at least 100m before pulling left again.

You should either stay behind the car in front or overtake it promptly; overtaking at +2km/h is bad driving.

I have on occasion put the boot down and pulled out in front a fast-lane crawler to avoid getting boxed in.

keithclancy

Eoin wrote: »

Germany is probably the only place I've been to where lane discipline is observed noticeably more than it is here. We're very quick to bitch about how bad other Irish drivers are, but from what I've seen abroad, we're not really all that bad.

I wouldn't say Germany is a lane discipline Nirvana either, this (taken last week) is a frequent occurrence.



If the gob****es used both lanes then this jam wouldn't exist.

MrDerp

The idiots that really infuriate me are those that can't keep a constant speed. I'd have cruise control on, at 130km/h in the driving lane. Car approaches from behind, moves into overtaking lane and creeps up gradually. Then, a turn comes and he bricks it so stays level with me around some long slow bend. Eventually, a couple of minutes later he has completed the maneuver and gets in. Great, I can relax now ... but wait! Idiot now decides he wants to drive in front of me at 125-127km/h. WTF??? Why did you pass me? My speed never moved from 130!

Had one of these idiots driving to Cork on Thursday night. Had to pass him 3 times and each time he put his full beams on the second I pulled in, to show his annoyance, before passing me again and slowing down in front of me. He was also all over the road, when I first encountered him he was overtaking a truck with his passenger side wheels 2 feet inside the driving lane.

So there was only one thing for it. 2 minutes @ 145 to get clear of the nutter. He tried to match my speed for a while but then backed off. He was driving a Mk 2 focus, my last car, so I knew how uncomfortable that would be at 140 on that stretch of road, allowing me to push on until he gave it up.

The thing is, I don't want to have to race away from anyone. I'd much rather slow and let him get ahead, but when there's no cars around them these same eejits invariably go to sleep at 110-115 so you can't just back off and let them on their way.

Colonel Sanders

MrDerp wrote: »

The idiots that really infuriate me are those that can't keep a constant speed. I'd have cruise control on, at 130km/h in the driving lane. Car approaches from behind, moves into overtaking lane and creeps up gradually. Then, a turn comes and he bricks it so stays level with me around some long slow bend. Eventually, a couple of minutes later he has completed the maneuver and gets in. Great, I can relax now ... but wait! Idiot now decides he wants to drive in front of me at 125-127km/h. WTF??? Why did you pass me? My speed never moved from 130!

Had one of these idiots driving to Cork on Thursday night. Had to pass him 3 times and each time he put his full beams on the second I pulled in, to show his annoyance, before passing me again and slowing down in front of me. He was also all over the road, when I first encountered him he was overtaking a truck with his passenger side wheels 2 feet inside the driving lane.

So there was only one thing for it. 2 minutes @ 145 to get clear of the nutter. He tried to match my speed for a while but then backed off. He was driving a Mk 2 focus, my last car, so I knew how uncomfortable that would be at 140 on that stretch of road, allowing me to push on until he gave it up.

The thing is, I don't want to have to race away from anyone. I'd much rather slow and let him get ahead, but when there's no cars around them these same eejits invariably go to sleep at 110-115 so you can't just back off and let them on their way.

Most motorway journeys I take (apart from short hops on/off the M50) involves at least one occurrence of this kind of idiocy tbh

urajoke

Yeah I hate this I passed a 12D passat cc and continued down the motorway later on as I overtook a truck and moved in he shot passed me. A few K down the road he started braking in front of me I passed him still on CC as he was now in the driving lane doing 100k behind other cars ??????

Panda Moanium

keithclancy wrote: »

I wouldn't say Germany is a lane discipline Nirvana either, this (taken last week) is a frequent occurrence.



If the gob****es used both lanes then this jam wouldn't exist.

Are you sure that's not a dedicated lane for a slip road / exit? The road markings and the overhead gantry ahead would indicate it is.

kerten

Let's not forget people who set their cruise control to 120km/h and try to overtake 5-6 cars doing 110-115 km/h slowly.

It is fine as long as they don't cause a queue behind them due to people driving faster than 120 km/h(yes there are strange people like that).

-Corkie-

urajoke wrote: »

Yeah I hate this I passed a 12D passat cc and continued down the motorway later on as I overtook a truck and moved in he shot passed me. A few K down the road he started braking in front of me I passed him still on CC as he was now in the driving lane doing 100k behind other cars ??????

Thats maddening because that car does have cruise. I expect the numpty dont know how to use it going by his driving style...:rolleyes:

keithclancy

Panda Moanium wrote: »

Are you sure that's not a dedicated lane for a slip road / exit? The road markings and the overhead gantry ahead would indicate it is.

Yes .. 100% positive since i've been driving the same road for 3 years, the slip road is WAY up ahead.

If you notice, the sign for the exit is over what is the hard shoulder which turns into the slip road.

Cedrus

Blazer wrote: »

Had the same on my trip from Limerick to Dublin last week.
Some knob in a jeep right up my ass and no way would he overtake.
Put the boot down to open up some space and sure as god a few mins later he was back up my ass again.
This time around I took cruise control off, let car slow down to 80kph and he was forced to overtake me... can't understand people like this..wtf was he thinking off?

He wanted you to find the speed traps while he rode in your shadow without getting caught.