Irritating people

Raiser

Whats the story with people tail-gating these days - there are SO many drivers that really like to drive 3 feet behind you - no matter what speed you are driving or if the roads are wet or dry.......

A lot of them don't know any better - if you beep/hazard light them/tap brake - you can see the confusion in their little faces in your rear-view mirror (clearly - cos they're so damn close!)

Another one that seems to me to be getting more common is the creepers - they king of creep onto the roundabout/outta the side-road etc. as you approach - I think the idea is that they be able to occupy the space your car has just vacated .01 of a millisecond later. They can be scary as a lot of the time you are unsure if they are going to stop or slap into you...

Also the worst offenders kinda time their creeping by your speed - meaning that if you did have to stop for some reason they would smack you with they're wanky souped up Fisher-price racer/White van.

Tail-gating is the worst though - I think we need an advertising campaign like the one they had explaining not to drive into junctions with yellow boxes etc.....

AMurphy

I have noticed tailgating being a national obsession any time I have driven there in recent years.
So an ad campaign or a really irritating strobed flasher (rear facing) .

other aspect of this tailgating is it makes it close to impossible to merge (normaly) into traffic from an onramp.

highdef

Couple of weeks ago I saw something so funny, I was raging I didn't have a camera with me. It was a double decker bus with a car crashed into the back of it. It wasn't too serious or anything. But the ad on the bus was one of the tailgating ones: "Tailgating causes accidents, keep your distance". Classic. I wonder if the driver was trying to read the sign on the bus!!!

Curran

highdef wrote:

Couple of weeks ago I saw something so funny, I was raging I didn't have a camera with me. It was a double decker bus with a car crashed into the back of it. It wasn't too serious or anything. But the ad on the bus was one of the tailgating ones: "Tailgating causes accidents, keep your distance". Classic. I wonder if the driver was trying to read the sign on the bus!!!

CLASS

Its one of those.......

Full tank of petrol..............................€35
Toll bridge fee..................................€1.80
Mc Donalds 1/4 Pounder Meal..............€6.85

Rushing home to eat your food and hitting the back of a bus with an advert saying
....."Tailgating causes accidents, keep your distance"...........PRICELESS

bazz26

One thing I notice a good few times is tailgating on a not so busy dual carriageway! Lots of room to pass and go about their business but some have to stay right behind you as if your guiding them to their destination. Then you have the type who see you doing 60 mph so they have to overtake you and move in front of you and do an average speed of 62 mph so that they are right in front of you. Also it torments me when your merging onto a motorway/dual carriageway from a slip road and traffic on the inside lane will not let you merge. I see it every day going home from work, not a car to be seen on the outside lane and these guys forcing you to either brake or continue in the hard shoulder until they have passed. Maybe how to drive on a motorway should be added to the driving test in this country.

It amazes me why people cannot leave reasonable space between them and another vehicle on a wide open dual carriage way, obviously this cannot be done on car parks such as the M50.

Rant over.

Curran

bazz26 wrote:

Maybe how to drive on a motorway should be added to the driving test in this country.

I said it before and i'll say it again........
You should have to do a test 1 year after you passed your driving test for motorway and nite time driving........to get your "FULL" licence!

Saturnine

Curran wrote:

I said it before and i'll say it again........
You should have to do a test 1 year after you passed your driving test for motorway and nite time driving........to get your "FULL" licence!

Well said.

IDMUD

Also, when you do leave a space infront of you up comes a tailgater thinking, sweet, i can now tailgate again and instantly moves into the space you created. Morons.

AMurphy

bazz26 wrote:

One thing I notice a good few times is tailgating on a not so busy dual carriageway! ......Then you have the type who see you doing 60 mph so they have to overtake you and move in front of you and do an average speed of 62 mph so that they are right in front of you. ....
It amazes me why people cannot leave reasonable space between them and another vehicle on a wide open dual carriage way, obviously this cannot be done on car parks such as the M50.

Rant over.

good, spit it out, it's does a body goo.

Anyway, I wondered about that also, or something similar, ROI side, lets say I'm toodling along at 65 on a regular highway, M50, etc. and in the slow lane, along comes car at may 70~75. Nobody else about for miles in any direction.
The upcoming car will pass, but first it will get right up on my tail, them pull out, pass and clip my wing as it pulls back in again.... What's the matter, there is no penelty points for taking another 50~100' both behind and in front when passing.

Just makes me want to change speed just to get away from them, or is there some Dark matter magnetic attraction Field about Irish cars that causes them to want to bond?.

madmorphy

IDMUD wrote:

Also, when you do leave a space infront of you up comes a tailgater thinking, sweet, i can now tailgate again and instantly moves into the space you created. Morons.

Agreed,the M50 is the worst for this there's some absolute morons in this country.

AMurphy

IDMUD wrote:

Also, when you do leave a space infront of you up comes a tailgater thinking, sweet, i can now tailgate again and instantly moves into the space you created. Morons.

When I came here first I did something like that, pulled into the gap in front of a Saab and whatever was in front of the Saab. Thought nothing of it, until stopped at a light further down, woke up to a rap on the window. There stood an off duty cop displaying his badge wanting to talk to me.
Gave me a stern talking to about obscuring his safety zone and let me off with a warning.

DubTony

AMurphy wrote:

When I came here first I did something like that, pulled into the gap in front of a Saab and whatever was in front of the Saab. Thought nothing of it, until stopped at a light further down, woke up to a rap on the window. There stood an off duty cop displaying his badge wanting to talk to me.
Gave me a stern talking to about obscuring his safety zone and let me off with a warning.

Can't even imagine an on duty cop doing that here. I'll bet you never did it again.

AMurphy

DubTony wrote:

Can't even imagine an on duty cop doing that here. I'll bet you never did it again.

It certainly left an impression, like I remember he drove a Saab, location, who was with me at the time, where I was coming from, etc.

Curran

DubTony wrote:

Can't even imagine an on duty cop doing that here. I'll bet you never did it again.

Cant imagine an off duty or on duty Garda givin a sh*te about it here really!
As long as you didnt hit the back of his car of course :rolleyes:

Dont think cops know what a safety zone even is!

Yesterday morning coming home from work at 4.15...i was coming off the slip road at Clonee heading towards Blanch and the M50......cop was behind me as i waited for the arrow at the top of the slip road (someone's bound to know it)......so when it went green i took off! The Garda car had its full beams on :rolleyes: and was right up behind me....as soon as the road widen he put the foot down and overtook me.....on the hatchings off the slip road!!
What an example he was setting

Then when he pulled back in front of me he had the check to flash on and off his blue lights twice (think he was accusing me of having my high beams on which i didnt)

So if the Guards cant drive properly or dont know what tailgating is...HTF are they supposed to enforce it? :mad:

AMurphy

Anything amiss with your rear lights, eg 1 break light bulb out or some such?.

Curran

AMurphy wrote:

Anything amiss with your rear lights, eg 1 break light bulb out or some such?.

They arent that fussy about that in Ireland....i know you can get stopped for that in the US

AMurphy

True, but OTOH, they would give you 10 days & a $10 "fix-it" ticket to have it repaired, no points, etc.
Consider, I got a "fix-it" ticket while driving a scrap heap of a VW Bug, with, No NCT (Emissions), no front bumper, no front number plate and no registration (aka., road tax), cause it would not pass smog in the first place. And very little brakes to boot.
That’s a fair break

causal

Tailgating is my pet hate :mad:
Sometimes it's malicious but mostly it's through downright ignorance of the danger they're creating for you, them and everyone else likely to get caught in the carnage.

And don't think that having one, or two in my case, Child On Board signs will make a difference.
I think I might start towing a rear facing small artillery piece - that might subliminally suggest danger to the automotonic morons.

And why the fark don't NCAP include rear impact resistance in their testing :rolleyes:

Does anyone know if the Gardai would use footage from a rear facing camera to prosecute dangerous drivers? I mean if it's motorway speeds and they're 20 feet behind - you hardly need to have a calibrated speedo overlay on the film etc.

causal

Raiser

These freaks really piss me off allright - they sit behind you with their empty-ugly head filling up your rear-view mirror, while doing their best to put you and yours in a fu(king wheelchair.

Normally pull into hard shoulder and give them a good blast of horn as they pass by - then watch as they go straight up on the next victims rear bumper.

kermit_ie

Curran wrote:

I said it before and i'll say it again........
You should have to do a test 1 year after you passed your driving test for motorway and nite time driving........to get your "FULL" licence!

They have this in France - these are the people driving around with 'A' plates.

Raiser

Noticed those French drivers are of an excellent standard allright....

BrianD3

I agree with the previous comments, tailgating is my biggest pet hate when driving. I find that no matter what road I'm on, if I obey the speed limit when there is other traffic about, I'm going to get tailgated. Often they're so close that I cannot even see the bonnet of their car in my mirror - all I see is a windscreen with some dopey, ugly, obese, fag smoking moron peering out through it

Also, it drives me feckin bananas when the tailgater is just sitting on my bumper in some sort of trance and makes no attempt to overtake even when perfectly clear opportunities present themselves :mad:

I think women are actually worse than men when it comes to this kind of dopey tailgating. But men are worse whenit comes to deliberate, aggressive, "get out of my way" tailgating.

ambro25

Simple solution: just clutch-out and free wheel, they'll be passing you soon enough then... (And for God's sake don't hit the brakes to scare the eejit, that's even more moronic than tailgating!)

(another fine example of high-standard French-driving here, courtesy of me... - Raiser)

fletch

There was a suggestion here before how to deal with tail gaters. Just give your windscreen a quick wash. The spray will (if you're going fast) fly over your car and wet their windscreen. I use this now all the time to deal with tail-gaters and it is very effective.

One thing I would wonder though. For those of you moaning about tail-gaters, maybe there is a reason why you are being tail-gated. Perhaps you are sitting in the outside lane of the motorway & not overtaking anything and should in fact be in the left most lane.

It drives me MAD how often I am forced to undertake cars on the motorway b'cause some twat is hogging the outside lane. Generally I will make my presence known before undertaking (by moving from left lane to right-lane a few times, slowly & using my indicators)

Raiser

..... er no Fletch - but thanks for giving us that much credit....(?)

Tailgaters need no more than to have someone ahead of them that they can
persecute. When they eventually (badly) overtake the last car it makes them
sad for there is just the open road - its like Alexander the great: "When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer"

- People driving slowly in fast lane need to be sand-papered to death.

& What about the people who undertake a mile or two of traffic along the hard shoulder when traffic is backed up/moving slowly
- Why do they ALWAYS seem to drive BMWs !!!!

Sorry your Signature reminded me ......

fletch

Raiser wrote:

..... er no Fletch - but thanks for giving us that much credit....(?)

Fair enuf....just a thought

Raiser wrote:

- People driving slowly in fast lane need to be sand-papered to death.

Or more correctly, people in the outside lane who are not overtaking need to be sand papered to death

Raiser wrote:

& What about the people who undertake a mile or two of traffic along the hard shoulder when traffice is backed up/moving slowly

This REALLY annoys me....specially on the M50 North bound from the Tallaght exit to the Ballymount Exit

Raiser wrote:

- Why do they ALWAYS seem to drive BMWs !!!!

Sorry your Signature reminded me ......

I only wish I drove a BMW

samo

Was driving in front of some guy recently in a Nissan Primera (just to set the scene!) and was going down the Lucan road, the primera literally drove about 2 feet away from me in the inside lane....there was NOWHERE for me to go to let him overtake and was just so puzzled why he would nearly attach himself to my bumper when I was doing the speed limit and in regular moving traffic. So I moved into the overtaking lane and he moved straight up in the lane I had left and did exactly the same thing to the car that had been in front of me, :eek:

It was like he was incacble of leaving a space for another car to contemplate fitting into should they want to move in from the outside lane...very bizarre.

Raiser

- Another observation - will leave me open for a raging flaming but......

....Why will women drivers never let you merge into traffic ie. at junctions or when you need to cross a lane to turn in somewhere etc.? They just tend to look at you outta the corner of the eyes and pretend they're listening to Marian Finucane.....

....I think its because slowing down a tad and flashing the lights or waving someone across makes them nervous - I say this because the 1% of gals that actually try this difficult manoeuvre make manic crazy faces at you and flap one hand at you like it just caught fire...... :eek: GO, GO ! I'm leaving you THROUGH!!! :eek:

And to prove I'm not just a sexist pig - let me say that cab drivers are the worst for not giving any other road user a break - EVER.

Canaboid

Raiser wrote:

- GO, GO ! I'm leaving you GO

WTF does this mean. You are leaving them ? Are you one of those fellows from the country ?

fletch

Raiser wrote:

....Why will women drivers never let you merge into traffic ie. at junctions or when you need to cross a lane to turn in somewhere etc.? They just tend to look at you outta the corner of the eyes and pretend they're listening to Marian Finucane.....

I notice this alll the time....it's like they have tunnel vision or summit

Raiser

Picture a scene Mr. Canaboid. You are in traffic and you need to take a right turn to visit a petrol station to buy some miscellaneous items - such as bread or perhaps some milk. However your path is impeded by a line of traffic, travelling in the opposite direction. You indicate your intention to turn right and wait....

Now Lots of men, 0% of cab drivers, and 1% of women understand the fact that given the heavy traffic you will NOT be able to get to your destination unless there is some courtesy extended. What I was saying is that when some gals leave you pass they do it as though they've a dozen AK47 assault rifles pointed at their cute little heads..... The "GO, GO ! I'm leaving you THROUGH!!!!!" - that simply refers to my best guess as to what they're thinking.....

I apologize for the confusion and by the way who are these "fellows from the country", you feckin' urban commanche hub-capper!