Be Excellent To Each Other

But what causes the rear ender is somone driving too close to the person in front.

"Almost" is an important word.

But slinging your car across the nose of idiots who don't know how to use a motorway should be in the driving test. According to the reversing radar on my father's Toureg, I got within five inches once. Win.

Any time we talk about middle lanes...



Sorry, a car "changing lane slightly earlier than is strictly required [in order to shake them out of their torpor]" sounded like you were changing back in front of them a tad closer than was necessary, which may conceivably lead them to jump on their brakes and have an accident, no?

If someone did that to you I suspect you'd be the first to complain about their dangerous driving.

You try leaving a gap large enough on the motorway that can see you stop to 0 before you hit them if they stop dead.

See how long that lasts.

I drove up and down the motorway this week. It was fine, hardly got miffed at all. The only thing that pisses me off is when someone shoots up behind you at 120mph and flashes you before you've even had a chance to react and move over. It's that kind of thing that makes me want to slam on my breaks. If you're going to drive like an erratic dick, at least give people the chance to react.

So it is, which I missed, apologies.



Indeed, except that it wouldn't happen because I wouldn't be driving 10 mph under the limit in the middle lane of an empty motorway.

That generally seems to work fine for me. Even if it didn't, the accident would still ultimately caused by cunts driving too close to the car in front (or the car behind, if you like).

Can you two keep your driving rants confined to one thread? Sheesh.

It pisses me off when I leave a decent gap between the car in front and me and then someone decides to change lanes into it.

Grrr.

Yes, and of the two, your behaviour is demonstrably the more dangerous.

The other weekend I found myself stuck in a cluster of trucks on a dual carriageway... a huge articulate dump truck had decided he could overtake two other trucks, and proceeded to do so (with the usual 0.5mph speed advantage over them). I was in a line of cars following this tosser... but the funny thing was the executive behind me in a BMW who was going absolutely mental!

How bendy was this motorway that it took you longer to notice the guy approaching behind you that it did to move over?

You drive 100m (or more accurately 315ft) behind cars at all times on the motorway and no-one ever changes lane to fill that gap?

I really must drive the candy motorway in rainbow land more often.

It may have been the horizon....

But far funnier.

Sometimes they do, and when they do I drift back a bit further to open the gap up again. Simple.

Perhaps not living in the City O' Cunts helps...

Funny and dangerous are usually directly proportional, indeed.

Are you sure you know how far 100m is, Sir Chris?
And does anyone mind if I merge the current driving argument in B&B with this topic?

When someone is going that stupidly fast, they can very easily come out of virtually nowhere. Also consider the fact I might be busy overtaking in the outside lane myself, at a reasonable speed, and so can't suddenly crash into the middle lane at will.

I think it all needs merging into the bloody 'Dangerous driving' topic of weeks back when all this shit was discussed then.

I'm just thinking that you are utterly wrong, but then I figured that people may not come up behind me quite so quickly because I'm normally the one doing 120mph.

Fairly sure, yes. It's quite a ways. It's far further than the apparently standard-issue 10m which seems so popular among drivers of today.

We also have handy chevrons on the M4 and M5 near us which apparently you need two of between you and the car in front. *to make a hollow laughing*



Fine with me!

Ah now, with them, is it two chevrons, or having two chevrons visible at all times?

You've used this forum before, right?

Indeed, it's a very very long way. On the mentioned M4 segment it's actually 2.5 Chevrons.

I assumed the later, otherwise it's not a very long way.

It's worth bearing in mind that you don't actually need 100m to stop unless a tree suddenly grows in the middle of the motorway.

Hey, it happens.

You need a bit less than 100m if there's an acccident, of course, as the accident will travel a ways as well, but still - I think you need more than 10m.

I thought 2 seconds was about the gap you were meant to to leave rather than some set distance.

That's a "lie to children" as Terry Prachett put it.

2 seconds is absurdly generous at 30mph, not enough at 70 and something of a joke above that.

At 70, 2 seconds will leave you about 20m short of being able to stop if they stop dead for whatever reason.

And now, of course, with modern cars that can actually stop (official braking distances are still based on a Ford Anglia, fact fans), it's only our feeble human minds letting us down.

Apparently, stamping on the brakes in one of the new Merc's coming out can actually cause you more harm than a 20mph crash into a wall does

Accepted.

Although the "official" distances do also assume perfect conditions and someone actually paying attention, both of which are a premium on the M4.

Well, it depends how fast you're going, and whether you're actually paying attention or not.

Remember the 2 second rule?

At 60mph, this is 27 meters: not very much!

The highway code sez (for 60mph):
Thinking distance: 18m Braking distance: 55m Overall: 73m

And at 70mph, it's 96m overall. Although as you pointed out, the traffic in front of you will also take some distance to stop.

Clearly I need to read more twee comedy fantasy books.

I think it wasn't actually Pratchett himself who came up with that, it was Jack Horner and that other bloke who got roped in as the scientists to write the "Science of Discworld" books. I may be bothered to check later.

"Only a fool believes the two second rule".

I thought that was to do with the withdrawal method.

The Science of the Discworld (which is what that comes from) is anything but a twee comedy fantasy book.



It was indeed from said book but it's difficult to know who actually wrote any specific bit.



Your maths is wrong. It's 27m/second not 2 seconds. 54m in 2 seconds.

Which tells you how wrong the 2 second rule is at measurable speeds. At 70 it says ~63m compared to the 100m overall stopping distance in reality.

I did breach the 2 second rule egregiously this morning, though, because the stupid stupid idiot in front of me decided that holding up the traffic by rolling past the poor injured car on the other side of the road to have a good look was perfectly acceptable.

It didn't work, mind, she took her good sweet time, then accelerated (in a 30 zone) up to 45 afterwards, as if to make it all okay.

And also that you might be spending a lot more time looking at where you're going than where you've been, as most people would agree is probably reasonable.

I saw the mythical* 'rubberneckers' rear-ender' the other month. I made a point of laughing extra-hard as I went past**.

Last night saw typical Liverpool traffic light behaviour; my lights have gone green, there's still a stream of cars coming from the side. A good for 4 or 5 that ran the red really badly, into the second-plus range.

The last was a fucking ambulance.

* Presumably actually very frequent, it's the only one I've seen though.
* Not true. I scowled and muttered "cunts" as I got on with the job of inconveniencing the people behind as little as possible.

FTFY. I'd imagine that 63m is probably quite accurate now.

I assume that it either didn't have it's lights on, or you fail at basic road knowledge

I tend to mostly go into seething, silent rages where I just want to be completely alone because anything anyone says is suddenly the most annoying thing ever and is likely to send me into a proper, hurling things across the room hissy-fit. It's funny, because my Dad used to do exactly the same thing when he was in a bad mood. Come in from work, say nothing to anyone and just sit in the spare room (doing paperwork, was what mum used to tell me. Maybe he was pulling the legs off of insects, I don't know) all evening. It used to annoy me, because I thought he was angry with the rest of us, and we hadn't done anything wrong as far as I could see.
It's very rare for me to actually start shouting and hitting things, but when that does occur it's a marvellous release, but acutely embarrassing afterwards. I've broken my little finger twice from punching objects, both times when I've been steaming drunk. The second time I was too embarrassed to go to hospital so it just had to fix itself.

It's also a hell of a lot ore than the average gap that people on motorways seem to leave.

Indeed.

With the chevrons, it's a touch over 1.5 chevs...

Ah, course it is! I thought that looked absurdly wrong