Dangerous/stupid driving near cyclists

Strider590

Bongles wrote: »

Overtaking is an extremely dangerous manoeuvre when you have limited visibility. But there are lots of places on 2-lane country roads where you have ample visibility and overtaking needn't be dangerous at all .

The biggest thing that makes overtaking dangerous is impatience. Impatience is not a good mindset with which to plan an overtake.

When it comes to overtaking cyclists, there really is no excuse for impatience. When it's some old fool doing 20 on a NSL A (or Road and you know there are maybe 1 or 2 overtaking spots on an entire 30 miles stretch, impatience can set in very quickly indeed..... It's what you do to fight it, that counts. I tend to think "no, I won't give him the satisfaction of !!!!ing me off".

Strider590

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

It must be remembered that the OP's experiences have been in and around Guildford and there are an awful lot of nutters in Guildford. Far too much money for cars they cannot handle and too little common sense and regard for the wellbeing of others .

Those who can afford them, can't drive them

bigjl

I was doing 60mph in one of the service Astra response cars, lights and sirens on the go when i got overtaken by some "youth" in a brand new Focus.

Gave the details to control to alert Traffic Plod, Traffic Plod said there is little they can do as it is my word against theres.

Would have been handy if they would let us have in car cameras to provide evidence of this, but senior management are only i.terested in bullying staff and making targets not actually sorting out these reckless halfwits before they kill someone, and they do kill people, the same group of lads the overtook me had several accidents where there was a fatality over the next few years as they are well known in the area. I attended one where they stuck anImpreza in a filed on a straight road when overtaking their mate in an Evo, this was on the road going through Wanstead flats where they used to fly remote control planes on a Sunday.

Lum

Ahh, Imprezas, 4WD, tons of grip, make you think you're a driving god, but when they finally let go it's totally unpredictable due to the car's awful handling, you never know which end is going to let go first. Most people who discover this end up on their roof in a cornfield 30 seconds later.

As for overtaking ambulances, I have overtaken a few. There's a particular 70mph dual carriageway that the ambulances use to get back to the Royal Gwent in Newport from the valleys. For some reason they often choose to do 50mph despite running blues. I figured they need to do this speed due to the frailty of the patient so why the hell not overtake them? It's 11PM so I'm not going to be holding them up at the next junction or anything.

sequence

Personally I'm sick of people overtaking me whilst I'm turning right. I mean, how stupid can you get? Thank god for lifesavers, saved me many times.

bigjl

Quite often we have to use blues when the call doesn't warrent the claiming of exemptions but the government catagory says to use them.

We never used to use them in the interests of safety but bullying managers have made us use them, however they can't insist of exemtions being claimed that is up to wht the job is and if you can reasonably justify using them.

As far as Impreza go i had one and a Legacy and found the handling very safe and predicable, the reason this halfwit crashed is he was driving like he was in Forza, he threw the car to the right to overtake and then chucked it hard left to xomplete is overtake but this started the tail going and he couldn't recover it, completely the drivers fault and the landmarks where impressive, i am.sure they matched the landmarks on his Calvin.

Any car will crash if you drive as though the laws of physics don't exist.

Have you ever driven an Impreza as they are one the most neutral handling cars out there, in standard trim the y understand like a sod, but turn in is improved greatly by getting it set up with Prodrive Geometry settings.

Bongles

Strider590 wrote: »

When it comes to overtaking cyclists, there really is no excuse for impatience. When it's some old fool doing 20 on a NSL A (or Road and you know there are maybe 1 or 2 overtaking spots on an entire 30 miles stretch, impatience can set in very quickly indeed..... It's what you do to fight it, that counts. I tend to think "no, I won't give him the satisfaction of !!!!ing me off".

It's just possible that it was never his intention to !!!! you off

I picture the aftermath when mid-overtake with no options I meet myself coming the other way.

Strider590

Bongles wrote: »

I picture the aftermath when mid-overtake with no options I meet myself coming the other way.

"the same matter cannot occupy the same space" :rotfl:

Lum

bigjl wrote: »

As far as Impreza go i had one and a Legacy and found the handling very safe and predicable, the reason this halfwit crashed is he was driving like he was in Forza, he threw the car to the right to overtake and then chucked it hard left to xomplete is overtake but this started the tail going and he couldn't recover it, completely the drivers fault and the landmarks where impressive, i am.sure they matched the landmarks on his Calvin.

Any car will crash if you drive as though the laws of physics don't exist.

Have you ever driven an Impreza as they are one the most neutral handling cars out there, in standard trim the y understand like a sod, but turn in is improved greatly by getting it set up with Prodrive Geometry settings.

I have driven a "blob eye" WRX STI and a "BE" Legacy B4 RSK twin-turbo, the latter of which I owned for 4 years.

You are right in saying that they understeer but they also suffer from lift off oversteer so once this car is put in the hands of Kevin McRae from Southend and they push it to it's limits they will have no clue which end is going to let go first, or they will get it understeering just like their old Saxo, lift off too much to try to correct it and out comes the back end and they just saved Farmer Giles a bit of ploughing.

Personally I prefer the Nissan 4WD which is RWD until you slip and set up to oversteer by default, nice and predictable and also lots of fun, but even the FWD biassed VW/Audi implementation of Haldex is more predictable than a Subaru. (Full disclosure: The ony car with this setup I have tested is a Mk1 Audi TT 225 that I had for 6 months)

Of course you should never be getting into this sort of situation without knowing what you are doing and even then probably not on a public road. That said I really don't care providing they do it somewhere where there is nobody but yourself around.

Strider590

Lum wrote: »

lift off oversteer so once this car is put in the hands of Kevin McRae from Southend and they push it to it's limits they will have no clue which end is going to let go first

Lift off oversteer? the most these kids know about oversteer is when they put McDonalds trays under the rear wheels and drive about with the handbrake on............ :rotfl: