Another reason to just let tailgaters past

jase1

Lum wrote: »

I remember a very similar event, late one night heading north on the M5.

Again I'm doing 70 on the GPS. To my left is a white Volvo estate that is following another car, in L1, just ahead of that car is a lorry.

One of those spaceship type Honda Civics comes past everyone on the left and pulls in front of the Volvo.

Volvo flashes it's headlights

Civic puts it's rear foglights on

Volvo flashes it's blue lights.

Civic moves to L1 and decides that 56mph is ok after all.

I'm having difficulty picturing this one. How exactly did the Civic come past everyone on the left, and pull in front of the Volvo, if the Volvo was in L1?

TrickyWicky

jase1 wrote: »

I'm having difficulty picturing this one. How exactly did the Civic come past everyone on the left, and pull in front of the Volvo, if the Volvo was in L1?

It can be read two ways - the way you're understanding it IE the Civic was on the left OR:

Lum wrote: »

One of those spaceship type Honda Civics comes past everyone on the left and pulls in front of the Volvo.

*everyone on the left* - as in everyone else on the left of the Civic

Lum

jase1 wrote: »

I'm having difficulty picturing this one. How exactly did the Civic come past everyone on the left, and pull in front of the Volvo, if the Volvo was in L1?

Typo. I put a comma where there should be a fullstop. The Volvo and other car were in L2, I was in L3. Edited now.

jase1

OK fair enough. Naughty Honda.

skivenov

Lum wrote: »

I remember a very similar event, late one night heading north on the M5.

Again I'm doing 70 on the GPS in L3. To my left is a white Volvo estate that is following another car. In L1, just ahead of that car, is a lorry.

One of those spaceship type Honda Civics comes past everyone on the left and pulls in front of the Volvo.

Volvo flashes it's headlights

Civic puts it's rear foglights on

Volvo flashes it's blue lights.

Civic moves to L1 and decides that 56mph is ok after all.

:rotfl::T:rotfl::T

Kite2010

Best over-take move I've seen, a BMW X5 overtaking a vehicle on a blind summit hill where the vehicles coming the other way do 60 mph. The idiot only over-took an unmarked copper whom pulled him over for dangerous driving.

Alexwild

Lum, he'll be a company car driver and I find it best to ignore such people. I'm not going to go up to 90 and put my licence at risk. Just ignore them and let them get on with collecting points. Like you said, you got off the motorway at the same time so it's not like he got ahead.

I find the tailgaters that most annoy me are the ones sitting on your bum in a 30 limit who disappear in the rear view mirror once you reach a nsl section of road only to slowly come up and tailgate again in the next village as if you're some sort of slow coach!

Lum

Exactly, and it's not worth "proving" anything by blocking them or winding them up. Just carry on as if they wern't there, other than leaving a bigger gap in front as in an emergency stop situation you will be braking for two.*

Let them past and let them get on with whatever it is they are going to do. In this particular example it actually benefited me as it got slower cars in L3 to move out of my way too


* Basically, in an emergency stop situation you are going to get hit from behind, so you leave a larger gap and should the car in front slam on the brakes; you also slam on, then lift off the brakes before the tailgater hits you, maybe even accelerate a bit if necessary, then bring yourself to a controlled stop behind the vehicle in front.

jase1

Lum wrote: »

* Basically, in an emergency stop situation you are going to get hit from behind, so you leave a larger gap and should the car in front slam on the brakes; you also slam on, then lift off the brakes before the tailgater hits you, maybe even accelerate a bit if necessary, then bring yourself to a controlled stop behind the vehicle in front.

I don't this would ever work in practice. You'd be too deep into fight-or-flight instinct to think about this in the event.

Lum

I've successfully used it once.

Because you have a decent gap, and because you're looking ahead, and can see the queue of stationary traffic, you never actually go into fight or flight, so you just get to annoy the tailgater a bit before stopping.