Fucking slow drivers. My god, its a turn! Oh dear lord, its a hill! OMFG, a turn on a hill?!?! Shit, people, how do you drive this SLOW? Am I abnormally fast? I only go the speed limit.
I (although I also get the above) rather have the
opposite problem to vent about[1].
When there's a speed limit, especially when posted but
especially especially when it's, like the goshdarnit National Speed Limit, people
still treat it as not applicable to them.
Situation 1: Last night, dark, driving down a long valley road which has long straights but not infrequent jinks in it. The road (which would be 60MPH limited, as single-carriageway, if not posted), has been given a 50MPH posted limit for 5-10 miles of its length.
Previously that day, as I'd gone
up the valley in daylight, some chancer had overtaken me, then the car that I was following (not bumper-to-bumper, but close enough to make me uncomfortable with the new car in-between, for the few seconds that he had to pull in) at way more than 60. However, now
in the dark, the car behind, which had been following me all the way from the other side of the hills (but been unable/unwilling to pass due to the windy nature of the road) took his chance and passed.
Now, I'd been going
at the limit the whole way. With the exception of some very tight corners where that was, frankly, foolhardy. In fact, I squealed round some corners, and "legal" isn't necessarily "safe". When the car passed (a Jaguar, nice and sporty... looked like it was a guy and his wife/girlfriend/mistress/date) and sped away, he quickly got to the next corner and was disappeared around the corner
after that before I got there. And, yet, as I continued my (near-as-damnit bang-on-the-speed-limit) travels, he came back into sight... What is it? Not as easy driving without some tail-lights to follow? (Although, from my POV, also was easier driving without both main and rally-style headlights dazzling me through my rear-view mirror...)
At this point it departs from my main grumble, because, you know what, it seems he turned off on the same road I was turning off, into a 40MPH-signed zone
with speed cameras, and never got away from me. And right at the bottom of the route, I was alongside him (I recognised both the car and the occupants) at a lights-controlled junction with two lanes. He gained
nothing from his overtaking manoeuvre. I gave him a little wave, although I doubt he knew why.
Situation 2) Again, the hours of darkness seem to evaporate the speed limit. I regularly (the above being an exception) commute home very late at night, post-midnight (as it is now, where I am, so I may see this tonight) along a road with 30MPH limit (urban area, streetlights, and '30' signs at all points of change from higher/lower limit areas, and in this country this usually does not merit limit 'repeater' signs). The number of times I've had people up my backside as I stick dutifully (
and, again, even round corners) to 30, and then passing me at great speed. Even so far as to disobey lane markings to do so at a right-hand (across-traffic, in a drive-on-the-left context) turn-off.
Interestingly, part of this road is
actually a 40 zone. It's signed as such on entry, and with repeaters. It's also signed (accurately, unlike some roads where this is bluff, or to allow 'mobile' units to operate) with "speed camera"+"40 limit" combo signs. Very few people pass me on this stretch (although it's not unknown) while I am now travelling at the faster limit. What I
do find, though, is that some cars, faced with the "speed camea+40" sign-pair... slow down to
30MPH. Very often ones that had been getting away from me on the 30 stretches. Guilty conscience, at all? It's also not unknown for a mobile speed-van to park up a few hundred yards into the 30 zone, from the end of the 40 stretch. Speeds of 20 result from guilty drivers. I almost wish they could be booked for that. (Again, this agrees with your own vent, Hanslanda.)
3) Motorways. The national speed limit is 70. Even if one is (possibly incorrectly[2]) assuming that your speedo shows 10% low, there's no excuse for going 80, 90, etc... There are
no places (outside of closed tracks) where one is allowed to go that fast. If I travel (at 70MPH) along a two-junction stretch that I regularly do, I'll often end up with the opportunity to pass (and usually by a small differential) less than a third of the vehicles that pass me (often by a much bigger differential). Excluding vehicles for whom the legal limit is 60MPH.
They tend to be going at 65, anyway, and I've been passed by cars with caravans/trailers, before (who fall under this lower limit).
You know, what I'd really love is to have (perhaps in return for lower insurance) a 'black box' for my car that keeps track of my speed, the local limit (by GPS/roadside RFID, perhaps) and by analysing the images of cars that pass me (either automatically, or with some minimal input by me) compiles a list of drivers that break the limit. Maybe as a discretionary submission to the authorities, maybe to add a black mark against that driver/vehicle's insurance. It would no doubt also pick up the times I'm a little slow to get down to the next (lower) limit, or prematurely anticipate a higher limit. Although usually this would be most pronounced when I've got some already pressing on my bumper and I just
know that if I was a bit more hesitant they'd be trying to overtake (on the up-speed transition), assuming that I wasn't going to speed up.
Rather unrelated to speed limits, but still a vehicle-related vent: There's a local cinema/entertainment/restaurants complex near me with copious (although still never quite sufficient) parking around it. Almost all stretches of road have
clearly indicated direction arrows painted upon them, dotted/double-dotted lines across the end of side-roads (as per the scheme used on public roads, universally) to show that this is an entry/exit (as appropriate)
plus even the occasional "no right/left turn" signs to bolster the aforementioned. Which, of course, some people just ignore. Most of the roadways are
wide enough to have cars passing in opposite directions, indeed, but that situation should not occur. I will admit to deliberately driving down the centre of the road (there's no centre-line, of course, and it's also justifiable as being to avoid being too close to any vehicles surprising me by pulling out of parking spots on either side of the roadway, without looking) and giving dark looks to any car that, by disobeying all the markings, ends up facing me and forces me to grudgingly move to one side. If I'm close enough to the end (from my POV, the start from theirs) of the particular roadway, I may be even more stubborn and get them to reverse back out in (hopefully) embarrassment.
When I'm
walking to/from where I'm parked (often a few hundred yards away from where I want to be), I'll walk along the roadway on the 'wrong' side of the road for the correct flow of traffic. Anyone travelling in the correct direction passes me easily (and I keep an ear out, anyway), anyone in the opposite direction has to 'pull out', and I supply the 'black look', usually conspicuously point at the road-painted arrows they are travelling in opposition of and may even vocalise my displeasure (particularly useful when windows are down or when it's a 'converted' convertible, on a particularly nice day/evening).
But that's a Vent that I've pretty much already got handled, as you can see. And I have no doubt that some people (as with those who consider the legal limit insufficient, and find themselves stuck behind me) would wish to 'vent' about
my actions, but I'm very much content that I'm in the right. But as I cannot (by myself) cause such inconveniences to
every piss-taker of these 'offences' (or, as far as the speed limit concerned,
actual offences, with no 'quotes' needed!), I would definitely like to vent about the fact that people seem to be consider various rules to be totally inapplicable to them, for whatever reason.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a perfect driver (or, if you include the entire rule of law and associated rules of living in this country/world, person in general), and no doubt there are legitimate complaints about how I behave in other matters. But you can see where I stand on the above, whether you wish to agree with me or not. And this
is a Vent thread, after all. (Still seething internally about this, but then I know I'm going to be driving along that "Situation 2" road in half an hour. If there's
any other bits of traffic on it, at gone 2AM, I'm betting it'll try to go faster than the limit...
Except in the small bits around the speed camera.)
[1] Just spotted the thread, and yet dutifully read through to the end, and still fancied posting. Oh, and it's said that more people have died due to mosquitoes than have died from any other 'single' cause, or something... Well, "it is said". Who knows.
[2] If anything, a car speedo's accuracy limits is more likely to err upon showing
high. I've pretty much confirmed (from some off-hand testing I did while driving some particularly steady routes, soon after I got my latest car) that my speedo is off by about the thickness of the needle. Certainly it isn't showing faster by anywhere enough to have me going at (say) 25MPH when it shows that I'm goin 30.
Author
Topic: Venting (Read 12444 times)