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[Starver]

I can relate to this.

(I originally went on to describe lane-courtesy (especially non-nearside "overtaking"), junction filtering (with particular reference to letting people "slot on") and behaviour in depressed-speed multi-lane situations (on approach to bottlenecks, real or phantom), as it applies to the UK (both as it should apply, and how it applies in practice due to drivers with different approaches to attentiveness, considerateness, etiquette and possibly even knowledge of the rules). I got into double-digits of feetnete, and many heartfelt paragraphs. - Decided you didn't want all that, just deleted all of it! Starting again...)

...twice, yesterday, the following setup occured:

Three-lane motorway, am on the nearside, comfortably behind another vehicle (comfortably behind at least one more, in front), at maybe 65mph (national speed limit is 70mph, and obviously applies to this road, but 60-65mph was a reasonable speed to go - fast enough for purpose, road conditions actually better then than earlier and (probably) right now). Nothing sitting behind me (for quite some distance, anyway) and nothing in middle/offside lanes. Junction filters in, long sliproad, vehicle obliquely visible in mirror, initially well behind me. Obvious thing for it to do is to filter on behind me. If it wants to go faster (say 70mph, 'cos... you know, speed limit... yeahIknow!), easy to do so, plenty of vision all around, etc.

What happened:
Onfiltering vehicle sped up to barely make it beyond me, in the rapidly narrowing sliproad triangle, to edge between me and the vehicle in front. (Instead of me a close-but-comfortable distance behind that, now I've got a car/van uncomfortably close to it and I'm uncomfortably close to them ...even with a touch of brakes.) For a fraction of a second, at least, as they then pull out into the next lane over and zoom off at (at least!) NSL+10mph.

They both could have held off (or at least not gone full Mad Max in attaining motorway speeds), edged on behind me, continued to edge over to pass me (and the rest) and done what they wanted from there on in. Saved seconds, maybe, but unnecessarily risking at least two vehicles' safety (including their own), definitely.


(And never saw any indicators being used, either.)

[JoshuaFH]

Drivers are always crazy in my part of America. Always either too aggressive or too passive to the extreme. Ladies that will wait at 4-ways and let everyone else go in front of them, which confuses everyone and disrupts the flow; or ABSOLUTE CRAZY MOTHERFUCKER TRUCKER driving a oil/gasoline tanker truck, on a snowy, icy road, who decides to go onto the shoulder of the road, speed up and overtake me in the space between the edge of the road and a ditch. That moment still gives me nightmares at how catastrophic that could have turned out.

[Folly]

I will never understand why people think it's safe/appropriate to drive at 60+mph with mere inches between their bumpers. Literally every time I go on the highway around here, there are fewer cars driving safely than not.

[McTraveller]

It's easy: people don't think. They just do what feels right.

I work in vehicle safety: It's actually astonishing how well vehicles now protect people from bad drivers.

EDIT: just wait until you see what happens when the AEB requirement takes effect... that's Automatic Emergency Braking. I think people will just tailgate like you've never seen tailgating before, because "the car will protect me."

[Great Order]

Drivers are always crazy in my part of America. Always either too aggressive or too passive to the extreme. Ladies that will wait at 4-ways and let everyone else go in front of them, which confuses everyone and disrupts the flow; or ABSOLUTE CRAZY MOTHERFUCKER TRUCKER driving a oil/gasoline tanker truck, on a snowy, icy road, who decides to go onto the shoulder of the road, speed up and overtake me in the space between the edge of the road and a ditch. That moment still gives me nightmares at how catastrophic that could have turned out.

Oh fucking hell, you reminded me of an incident a few years back.

At a four way, traffic light controlled junction. There's left turn-offs before the junction so anyone going that way doesn't jam the junction up.

We get green, go out, I'm the last one out. Guy in front me, for some incredible fucking reason, decides to be nice and let the cars out from the left turn onto the road we're on. Leaving me blocking half the junction and getting beeped at because the lights changed while Dumbfuck McGee decided he needed to be polite. If he'd gone the cars coming onto our road would have waited an extra... Half a second for us to clear them! Thank God he was there to spare them from that tragedy!

No I'm not still pissy with them for being a braindead moron, why do you ask?

[pisskop]

"Its not you I dont trust on the road, its everyone else" - why my parents didnt want me driving at 16

[None]

I was briefly in my home state for the holidays someone slammed on the horn behind me because i wasn't through the left turn in the intersection the picosecond it turned green, as he wanted to continue going 20mph and had to slam on his brakes on account of, y'know, me being stopped there on account of the light having been red. Midwestern kindness is dead and gone.

Out in Provo, the words 'Jesus take the wheel' were never taken more literally. Five lanes of traffic in either direction and nobody drove sensibly in any of them.

Worst out here in Denver seems to be people trundling onto the freeway some 30mph slower than traffic.

[martinuzz]

Elon Musk has started a poll asking whether 'America should free the British people from their tyrannical government'

Inb4 Trump invades London to protect american-speaking english from extermination

[McTraveller]

I have no comment, just

 

[lemon10]

I didn't have high hopes for 2025, but "USA gets nuked invading the UK" was not on my bingo card.

[JoshuaFH]

Wait what does Elon have against the UK again?

[ChairmanPoo]

Nothing, he just fancies himself Charles Foster Kane and tried to meddle in their politics. In particular he was trying really hard to rally against the labor goverment and get in bed with Farage's party much like he did with Trump. Then then Elon started praising Tommy Robinson but apparently Farage wasn't comfortable doing the same, so Elon went ballistic, started calling for him to retire, and post even more extreme stuff.

[Loud Whispers]

Wait what does Elon have against the UK again?

Nothing particularly. But he has gotten into rows with the UK government in the past over twitter moderation (them to him) and on the UK government's mishandling of child sex trafficking rings (UK government fucked it up on so many levels). Add to that he's gotten involved in continental European politics seemingly on whims, in addition to him recently becoming friends with Nigel Farage. Nigel's been a big right wing populist who was probably the single most significant campaigner for the Brexit referendum and campaign, despite not being affiliated with any major party. After Brexit Nigel became friends with Trump, and now is mutuals with Elon after Elon joined the Trump circuit. Nigel's been hanging out with Elon every now and then for the last 2 years, and is low key 99% lobbying Elon to use twitter & his own influence over the US government to lobby the UK government. The UK conservative party has been extending feelers towards Elon since the last failed government, but ever since the conservatives finished knifing each other in the back and selected Kemi Badenoch as the new leader, Kemi's been doing an awkward fence sitting where she's quantum superimposed her views regarding anything Elon says (neither criticising nor endorsing), even when Elon advocated for the USA FREEDOMing the UK. Which you know, you'd think she might at least say "Elon calm down m8 u gettin a bit silly"

Then again, it could just be Elon is the kind of guy who uses twitter ;D

[Starver]

Of course, Musk is either willfully or woefully ignorant of many of the things he is commenting about (as are many people... and I don't think I could give you chapter and verse over who did what wrong, though you can't really blame the Starmer government for things done under a different government from a different party, by people who werent even part of that government, or indeed necessarily politics any brand of politics that's either the current government or the current opposition).


Anybody who sides with Yaxley-Lennon is either tending to be as misguided as he is or just has no idea. And Farage knew that he'd never get away with going along with such a connection. Whether or not Farage is right about his philosophy, he knows that this is not a hill to die on. Yes, he'll likely rather be the "unfavourite" of Musk. Not sure (if he gets pressured out of his own party, without that self-same party then losing credibility) who his more X-aligned successor would be, but I'm willing to bet they'll be along the more extreme edges. Y-L himself? It's the kind of thing that might be bankrolled into happening.

(Though we have a different system, not the "chuck billions at a single candidate" sponsorship of the US. Something would have to give if we got that sort of spending-culture, and especially attempts to barge past foreign-funding prcedures, and it'll probably get messy.)

[McTraveller]

The worst part is, and I think this is what the political powers that (want to) be are going for, is that Musk, via Twitter, controls a very large segment of the human race mob mentality.

Sure it competes with other media venues, but Twitter with its short form format that discourages discourse in favor of short soundbites of unfounded certainty makes it particularly useful for whipping up a large number of people into a controlled frenzy.

So these people are looking to get his influence. That's basically it, and they're willing to trade a lot for it.  The worst part is these people "think they are doing good", because they can justify pretty much any action with that belief.  As CS Lewis said, it's better to have a mean person because they might get tired than it is to have a tyrant who thinks they're doing good since their "mission" will motivate them.