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e’ve all seen it, maybe some of us
have done it, but stupidity and cars seem to go hand in hand. These are some of the things that I have
noticed.
Tailgating: a tailgater is a menace, both to himself, to the
cars behind him, and (of course) to the poor individual that he is
following. The amount of concentration
required to follow the car in front at such a close distance must be
immense. I don’t know; I’ve never tried
it. The tailgater reacts to a drop in
speed of the car in front by using his brakes.
He invariably has to slow down harder than the person in front
does. Get a few cars tailgating one
another, and when the lead vehicle eases off, number six in the list has to jam
on his brakes in a panic stop.
I always maintain a good distance
from the vehicle in front, more so in bad weather. This is mainly because I don’t want to us
using the car in front as a brake.
The “
Popper-Outer: sometimes combined with tailgating, this is a driver
who spends half of his time driving in the other lane. He’s doing this either to intimidate the car
in front, or he’s having a look to see if he can overtake, or he is trying to
swat a fly and he keeps on swerving into the other lane. Popper-outers seem to inhabit long streams of
holiday traffic in the summer, where they insist on overtaking a very long
queue of traffic by picking off individual cars at a time, which involves
periods of heavy acceleration then heavy braking. This behaviour becomes very dangerous on a
warm bank holiday with a sudden shower, as the road becomes greasy.
Front Fog Lamp Abusers: this practice is not helped by the media portraying
the use of fog lamps as glamorous. It’s
not. In fact, it’s best use is to show
other drivers where the idiots are. Now
most fog lamps are proper fog lamps, and they give off a low, wide spread of
light that is useful in thick fog. On a
clear night, they are pointless, or worse, they “mop up” other drivers’ light
so that they cannot see beyond the front fog lamp touting idiot. During the day, it’s even more stupid. Occasionally, front fog lamp abusers’ cars
actually have driving lamps fitted, or the alignment of the fogs is wrong, so
instead of producing a wide, low beam, they produce a dazzling light which is
as bright as main beams. In all cases,
the most satisfying technique is main beam in their face, although I would not
recommend this for safety reasons. /Ahem/ A more subtle technique is a variant: flick
to main beam when you are around twelve feet away.
Rear Fog Lamp Abusers: there are few things worse than sitting behind
somebody at the traffic lights, getting red eyes from his high intensity rear
fog lamp. Perhaps what’s worse is on a
wet motorway, getting the dazzle from both his lights and the road. Rear fog lamps are dangerous because of the
way our eyes work. They’re designed to
pick up movement and changes in light intensity. At night, it is much harder to spot
another set of high intensity red lights next to existing ones. In an emergency situation, this can make the
difference between using the road as a brake, and 
using the tail end of the rear fog lamp abuser.
Brake Light Abuser: these idiots sit at traffic lights, or junctions,
roundabouts, anywhere really, with their foot brake on. They’ve never used a handbrake without making
it make that dreadful clicking noise and are oblivious to the dazzle they are
causing drivers behind. Perhaps they
think that their high level brake light serves as an additional warning, which
I’m sure it does: but not when I’m sat right behind them! At night, the dazzle is even worse. I find
that very rapid pipping of the horn whilst holding your hands up in front of
your face is partially effective, but most of the time the driver in front is
too dense to realise what he’s doing.
The second reason why I don’t like this is because these drivers can
roll back at junctions.
Inattention at the wheel: sometimes, you become aware that another driver does
not seem totally committed to what he or she is doing. The young filly behind who is applying makeup
in a traffic queue, the van driver reading the paper, or the driver reading a
map whilst going around a roundabout.
The idiot holding on to his or her ‘phone with one hand (who
thinks he is too important to stop, but obviously cannot be bothered with a
hands free kit). These people do
miss things. For the most part, this
isn’t a problem, but they might not be paying attention when they run into the
car in front. This is what happened to Kermit,
and you can read about it here.
Run Up Overtakers: often associated with the drivers of small, low
powered cars, when the Run Up Overtaker spots an opportunity, he or she starts
to accelerate so that by the time the hazard has gone, they are able to zip
past. Unfortunately, this can stretch
the laws of physics. Firstly, an
ill-judged run up will mean that the driver has to swerve right to avoid the
vehicle he is overtaking. Do this on a
slippery road and he or she might overload the grip of the front tyres and skid off the road.
If there is another hazard, the overtaking car has to lose speed -
quickly. If the driver has moved into
the other lane, he needs to both lose speed and pull into the proper lane. Doing both of these things at once throws the
weight of the car forward, and swerving at the same time makes it possible for
the rear wheels to lose grip. Once this happens, they very quickly slide
outwards, and regaining control in this scenario is sometimes impossible.
Middle Lane Hoggers: Don’t you just hate it. It’s a quiet motorway, you’re cruising with
seventy miles per hour showing on the speedo, and some Muppet is ambling along
at sixty in the middle lane. Why is
this? Do these people feel “secure” in
the middle lane, rather than in the inside lane? Do they believe that the middle lane is for
middling speeds?
Speed Camera Brakers: with thousands of new speed camera having gone up
around the country, this dangerous habit continues to rise. When a speeding driver spots a speed camera,
he or she will slow down for it. You can
read about my views on speeding here. Okay, fair dues, but some will brake from 60
to 30 in a 40 limit, then go back up to 60.
Worse, some drivers brake for a speed camera even when they are driving at
the speed limit. This can cause huge
problems, especially when combined with Tailgaters, Inattention at
the wheel and one guy at the end is performing his Run Up Overtake
attempt!
Undertakers: we have a reasonably easy set of rules for
Roundabout Hoggers: you know the sort.
They pull off in the inside lane, perhaps to go straight on to the dual
carriageway, and they simply take as close to a straight line as they possibly
can. Woe betide anybody next to them
when they do this. This is one of the
reasons why Lucy had air horns. Other favourites are those drivers who
trundle around the roundabout with no signals as to where they’re intending to
turn off.
Inability to park: sometimes, people seem to just not care how they
park. They’ll abandon their car a good
six feet from the kerb (averaged, the stern is seven feet away and the front
is five feet away). Or, in a
supermarket, they deliberately take up two spaces and not one. Or perhaps they’re just too stupid to care?
“Small is slow”: I’m currently driving a small car - the Ka - and
having gone from a Mondeo, the number
of people that pull out of me on a main road has increased. Perhaps it’s because the Mondeo is usually
seen blasting along? I wish drivers
would spend more time assessing the road speed on oncoming cars. I’m sure that’s why my Cinquecento’s horn and main beam
bulbs wore out in 40,000 miles! As a side
issue, I’ve noticed a big difference in people’s behaviour towards Kermit now
that he has Morettes on the front
and that PowerFlow exhaust at the back.
Over Courteous: these characters think that they’re everybody’s pal,
because they wave other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians on. Usually, they will wave somebody else on just
because they’ve stopped, and without assessing the traffic situation. Have you ever been waved out of a junction
from a driver and just moved out without looking properly? I hope not! Sometimes, these cretins will stop to let
somebody out when they are the last car in a stream, or there is just the one
car behind, and then miles of empty road.
This is pointless: just waiting a few more seconds would mean that the
waiting driver can pull out anyway! At
roundabouts, these people are downright disruptive and as much a menace as a
red-haired git in a Cinquecento doing a flier at
it.
No-Overtakers: sometimes this is combined with tailgating. The individual won’t overtake for a number of
reasons, perhaps because he or she is too timid, or about to turn off, or their
vehicle lacks the acceleration.
Sometimes they just lack the nonce to overtake. This trait seems to be reserved for British
drivers, too; in
Misted Up Glass: I’ve been in cars where the driver has not got a
clue about how to prevent the glass from misting up. He or she has never moved the air flow
control, just the heat setting, since they acquired their car. When they’re travelling one up in the dry,
it’s okay, but in the wet, or with several people in the car, they rely on the
“greasy hand” technique. This, of
course, causes more visibility problems.
I’m Too Late To Defrost: these idiots scrape away a small letter box in their
front windscreen and drive off. They
have no sideways vision, no rear view, and extremely limited front
visibility. Avoid these cretins at all
costs. They probably don’t have
insurance either.
Most cyclists: cycling is great.
It’s good for the environment, inasmuch as it doesn’t burn an oil-based
fuel source and a cycle takes up much less road space than even a Cinquecento or Ka. Unfortunately, I’ve reached the conclusion
that most cyclists are nutters.
Why? A combination of factors,
including failure to follow traffic lights (moving off on a red being the
most obvious), the lack of understanding of the following: one way streets,
no entry signs, lane discipline, looking behind before overtaking someone or
something, and what the difference between “road,” “cycle lane” and “footpath”
is. All of these things are basic, and
all of these things tend to get ignored by most cyclists.
Camera-using drivers: ever seen a chap in a green Ka pointing his camera
at you? No? Well, nobody has! The DervMan would never use a camera in a
moving vehicle whilst in control of it – that’s what passengers are for, heh!
Fag End Tossers: I was reminded by a Guestbook entry (many thanks!) of another personal
hate of mine. Those idiots who flick
their old, smouldering fag ends out of the car window whilst driving
along. It’s stupid, it’s unsocial, and
it can be dangerous. “Oh but keeping the
butts in the car makes it smell” - heh you think it’ll make a difference? Car manufacturers are not making it any
easier by making a “Smoker’s Kit” optional for some models, in other words they
don’t get an ashtray as standard.
I have found old fag ends secreted
in Lucy’s intercooler and Kermit’s lower radiator grill.