Dan Hale

Generally people who drive for a living seem to be the worst.

Buses
Taxis
WVM/Couriers
Lorries
Etc...

Boab01

I've just gone out and bought an HGV

Fletch

After coming back from NY this weekend I've come to the conclusion that the cockish driving in this country is down to the fact that most people in the UK are simply cocks in the first place.

I'd imagined the driving in Manhattan to be terrible. And I wasn't disappointed, the cab ride from the airport was scary as feck.
Lane changing all over the place squeezing into gaps that I would never dare to etc.
Then I realised how come we'd never hit anything. ... As soon as someone indicates or makes an attempt to change a lane, there is a gap left for him as the car in that lane backs off. It's all very close driving but there's a level of trust that the other guy is going to back off.
Rather than over here the first thing that would happen is the gap would be closed as soon as they spot your indicators go on.
I was surprised that the driving over here was much more selfish that what I experienced over there.

Sad really

PS.
There were lots of horns going off all the time, but generally coz someone was doing something stupid or not moving away quick enough etc.
So, impatient yes. but selfish, no.

B B

Could it be that HGV's have a more accurate speedo?
Many a times I have been driving through road works at exactly the posted limit, and a van or HGV has been up my exhaust or if dual carraigeway overtaken or undertaken me.

Whatever... when it comes to tailgaters I never speed up if it means breaking the limit, I just increase the distance from the vehicle in front and keep on increasing the distance until said tailgater backs off or is able to overtake.

If I'm in the outside lane of a dual carraigeway, unlike others, I do take the nearside lane ASAP, having accelerated hard to increase the gap from the tailgater & to minimise his wish or ability to clip the rear offside of my vehicle as he proceeds on his way. I stay alert in case the oik trys to cut me up across my bow as he too goes for the inside lane usually because he wants to vent his frustration that he has been outdriven.

Tailgaters? my motto is ' THE CLOSER YOU COME THE SLOWER I GO'.

Moggy

Yes, absolutely. People here have sticks up there arse.

I also have seen lots of tailgating by truckers

Nick Graves

I think there's an elephant of truth in that!

TBH, it must be frustrating when you're on the governor at 56 and there's some corpse in a Hyundai Zimmerframe doing 52 for no obvious reason in a 70 limit and if you try to overtake it takes so long that you lose speed on the next hill and he undertakes you again.

gaddafi

unfortunately, accident stats (serious ones) do not back up any notion of better driving over there

same when you look at places like France - oft quoted as a place populated by sensible drivers

there is good lane discipline in France - there is also appalling tailgating and dreadful hazard perception

all made even worse by driving cars outside of their sensible performance envelope

Bundle of Mayhem

As most of you know Mr CJ is a lorry driver.

He has many pet hates against car drivers when he is driving the lorry (and when he is in the S TBF ). I won't go as far to say he's the most perfect driver in the world but he doesn't tailgate as he doesn't want to go into the back of another car as he'll get fined by his company and if he's in the S I'll do him serious damage

A lot of drivers just aren't aware of their surroundings and other road users a lot of the time. They don't realise the impact that their driving is having on other people.

As a lorry driver the thing he curses the most is a car going slower than the posted speed. He was on the A66 in Cumbria the other day and the car in front of him was doing variable speed from 30 to 55 in a car 60 zone. It meant that he was suddenly either up the arse of the car and had to back off at which point the car realised he had a lorry upon him and sped up, naturally by the time he made it back up to similar speed, the car had eased off again which meant that he had to back off again and then struggled to get up the next hill which annoyed the queue behind him - all because of one car driver.

Moggy

You can't compare.

IIRC France has a higher % miles of country roads which have statistically higher accident rates.

gaddafi

all I know is that three times as many people are killed on French roads as there are here

don't know about types of road percentages

but I believe populations are about equal and France occupies four times our geographical area