slow driving

Originally posted by sceptre
That's just hilarious. I'd pay to see that. Does he stop after passing the dangerous obstruction to pick up his cones or does he get a subscriber deal for being a regular customer?

Yes he pulls in then to put the cones back in the boot.
I think his poor wife endured this only once for a 300 mile day long trip to Kerry:D It was the bus after that!

Sesshoumaru

IMO, he's wrong, and you are wrong too. You are more aware of the rules of the road than he is in this example, as I said earlier Flashing can lead to distraction, which could lead to a rear-ending. You dont know what the clown in front will do if you flash at him.

When your driving you are supposed to be in an alert state of mind. You know trying to expect the unexpected. I think if someone is so easily distracted my a mere light flashing behind them, then they shouldn't be on the road in the first place. They should stick with public transport, this should be safer and less frustrating for everyone.

Victor

Oh, to be allowed carry a flashing blue light

Seth Brundle

Victor - I remember heading out past Blanch on the N4 and a car came zooming up behind me (I was doing 65-70) and flashed a blue strobe light. The car then overtook me and went up the sliproad for the centre. It was two young fellas in a vectra (still wonder how they managed to go that fast in a vectra )

BaZmO*

Originally posted by DMC
No one flashes at me, but when I do see it happening in the other direction or if I'm behind, especially at night, there is nothing worse to me than someone flashing up the full heads trying to barge through, regardless if it is slow moving or not.

Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is acceptable.

Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is NOT acceptable.

Tell me where the Rules of the Road says its acceptable to drive in the right lane on a motorway when the left one is empty

You're not supposed to drive in the right hand if the left hand lane is free. The right hand lane is only for overtaking or diriving in if the left hand lane is full.

B.

padraigmyers

Originally posted by BaZmO*
You're not supposed to drive in the right hand if the left hand lane is free. The right hand lane is only for overtaking or diriving in if the left hand lane is full.

I know, thats was actually my point.

Capt'n Midnight

IIRC you can only overtake on the left if
you are turning left and have indicated to do so
if the car in the right lane is turning right and has indictated to do so (and you aren't also turning right)
and in separate lanes in slow moving traffic - no definition of slow moving covers speeds anywhere near the speed limit.

ColinM

Look, this hogging the overtaking lane thing comes up again and again, and there's already been threads dedicated to it. I don't think the two disparate camps are going to agree, or rather that the transgressors are going to see the error of their ways.

What I get from reading all this debate though is that if you can't convince someone using as many words as you like right here that they should move out of the offside lane if the nearside one is free, how can we expect the dorks to know what we mean when we flash our lights at them?

As has been said before, you don't encounter this problem to any noticeable extent in any other country in Europe. Try it in Italy or Spain and you will be gently pushed off the road.

So why is it mostly an Irish phenomenon? Possibly because we've only had 500 metres of motorway until relatively recently. Also possibly because we're a nation of gombeen begrudgers who can't stand to see anyone get ahead of us.

Bottom line is - don't mind what speed you are doing, move into the left-most lane at the soonest opportunity if there's any traffic behind you. If you think you shouldn't have to move over because you are driving at the speed limit and plan to pass out a car a few hundred yards on, then you are an asshole, plain and simple.

sceptre

^ sums it up for me. No learning experience, stupid undertrained cocky drivers, afraid of being passed out even safely. Add in "likes to save money by not using indicators" and there's your typical dodgy Irish motorist. If you're not in any of the above categories you're probably in the best 10% of drivers on the road (which isn't saying very much to be honest).

ColinM

Gosh I do like when people agree with me! Perhaps we could gather a rowdy rabble of us dangerous drivers and browbeat the safe ones now eh!

Victor

Originally posted by BaZmO*
Tell me where in the Rules of the Road it says this is NOT acceptable.

Page 2(?)

INTRODUCTION

...

The booklet is not an interpretation of the law. The overall aim is to promote safety and courtesy in the use of our roads in accordance with the law.

padraigmyers

Ah, come on Victor, that could be used to back up either side of the argument. It not courtious to hold up a whole line of cars when there is a hard shoulder that you can pull into to allow other road-users past.

ken90

Fair enough kbannon, your word against his. As I understand it, after a report from Trafficwatch, the Gardai have to act and give you a warning, no matter how much you may remonstrate like you have said there. Warnings carry little weight, I'm not sure if it is even documented.

Whatever happened to 2 innocent until proved guilty" and due process of Law?

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by ken90
Whatever happened to 2 innocent until proved guilty" and due process of Law?

i would not worry about garda muldoon investigating a claim about my driving but they have sweet fa that would stand up in court (unless muldoon was one of the lads from that prime time broadcast )

Gerry

As someone said earlier, drivers going too slow is a major cause of frustration and road rage. The other day,
I drove from leixlip to athy. I said I would take it easy, and not go mad overtaking everyone. I ended up being stuck behind a procession for ages. When I eventually overtook, on a long, long section of straight road ( the road to athy is mostly like this ) with good visibilty, and no oncoming traffic, I got flashed for ages by the person who was holding up the whole show ( doing about 40mph ).
This is, as ColinM says, the typical gombeen attitude.
These are the same people who don't know the first thing about overtaking, when they are doing it themselves. They pull out first, and then start accelerating, taking bloody ages. They also like to accelerate because you are overtaking them.

On the subject of the overtaking lane, people who stupidly hog the fast lane deserved to be flashed and beeped at, otherwise they won't see that they are doing anything wrong. I normally undertake these people, after giving them a good 5 - 10 seconds to get out of the way.

Turner

People who accelerate when you overtake them should be shot. Its about twice as dangerous as playing russian roulette and really makes me mad.

KlodaX

I think its supposed to be like just between 1 under and the exact speed limit for the road you are on... thats the speed you are 'supposed' to be at... under that and you are an obstruction .. over and your speeding ... not much leeway given

People who accelerate when you overtake them should be shot

I agree .. but its mostly men in mircs *from my experience* ... that do this ... its a matcho thing thats why womens car insurance is cheaper

Turner

Adjust your speed limit to the type of road you are on. For example outside a school at 3:30pm I think 30mph is far too fast. If you are travelling past the school at 10pm 50mph would probably be safe enough.

Motorways after certain times maybe 11pm should have no speed limits on them, while towns and villages during the day should have a 20mph speed limit or less.

TomF

I didn't realise there was any speed limit after closing hours, or at least it seems that every other person driving is going at about 90 mph after then! Don't most of the crashes into walls and trees happen after 11 pm?

Getting into another thread in this tapestry: I think that where there are roads with two lanes of traffic in each direction near cities, then there isn't any such thing as a "fast lane" or a "slow lane". There are just traffic moving lanes, and the idea is to get the volume of traffic moved from A to B, not to have people flashing lights at others trying to get to work in the right-hand lane because they aren't doing 90 mph.

Speed kills.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by TomF
Speed kills.

I think it is more correct to say that inappropriate speed kills. However, most people would not know how to interpret that extra word.

Victor

Originally posted by kbannon
I think it is more correct to say that inappropriate speed kills. However, most people would not know how to interpret that extra word.

Speed turns an injury accident into a fatal accident is the point.

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by TomF
I think that where there are roads with two lanes of traffic in each direction near cities, then there isn't any such thing as a "fast lane" or a "slow lane". There are just traffic moving lanes, and the idea is to get the volume of traffic moved from A to B,

Unless traffic is very heavy and slow moving or you are truning right shortly the outside land is for overtalking only.

Also 40mph is the speed that allows highest traffic density - faster and the gaps get larger.

GreeBo

Originally posted by draffodx

in my opinion slow drivers are as much of a hazard as speeding drivers, I was a passenger with my father one night and he was doin 55mph, came around a corner and next thing there was a car doin 20mph on the road, had to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid hitting it.

there was no house's or roads onto the road anywhere near were the car was so there was no chance the car had just come onto the road

Ehhh that means that he (your father) was driving too quickly around a blind bend!

What if there was a tail-back all the way to that corner and the car was legally stopped in it?
You would have rear-ended a bunch of cars and probably killed someone, well done.
Damn those dangerous slow drivers eh?
:rolleyes: Muppet.

GreeBo

Originally posted by klaz
just curious, but how do you feel about drivers that hog the speeding lanes. I've seen many times where drivers have been "forced" to overtake using the slow lane simply because theres a car going at 30-40 in the fast lane. What do you do about these drivers? overtake on the slow lane?

check the rules of the road.
It is LEGAL to undertake if the car in front is moving slower than the traffic to the inside.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by redoxan
Ehhh that means that he (your father) was driving too quickly around a blind bend!

What if there was a tail-back all the way to that corner and the car was legally stopped in it?
You would have rear-ended a bunch of cars and probably killed someone, well done.
Damn those dangerous slow drivers eh?
:rolleyes: Muppet.

I agree but the last car in the queue (using common sense) should also have tried to ensure that they could be seen by approaching traffic (e.g. if possible sit on the bend even though there may be 20 foot between them and the next car). They could also have displayed hazards which possibly could have been seen in the dark by an approaching car.
Unfortunatley, people don't use common sense!

seamus

Originally posted by redoxan
What if there was a tail-back all the way to that corner and the car was legally stopped in it?

Yeah, what if? Should we all drive at 20mph on corners in the country just in case there's traffic backed up?

There are many, many corners where even driving at 20mph would be too fast if you were unlucky enough to have a car stopped just out of your vision around the corner.

I see your point, but driving with a what if? attitude (i.e. trying to react to everything that may happen, before it does) can be more dangerous than just being prepared for everything that may happen.

jd

Originally posted by mukki
i think a lot of slow driving at night is caused by dirty headlights, i followed a car for about 10 miles on sunday night, they'd do 55 when nothing was comming then about 30 when traffic approached, i think as soon as he/she dipped they couldn't see anything

believe me i was going mental, as soon as i got a clear way to over take, he/she would speed up too, so it was hopeless,and there was a good bit of traffic that night

there should be clean your lights adds on the radio

You are joking...
My guess is someone in an oncoming car can't/won't dip their headlights. People have different sensitivities to glare eg blues eyes generally take longer to adjust. I'd guess from driving to Wexford and taking a quick survey, about 30% of drivers don't dip!
jd

GreeBo

Originally posted by seamus

I see your point, but driving with a what if? attitude (i.e. trying to react to everything that may happen, before it does) can be more dangerous than just being prepared for everything that may happen.

I couldnt disagree more.
I think if more people drove within themselves, and were more prepared for the unexpected, there would be far less road accidents.

I know there are lots of people, yourself apparently included?, who like to drive at the LIMIT (hmmm I wonder why its called limit?) and think the limits should be higher, but the fact is that people are still being killed on the roads each year, because SOMETHING happens that they, or others are driving too fast to react to.

:mad:

seamus

Originally posted by redoxan
I couldnt disagree more.
I think if more people drove within themselves, and were more prepared for the unexpected, there would be far less road accidents.

Well that's what I'm saying. There's a difference between being prepared to react to something that may happen, and reacting to something that may happen, whether it does or not.
By the very fact that the other poster didn't hit the idiot driving slowly, showed that they were prepared to react. The general rule where speed is involved is to drive at or below the limit, and at a speed so as you have enough to time to react within the distance that you see to be clear. The very fact that they didn't hit the other car says that their speed was reasonable.

GreeBo

had to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid hitting it.

doesnt sound reasonable to me.
Would you have liked to be in the oncoming lane facing that?