Drivers who speed up when being overtaken

Seth Brundle

mike65 wrote:

Call the garda?

Thats a waste of a call IMO!

mike65 wrote:

I might have been tempted to do a brake test with my left foot ie not actually slowing down just triggering the brake lights and seeing what happened. Trouble is the kind of ppl who sit on your ass for miles are exactly the kind of pll you don't want to piss off. I guess the best course of action is to indicate left and pull over and get them past you asap.

I was in the left lane and no matter what I did they stuck right behind me. If I did overtake, I moved left afterwards - as did the 406!

prospect

Similar to the OPs point:

I hate when you are trying to join a road, and there is a gap in the traffic, an opportunity, but the fuppin cretin that caused the gap in the first place decides he/she doesn't like the look of your car from behind.
So just as you have eyeballed your chance, put the car in first, let the clutch out to biting point, off with the handbrake, and right foot hovering over the accelerator in anticipation, you realise your gap, your chance, your rightful place in the flow of traffic is rapidly decreasing in size, as the aforemetioned grasshole increases speed.

I really, really hate that.

deep breaths....

{ :mad: End rant :mad: }

Blitzkrieger

I used to hate **** like that in my old car. I hardly notice it in my new car. Even if they do accelerate I'm so much faster than them it makes no difference. They're still ***** though.

What pissed me off these days is the convoy that builds up behind me. I'd be doing <the national speed limit> and come up behind a guy doing <below the national speed limit>. I'd overtake the guy, more because I know if he comes up to slower moving traffic he's either going to take ages to overtake or slow down further and sit behind them forcing me to overtake a line of cars if I don't want to crawl home. I'd often go well above the limit to make the maneouvre faster and more safely then slow down to <the national speed limit> and continue on my way. The amount of times I look in the mirror and find them now sitting on my bumper hoping if there's a garda hiding in the bushes he'll catch me and not them.........

LostinBlanch

Personally speaking I find these bastards who slow down and not let anyone pass really irritating. Either they are 60+ yr old hat wearers trundling along at 50 kph and saying to themselves "I've never had an accident in 40 years of driving etc etc". Yeah but how many accidents have you caused because of your non consideration? Or they are the other kind of knuckledraggers who do the afore mentioned speeding up to stop someone else overtaking.

Look it's as simple as you want to make it. Me, if I meet someone doing 50kph on a 80+kph road I'll look to overtake. If I see someone wanting to overtake me on the same road let them by. If they're really speeding I don't want to be anywhere near them when they have their accident.

lazylad

I have to say nothing worse than someone speeding up when you are trying to overtake them but this is a good one:
I was going to work one day in a hurry on a national primary road when I got to a nissan micra going 60mph I went to overtake it, and the person driving(I dont actually know if it was a man or a woman young or old because the drivers hair from behind the car looked grey and like a womans hair but from passing out looked like a mans grey hair) sped up to about 70mph. I had to shoot up to over take the person but when I succeeded in over taking the car went to overtake me!! I got into the right hand lane and then he went to overtake me in the left hand lane and then i went into the left hand lane then he went into right hand lane again and i gave up, i stayed in the left hand lane and let him overtake me! Talk about a b*llux!

unkel

stevenmu wrote:

If someone behind me is obviously going faster or tries to overtake properly, I'll do whatever I safely can to help them get past me and on their way

Hail! Exactly what I would do and imho the best and safest reaction

Cyrus wrote:

btw is it illegal to overtake more than 1 car in same maneouvere

How could that possibly be illegal, apart from the overtaker exceeding the speed limit? I've overtaken about 20 vehicles in one go before in both my current and my previous car. Obviously my top speed during these manoeuvres was well in excess of the speed limit

mike65 wrote:

I might have been tempted to do a brake test with my left foot ie not actually slowing down just triggering the brake lights and seeing what happened

kbannon wrote:

In a situation like this what could I do?

Lads, I know exactly what you are talking about, I've experienced it many times and have been very frustrated too

@mike65: I can just hope you never did do the left foot brake job thing

@kbannon: hold off the accelerator, let them overtake, let it be. Those w@nkers ain't worth risking yourself or your family

AMurphy

IrishRover wrote:

AMurphy, I don't think we're talking about turnouts or climbing/slow moving vehicle lanes here but hard shoulders or lay-bys so the truckers are under no obligation to pull into these - in fact these lanes aren't for driving in, but most of our main roads here have these "unused lanes" and so that's what they get used for.

True, however, there are many ultra wide but yet 2 lane sections of road between Lim and Dub, so why not simply convert them into passing or 4 lane, just needs a few loads of tarmac and some paint.

And there are several repaired turns, where the tip of the elbow is abandoned and turned into a "travelers park", that could also be used to good effect, instead of the former.
So I'll not accept that the opportunities do not exist, they are just not taken advantage of in any sort of a meaningful manner.

murphaph

lazylad wrote:

I have to say nothing worse than someone speeding up when you are trying to overtake them but this is a good one:
I was going to work one day in a hurry on a national primary road when I got to a nissan micra going 60mph I went to overtake it, and the person driving(I dont actually know if it was a man or a woman young or old because the drivers hair from behind the car looked grey and like a womans hair but from passing out looked like a mans grey hair) sped up to about 70mph. I had to shoot up to over take the person but when I succeeded in over taking the car went to overtake me!! I got into the right hand lane and then he went to overtake me in the left hand lane and then i went into the left hand lane then he went into right hand lane again and i gave up, i stayed in the left hand lane and let him overtake me! Talk about a b*llux!

Drugs and driving don't mix!

AMurphy

murphaph wrote:

Drugs and driving don't mix!

It's OK when driving nails.

However, some of ye pointed to something I have also observed.
A train of cars behind some large object and lets add some widley spaced turns and oncoming traffic.
Then along comes some Courier or White Van Man in a hurry and will insist on taking any and all reckless manouvers to leap frog their way to the top of the line.
The painted islands used to make turning lanes for minor "T" junctions being the favourite passing zone.

As for leaving a space between you and the car in front. When you do that, every mupped and their granny wants to leap frog you and fill it. Eventually you work your way to the back of the line, so nobody wants to give up their place in the .
Same as waiting in a line in the bank/airport and if you leave a hair between you and the person in front, some moron is obliged to attempt to occupy it.

Squirrel

mike65 wrote:

Call the garda?

I might have been tempted to do a brake test with my left foot ie not actually slowing down just triggering the brake lights and seeing what happened. Trouble is the kind of ppl who sit on your ass for miles are exactly the kind of pll you don't want to piss off. I guess the best course of action is to indicate left and pull over and get them past you asap.

Mike.

Flick the headlights on, some red lights light up at the back, I doubt he'd realise they weren't brake lights.

Anyway, the worst I've ever seen is a guy in a left-hooker E Class hit my dad on the way back from a race in Sligo, he was crawling in front of us, no cars coming the other way, my dad indicates, drops gears and begins to overtake, the ****er then accelerates and turns into us, clipped our front-wing and turned us into him. So we were left with a ****ed Sonata in the back-arse of Sligo trying to get details from a Latvian guy. It was just me, my dad, my mam and my 12 year old sister she was really frightened. He got hit with a huge bill though for repairing the front axle, and slightly bent engine mounts, along with all the cosmetic work, new wing, alloys, bumper, bonnet etc.

NeMiSiS

Ever drove on the N81? Oh that's a wonderful road.. Overtaking is an absoloute nightmare. you tend to get 'clusters' of cars with people on a perfectly clear straight road doing about 40 -45 mph, so you have about six cars all crawling, I am convinced no one overtakes anymore, I think people think it's illegal .. god forbid you would overtake a truck! You could be locked up for 40 years ina cell with a randy Gorilla for that kind of carry on. To this end, I have experienced the following:

Driving out of Blessington, a line of cars.. doing at most maybe 15 mph.. straight road..pulled out and proceded to overtake all eight or nine cars, they were going so slow when I'd say it took me no more than 7 or 8 seconds to overtake them all and pull safely back on the correct side of the road.. When I reached the top.. it was just some idiot crawling along.. what makes it even better was . when I reached the top there was still a clear road.. for easily a mile and a half.. and yet _no-one_ was overtaking.

Friday same deal.. cluster of cars.. straight road 40 mph... so proceded to 'leap frog' now the way I look at this is if the road is clear and if it safe to do so (broken line permitting), I will leap frog all I like because from what I can see, none of the drivers in this 'cluster' have the remotest intent on overtaking. Anyway, I get to the top and the thing holding up the traffic is a van with a trailer.. farting around give or take 40 - 45mph, as I go to overtake this van he speeds up.. with a trailer don't forget and two passengers.. and actully starts to pull into me.. so as I am driving parralel he is drifting towards me.. and f'ing and blindin obviously telling his mates something along the lines of how much of a bollix I am.

Don't tell me trucks pull in to let drivers by, older drivers might do yeh.. but the newer ones you can forget about it, my dad drove trucks for years he would have no problem pulling in but what I mostly see is a truck pulling out..then one of these 'clusters' pulling right up the arse of the truck and sitting their in a cloud of **** and muck and rain for ten miles. The trucks on the N81 seem to travel in fours regardless, they couldn't care less about cars. I once counted twelve trucks oncoming in a row, before I saw a van (not even a car, a van!).

Naas dual carraige way lately ended up behind a guy in the overtaking lane doing 20 25mph.. so I proceded to undertake him.. no there was aperfectly clear road ahead of him, this person just insisted on hogging it all for himself.. when I completed the manouvere he insisted on flashing his lights and blowing his horn at me? He was pretty much a spot in my rear view mirror within a minute or two.. but no one else wold do the same... as in I could see behind me.. clear for a mile.. and this same guy hogging the lane farting along in the distance. I have seen and experienced some wicked **** ion the Naas dual carraigeway..

Jesus I could go on and on and on to be honest.. I drive for a living, I once had a bus driver tell me his indicators were only and indication of what he 'might' do not what he intended doing.. I believe this to be true as on a day to day basis I see people driving along with their indicators on.. oblivious to the fact.. imagine if they do not notice their indicator on.. how blissfully unaware they are of everything else going on around them.

Also rain means, reduce speed to 20 mph, and defintly do not overtake as their will be TWO gorillas put in the cell with you.
Sorry I went off on a bit of tangent there...
TK

Our man in Havana

I feel your pain.

As I said earlier slow drivers should loose their licence, you will even fail your driving test for failing to make adequate progress!

Idleater

If you want to see "interesting" overtaking manouvers, take a trip over to Sicily. I am just back from holliers there and had a rental car. The main roads throughout the island are at best something like the national roads here - single carrigeway both directions with a hard shoulder, however they just twist and turn all the time. The country roads have about as much room as two cars side by side, provided the road actually exists on both sides!

Anyhoo, if you get stuck behind a truck or bus going up a hill for example, you only have to wait for a minute or so before a fiat panda arrives alongside you with indicator flashing, passing out about 10 cars in one go, with oncoming traffic, on a bend etc etc. I had to laugh at times.

It's all about trust, trust that they know what they're doing. Those nutters do know what they are doing don't they?

L.

jayok

Ahh... I love these rants on Boards.

First of all I would never speed up when been overtaken, even though it amuses me why someone would want to over take me when I am doing the speed limit and there's another 10 cars in front of me bumper to bumper at the same speed. However, I am a driver that will slow down if someone decided to tailgate me and I have good reason for doing so.

If I am driving along on a route such as the N7 or N9 (non dual carriage way bits) I will generally match my speed of the car in front of me if he/she is doing anything above 85-90kph. Anything below and I'll be looking to overtake. This typically means that I regularily get people stuck to the rear bumper of the car. When this happens I start to slow down by taking my foot off the acclerator and depending on how close the rear car is maybe slightly braking (for the brake lights to come on). This reduction in speed is for two reasons:

1. To create more space between myself and the car in front. Why? Because with this muppet, if the car in front has to stop quickly I want to stop less quickly so as not to be rear-ended. I know if I am rear ended it's his fault but its dangerous to me and I won't really want to talk the muppet then.

2. By easing off I am creating more space to allow Muppet's overtaking manevour to take place and there by minimising the risk to the driver in front of me and of course myself.

So, if anyone here decides that they are going to overtake me and I ease off to create space - deal with it. I am protecting my own self (I am a father) and maybe others and really couldn't give a f&ck if it upsets you.

BTW I attach a photo of what happened to my car when I crashed while on holidays in France. This crash happended at 61kph and was the result of dangerous overtaking. None one was hurt and the car was a write-off. The culprit was never found... :mad:

BTW I am not in the photo's (I have the camera) these are the kind people that came to help me.

Squirrel

jayok wrote:

Ahh... I love these rants on Boards....

**** man, that's much worse than what happened to me, ours wasn't a write off and at least people spoke english. What the insurance co. do?

jayok

Squirrel wrote:

**** man, that's much worse than what happened to me, ours wasn't a write off and at least people spoke english. What the insurance co. do?

The insurance company did nothing. At the time my insurance was about €1,500 per annum with 5 years NCB. The car was worth about €8,000 at the time of the crash but the insurance company valued the car at about €5,000. With the loss of the NCB and penalties for claiming I would have given them the €5,000 and more in two years worth of premium. As such it wasn't actually worth my while claiming (I actually calculated it over a 5 year period to regain my full NCB again). So I simply took the loss of the car and bought again. On the plus side (if ever there is one) I owed nothing on the car as I'd just finished paying for it two months previously :rolleyes:

To add salt to the wound I'd to pay environmental disposal of the car as well and this cost another €300. Ah well.

Cars and money can be replaced, I was simply happy no one was hurt.

Put driving in perspective and it gives you a full awareness of stupid (aka Muppet drivers) I can assure you.

Squirrel

jayok wrote:

The insurance company did nothing. At the time my insurance was about €1,500 per annum with 5 years NCB. The car was worth about €8,000 at the time of the crash but the insurance company valued the car at about €5,000. With the loss of the NCB and penalties for claiming I would have given them the €5,000 and more in two years worth of premium. As such it wasn't actually worth my while claiming (I actually calculated it over a 5 year period to regain my full NCB again). So I simply took the loss of the car and bought again. On the plus side (if ever there is one) I owed nothing on the car as I'd just finished paying for it two months previously :rolleyes:

To add salt to the wound I'd to pay environmental disposal of the car as well and this cost another €300. Ah well.

Very cleverly calculated actually

Cars and money can be replaced, I was simply happy no one was hurt.

Put driving in perspective and it gives you a full awareness of stupid (aka Muppet drivers) I can assure you.

Very true, extremely lucky, looking at some of the damage that could've turned nasty.

iregk

NeMiSiS wrote:

Ever drove on the N81? Oh that's a wonderful road..

All I needed to read was that first line. I live in blessington and work in town so I drive that road every day!!! Its painful all right especially on a nice wet day with a truck in front of you!

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote:

@kbannon: hold off the accelerator, let them overtake, let it be. Those w@nkers ain't worth risking yourself or your family

hmmm

kbannon wrote:

If I increased or decreased (40mph) my speed he followed suit.

Hagar

Bullbars, dirty big fuppin Bullbars. That's the answer.

Ronan|Raven

In relation to dangerously slow moving drivers any one who drives between castlerea county roscommon and knock county mayo may have met the infamous red car of doom! It is a nissan 05 and can be seen speeding at 15mph sometimes 20mph on a good day with favourable wind speed! Be warned the drivers are old, female and possibly religous!

It is bad when you see a tractor overtaking them :-D

thatkindofgirl

1. If you cannot drive the speed limit on a clear day with good roads, you shouldn't be on that road.

2. If you ARE on that road for some huge emergency, pull over occaisionally to allow for the 2 mile tailback to make some progress.

3. Not all cars have the pick-up to overtake in a tight situation. My car is little, with a small engine. Even downshifting doesn't make it easy to overtake someone doing 90 in a 100 zone if there isn't a good long run ahead of me.

4. If you drive too close to my back bumper and flash your highbeams when I am driving at the speed limit, I am going to slow down, and I mean WAAAAY down. I will drive as slowly as is humanly (and Micra-ly) possible for as long as I can stand it, especially if there is a steady run of oncoming traffic.

5. Turning on your high beams to piss me off is stupid. I have a mirror and it moves. Get ready to be blinded.

6. It is in no way necessary to decrease your speed to 40 km/h in a 80km/h zone, even if there IS a speed camera.

7. Just because I drive a small car doesn't mean I'm not capable of driving at 120km/hr. Don't immediately make up your mind to overtake when we arrive at the beginning of the dual-carriage way. It saves embarrasment when I am forced to undertake your Avensis in my Micra.

8. Seriously, is it just me, or have all the a**holes traded in their beamers for Avensises?

Ah yes.The daily N4 battle.

unkel

kbannon wrote:

hmmm

Sorry, that was meant for stevenmu!

kbannon wrote:

In a situation like this what could I do?

Very unnerving indeed. Possibly some idiot set out to unnerve someone or indeed the Gardai?

Only thing to do that springs to mind is exit the main road and drive into a town and drive straight to the Garda station. Only then you'll know if it's a guard (he'd follow you) or an idiot (he'd get the hell out as soon as he realises your getting near the Garda station)

John R

Hagar wrote:

Bullbars, dirty big fuppin Bullbars. That's the answer.

If the question is "How to ensure a 20mph collision with a child is fatal" then yes bullbars certainly are the answer.

Hagar

It was a joke. I have already confessed on another thread to driving a 97 Citroen ZX. The back wheels would be about 2ft off the ground if I had Bullbars

I'll be throwing a small party for a select few in about 2 weeks when it reaches 140,000 miles

Fionn

Yes, I’ve experienced the group of three/four drivers who refuse to overtake even though the way is clear and conditions are good. This behaviour has the potential for disastrous consequences if someone through frustration or whatever decides to chance overtaking the whole lot and perhaps running out of straight road or being in danger of colliding with oncoming traffic, etc.
My thinking is, as your driving along and you notice another vehicle appears behind you, that would indicate that its travelling faster than you, therefore the option open to you are:
1. if its possible and safe, pull in and allow the driver to pass
2. drive up to the speed limit for that road, again if its safe to do so
If all drivers followed this type of driving it might reduce the convoy, tail gating effects that we see on our roads. I think what happens with some drivers, is that they tend to drive along until they actually catch up on a vehicle that is doing a constant and (what seems to them a comfortable speed) and then tuck in behind the lead vehicle. Thereby allowing them to perhaps not concentrate as much as they should relying on the lead vehicle to negotiate the road conditions ahead, its easy to see maybe three or more drivers doing this. Its probably more prevalent at night. As has been mentioned already if people are not aware of indicators being on etc. what else are they not aware of as they drive along?

NeMiSiS

That makes an awful lot of sense Fionn.
Also iregk I have to drive from Ballymore every morning, from when I pulled out out at mine this morning the hole way to Brittas I never got above 40 mph, a line of maybe 50 cars were stuck behind a truck.. and then when we got to Brittas the same truck turned right to block up that road.. took an hour to go about 16 miles...
I am thinking of starting a ****ing support group at this stage.

Also overtook someone last night, because they had their rear fog lights (no fog anywhere..) on.. and were blinding me doing about 45.. soon as I go to pass foot goes down.. had to do 80 to safely get by and then .. do ya think they dipped their lights ? course not ! These people think they are driving a mobile disco or something ?
TK

IrishRover

AMurphy wrote:

True, however, there are many ultra wide but yet 2 lane sections of road between Lim and Dub, so why not simply convert them into passing or 4 lane, just needs a few loads of tarmac and some paint.

Some English friends of mine who were travelling around Ireland recently remarked on that to me. They were saying that the main roads with hard shoulders should be converted to dual carriageway. But then we would have no main roads with a place that you could pull into if your car broke down.

In England they don't seem to be very keen on having a hard shoulder on either side of their main roads. At most you get a 1 foot margin - if even.
I was travelling from Portsmouth to Dover on the day after the London bombings in July and so I took the coastal route along the A27 and so on to avoid the motorway to London and the M25. It is the only main road alternative to the motorway route and I was surprised at how basic a road it was. Occasionally there would be a stretch of dual carriageway for a few hundred yards where you could blast by a few caravans but other than that you were limited to about 40mph because there was no hard shoulder and no way for anyone to pull over to let you past.

All the while I wondered what would happen if someone broke down seeing as there was no hard shoulder. Well I got to see what would happen a while up the road. An articulated truck (coming in the opposite direction) had broken down and could go nowhere so was just parked there on the road behind a bend. This caused massive traffic delays and in the time that it took our line of traffic to go past there were several near accidents as traffic in both directions tried to fight their way around this obstacle.

That was the only time I thought to myself that the main roads in Ireland are actually way better in this respect.

unkel

AMurphy wrote:

there are many ultra wide but yet 2 lane sections of road between Lim and Dub, so why not simply convert them into passing or 4 lane, just needs a few loads of tarmac and some paint

IrishRover wrote:

Some English friends of mine who were travelling around Ireland recently remarked on that to me. They were saying that the main roads with hard shoulders should be converted to dual carriageway. But then we would have no main roads with a place that you could pull into if your car broke down

The solution is nigh! For national roads that will not be upgraded to motorway standard, the solution is based on the Swedish model, i.e. two lanes one way, one lane the opposite way and changing every couple of kilometers. This system is used succesfully in many other countries, France springs to mind. Over here it is used in some places but typically only in steep climbs (two lanes up, one lane down)

It will fit onto a standard wide national road and will leave enough space for the hard shoulder. As AMurphy said not much more required than a paint job

Iirc, this is being implemented as part of the NDP as is

AMurphy

IrishRover wrote:

...
.....
All the while I wondered what would happen if someone broke down seeing as there was no hard shoulder. Well I got to see what would happen a while up the road. An articulated truck (coming in the opposite direction) had broken down and could go nowhere so was just parked there on the road behind a bend. This caused massive traffic delays and in the time that it took our line of traffic to go past there were several near accidents as traffic in both directions tried to fight their way around this obstacle.

......

that's the exception. you don't fine rows of broken down traffic on every wide stretcs, so it sits wasted and idle while frustration goes to boiling point a few feet away.

I have seen the 3 lane versions, 2 climbing, 1 down.
however and unfortunately, I have also seen them used as the down hill passing lane, while there is uphill traffic coming head on. So it's obvious there are still a few nuts out there for whom there is no solution other than walking.

There is one long flat straight stretch here, out near Mantica where alternating 3 lanes are used. unfortunately it can be dangerous at night as there is no real clues when the 2nd lane begins and ends.