Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
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Cugel
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Cugel »

MOARspeed wrote:I think there is a type of driver, who's poor driving is "enabled" by a certain type/brand of car (German or JLR), and such people actively seek out ownership of such vehicles.
In the same way that some great employee's make terrible managers. Once given that perception of having a raised position over other people, they turn into monsters.


I agree wholeheartedly that some types of driver are enabled in their aggressive and dangerous driving by the technology of the car. However, this is not confined to the technology of "German or JLR" vehicles. I would contend that virtually all cars are designed and configured to not just enable but encourage aggression and risk-taking.

They all accelerate too readily, to speeds that are far too high. They all have distractions, from satnavs, to radios to phone connections to far too many instruments displaying data to show "performance". They are all advertised as shiny merkins for impressing the opposite gender via vrooming about. None of them have a steel spike in the middle of the steering wheel. :-)

And, as you mention, the award of huge power that a car gives, along with the notion that "I am a good driver if I press hard on all these pedals" not to mention the assumption that "everyone must get out of my way" creates an instant monster from a large proportion of those humans who use a car.

Now, I will just mention that the recent acquisition of an electrical car has underlined the fact that the nature of the technology can significantly influence the person using it. The electric car requires one to be conservative with the pedals, in order to save juice and also to re-create it from regenerative braking when going down hill. This requires slower speeds and also a much better anticipation of what one must be doing next in the driving process. Well, unless one has a-one of them 0-60 in two seconds Tesla spaceship things. But many e-cars will induce a more careful (or at least less careless) driver of the human using them.

But all cars (including e-Teslas) should still have a low rate of acceleration and a much lower top speed. Why is every driver under the delusion that s/he's on an important mission to get from A to B as fast as possible?

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
MOARspeed
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by MOARspeed »

Cugel wrote:But all cars (including e-Teslas) should still have a low rate of acceleration and a much lower top speed. Why is every driver under the delusion that s/he's on an important mission to get from A to B as fast as possible?

Cugel



For the same reason that every office up and down the country has at least one very dumb young pretty twenty something YO, who doesn't do a fat lot, treats work as a fashion show (probably drives a Fiat 500), and stomps about at speed carrying a clip board.

People who lack purpose are inherently insecure, they feel this need to give the impression that they're extra important. This country is full of BS jobs, where people work all day doing something that is entirely irrelevant.
Darkman
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Darkman »

I think most drivers are fine, but you only tend to remember the bad ones. And rightly so because those are the ones you need to be concerned about.

For me, there's a higher concentration of bad drivers in white vans, Audis and BMWs.

Then you've also got idiots like these (a LOT closer than the wide angle lens makes it look)

(Warning, contains flowery language)

https://youtu.be/ABxNU27wr7Q
https://youtu.be/hAjB_s-dHzg

So yeah, bad drivers come in all types of vehicle, really.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Thread resurrection alert

My local paper keeps bleating about traffic lights 40 km away, on the road to Outside
The sensors are not working quite right, if drivers leave decent gaps the lights go back to red
Are the good drivers really the bad?
Should the convoys of mortons stick together?
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
greyingbeard
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by greyingbeard »

Clarkson Stig and Captain Slow
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

greyingbeard wrote:Clarkson Stig and Captain Slow

Do they drive at all, can they even? I understand the vehicles they are 'driving' are actually towed on trailers so they can yak away and gesture In Perfect Safety :?
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Manc33
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Manc33 »

Best:
- Driving instructors.
- Cops.

Worst:
- White vans.
- Women on their phones.
- The elderly.
- Anyone getting distracted by passengers.
- Anyone in a rush.
- Anyone tired.
We'll always be together, together on electric bikes.
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Traction_man
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Traction_man »

Manc33 wrote:Best:
- Driving instructors.
- Cops.


Not so sure, I have seen police patrol cars not indicating, and driving instruction vehicles driven over the speed limit...

A lot depends on where and when as much as who is doing the driving--motorways seem to bring out the worst, middle lane hogging, excessive speeding on outside lane, HGVs tail-gating etc etc, but then urban driving there's plenty of folks not indicating on roundabouts when turning, SUVs on your tail with lights coming into your rear view mirror, white van 'man' driving too fast etc etc--driving used to be vaguely enjoyable in the UK (back when I got my licence in 1986!), not anymore.

No doubt folks used to say the same 30 years ago, about driving standards in the 1960s, and in the 1960s about driving in the 1920s etc etc, though fewer deaths on roads and better car safety today compared to decades ago are at least improvements.

cheers,

Keith
hemo
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by hemo »

I have been passed on my bike by plod cars, they barely give a metre in passing and as for DI's, some are no better.
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The utility cyclist
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by The utility cyclist »

Manc33 wrote:Best:
- Driving instructors.
- Cops.


Worst:
- White vans.
- Women on their phones.
- The elderly.
- Anyone getting distracted by passengers.
- Anyone in a rush.
- Anyone tired.

Driving instructors, is that some sort of joke? :? Where I live, due to it being so quiet, we get a lot of learners doing their manoeuvres in the road as it's fairly wide and not much traffic, quite honestly the standard I see being allowed to happen and too many instances of poor driving whilst on bike and plenty of years driving into, through and around London as a commuter BITD I'd honestly say they are better than average overall but not best.

As for constables driving motorvehicles, properly trained police, yes, for the most part.
They have some of the best records but a lot of what they do isn't every day urban driving where they'd be encountering people on bikes, they are as susceptible to not understanding fully not just the law/HC but how people on bikes go about their ordinary business.
I've had police motorcyclists, supposed to be the cream of the crop, buzz me on a single lane NSL road at 60+.

Earlier this year a constable cut up myself and my 6 year grandson with his van squeezing us to the gutter, - literally a handlebars width for me + a handful of cm, roughly 70cm gap. When I told him off and said he should have waited behind the parked cars on his side he started giving it billy big gonads and ranting about being in middle of the road, there was loads of room, no helmet, no arm and knee pads (I kid you not). Too often we hear stories of police pulling people on bikes over for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Even a local 'operation' I think on box hill recently saw plod pull cyclists over for not doing rearward observations (either not at all r not good enough) when overtaking other cyclists, yet it's incumbent on the person behind to see what is going to happen, the cyclists had priority to start with, it was for the constables/whomever behind to do hazard perception and wait until it's safe to overtake, in which case whatever the cyclist might do regards going past other cyclists, which is very easy to see, (just like when motorists are going to overtake another on the motorway) was almost irrelevant with regards safety.
It makes barely a jot of difference to if you look or don't look to motorists actions, too often this makes jack all difference to outcome, we know this, we talk plenty about modifying our actions but it's the actions of those in motors that count for the most regards outcome. Yet police seemingly never or very rarely see or understand this. From my POV this does not put them up there with 'best' drivers, in part because of the motorcentric thinking amongst the population as a whole which feeds down to police who drive motors as well, and also because of the lack oof driving skills by plod and understanding of the law when it comes to people on bikes.

The operation on box hill saw faulty thinking by police aplenty that led them to pull so many cyclists over, they would never do the same for motorists or pedestrians for same thus breaking their sworn oaths regards impartiality.
They needed to be aware people on bikes will need to move across the road etc

As for worst, whoever it is driving that doesn't drive safely, it's almost impossible to categorise accurately for the most part.
Last edited by The utility cyclist on 27 Aug 2020, 1:13pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oldjohnw
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Oldjohnw »

Best? Myself.

Worst? My wife.
John
Bonefishblues
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Bonefishblues »

But wait, what's that, Old John's wife?

Best: myself.
Worst: my husband.

:D
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

More examples of what I understand is called a 'wicked sense of humour' :wink:
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Oldjohnw
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Oldjohnw »

:)
Bonefishblues wrote:But wait, what's that, Old John's wife?

Best: myself.
Worst: my husband.

:D
John
Oldjohnw
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Re: Who are the best/worst drivers on the road?

Post by Oldjohnw »

Cyril Haearn wrote:More examples of what I understand is called a 'wicked sense of humour' :wink:


:)
John
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