Good idea. Fully endorsed by me.

Chris you could always report your lady friend driver to the police. They might even listen. It sounds to me like she was not driving with "due care and attention".

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ade
Chris you could always report your lady friend driver to the police.

 

Road standards are lacking over here and it can be frustrating!!

 

I found that marrying a US citizen helped with that one

Might be a bit difficult for you know though

 

You should come and drive in Sydney for a while, I have never seen such a poor level of driving standards anywhere ... including the US!!

As an example, driving home the other night, crawling along in traffic, 1st & 2nd gear, the car in front just drove into the back of the one in front of it! Almost had someone slide into the back of me a couple of weeks ago, again in slow rush hour traffic. And the number of times I have had people pushing their way right over to the right hand lane only to then go back across 2 or 3 lanes to turn left after a few hundred meters!

And yes, I am now a 4x4 driver but I bought it to go off road in which we did 4 days after picking it up and fully intend to explore more of Oz in it in the future - not all 4x4 drivers are Mum's on the school run!!

I can safely say that I prefer driving in the centre of London to anywhere around Sydney!!

- Adam

 

The police won't care; some nutter carved my other half up last week. He accelerated up hard behind my other half, undertook with his drivers side wheels in my other half's lane, forcing him up towards the central reservation, then cut in so close that he hit my near-side wing at 70mph. Then proceeded to drive off. My other half chased him, got him to pull over at which point the other bloke said something like - well i didn't do anything wrong.

Police were called, weren't interested, statement faxed to them, statement lost.

(and no, my other half wasn't lane hogging!)

End result, one dented wing, NCB lost, insurance quotes sky high, and just thanking lucky stars the car didn't spin on getting an impact at 70mph, and lucky nobody was behind due to the emergency braking maneouvre, and lucky the central reservation was concrete at that point not gravel (road surface).

 

Last night I played one of my driving home games - "count the cars with only one working headlight". 20 miles of mostly unlight A roads revealed a score of 6 people driving with only one headlight. I find it particulary unnerving when approaching these people who are in the process of overtaking without any indication.

 

Try counting cars without working brake lights - the number of people I told was amazing, unfortunately you can not always be in a position to tell people.

Am I the only one that makes a point of checking for brake lights on when I reverse against a wall or have a lorry behind me??

 

As the driver of a large black diesel buring brick when not scaring the crap out off myself in my S . I can reveal exclusively that that one of the buying factors for me was the relative safety and isolation that a 4x4 gives you from other road users :-)
As I live in a fairly rural area I think I can just about justify it on other grounds but precisely because people do exhibit the behaviours mentioned previously I decided if you can't beat them I would rather be on a level with them.
This has nothing at all to do with the somewhat small aethestic appeal of the mobile greenhouse and rather more to do with when hitting me they a) couldn't claim they hadn't seen me or b) more importantly in hitting me they were going to do more damage to themsleves rather than me :-) The possiblity of growing rare South American chillis has just crossed my mind as a sub benefit however....
It is nowhere near as satisfying to drive as the S ; how could it be but the practicalities of the situation drive compromise - function before beauty I'm afraid.

 

An incident happened to me last night. Although most of posting on here are the victims I am sure more than one of us has been the cause of the road rage too. However last night it was not me I can assure you.

I was at a set of traffic light waiting to turn right. Once you have turned right there are two lanes, the left lane to go straight ahead and the outside lane to go to another set of traffic lights and to turn right again.

The chap ahead of me is in the right hand lane and doing 20 mph. I am in the left doing 20mph and going straight ahead. After I pass him he beeps his horn at me! Then he comes behind me and puts on his high beams. He then overtakes me while beeping his horn and comes in front of me and brakes hard. This is all happening in a residential area and 30 mph speed limit.

Now my wife and I are very puzzled as to what has happened to explain this dumb ass behaviour and the only explanation I can think of is that the idiot after turning right at the first set of traffic lights got into the wrong lane and in fact had wanted to go straight. But once in the wrong lane he did not indicate he wanted to come into my lane and so I did not give him way. But the reaction from said idiot was unbelievable. I did my bit and overtook him and went home because I was not going to drive behind said ass*ole knowing he would keep stabbing the brakes.

Rant over.