Driving on the motorway (England)

[Agent Gibbs]

A good bit of advice i can give with motorways, when passing a vehicle and wanting to switch lanes in front of them, count out to a minimum of 2 seconds (1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi) before switching lanes, by which point you are usually a good two or three car lengths in front of them - i cannot tell you the amount of times someone has pulled in front of me with the tiniest of gaps, the change in air pressure alone makes a car move slightly, i've seen less experienced drivers over correct and loose control in these situations!

Only last Saturday gone i was the only car on the road for a good mile ahead of me, a car came up in the middle lane at about 80, then cut into the left hand lane in front of me with about 1m gap, it shook my car, i knew what to expect but the wanker didn't even know what he'd done - probably because he's the same sort of idiot who'd say you don't need to indicate to move left and don't need to check your blind spots

[Pestneb]

I can see why motorways can seem intimidating, but once you get used to them, they really are the easiest, most boring part of driving. It genuinely boggles my mind how anyone can crash on them when the weather is clear/without any sort of mechanical failure.

 

Normally people who are too "hardcore" and refuse to take enough breaks. Tired people forget to check mirrors/blindspots when pulling out, struggle to notice that the car in their mirror has disappeared (and is alongside them), fail to notice that the car in front is braking heavily, or just fall asleep (I've seen that happen once.. pretty scary, car hit the central reservation which fortunately woke the driver back up)

I mean it is surprisingly exhausting being bored for so long, and people under estimate the risk they are to both themselves and other road users when they start feeling tired.

 

 

Also some people are just terrible drivers, get distracted by a mobile phone, too busy texting etc.

[Nuntendo]

Also some people are just terrible drivers, get distracted by a mobile phone, too busy texting etc.

 

I always put my phone on complete silence when I drive.

 

I have never understood people who are obsessed with being contactable 24/7. I love nothing more than spending the day with my phone switched off.

[bob]

Motorway driving is a piece of piss really. It's the automotive equivalent of colouring in the lines.

 

That's quite a good analogy. Except that while you're colouring in, there are other people also colouring in the same picture, all at the same time. Some of them aren't very good at colouring in.

 

Sometimes a guy will colour up behind you with a big expensive pen, and generally colour like a bit of a dick, because he spent £100k on his pen, so that gives him the right to colour however he likes. So he scribbles all over all of the lines - he just wants to colour as fast as he can, to show off his pen.

 

Also, you have old grannies, who are using pens which really should have been binned years ago, and are colouring in at a speed that really hinders other colourers around them because they can't really see the colouring book very well.

 

And as mentioned, you might have someone who is only half concentrating on the picture at hand, and is colouring in with one hand while glancing at their phone in the other.

 

Some people suck at colouring and shouldn't be given a pen license at all.

[Nuntendo]

That's quite a good analogy. Except that while you're colouring in, there are other people also colouring in the same picture, all at the same time. Some of them aren't very good at colouring in.

 

Sometimes a guy will colour up behind you with a big expensive pen, and generally colour like a bit of a dick, because he spent £100k on his pen, so that gives him the right to colour however he likes. So he scribbles all over all of the lines - he just wants to colour as fast as he can, to show off his pen.

 

Also, you have old grannies, who are using pens which really should have been binned years ago, and are colouring in at a speed that really hinders other colourers around them because they can't really see the colouring book very well.

 

And as mentioned, you might have someone who is only half concentrating on the picture at hand, and is colouring in with one hand while glancing at their phone in the other.

 

Some people suck at colouring and shouldn't be given a pen license at all.

 

And here I am sitting in the corner eating all the chalk