For me the most dangerous group in driving are mothers taking their kids somewhere. I had at least 4 near misses with some of this "soccermums", 2 in my driving ed a year ago. For example I was on my 3 driving lesson, so no experience at all, and when I wanted to take a corner (the inner city in my town is historic, so very narrow streets) suddenly a Golf Variant with three kids and their mother raced around it the other direction with almost 60km/h (30 allowed), cutting my lane. My teacher jumped on the breaks, stalling the engine (we drove a Opel Zafira) and she just drove away.

Just yesterday, when I drove home from school, I had a Renault Espace in front of me. On a long straight (~2km) the woman decided to overtake a lorry, I followed, but instead of acclerating she just drove on with like 84km/h (the lorry was 80km/h). I was beside the lorry, and when we came to a corner (almost 1 1/2km from where she started overtaking) I saw oncoming traffic and let myself fall back behind the lorry again.
She kept her pace and and finally the lorry driver and I had to brake to let her in infront avoiding a crash.

How could that happen? I mean I know that my mother almost always downshifts to third when overtaking (ok,not on highways) because she learned it this way in her driving ed, even if her current car has completly different gear ratios (top speed in third is 100km/h, it's a SDi Golf), but the Espace wasn't even close to 100.
Maybe she ran out of power, she had several children on the backseats and it's not a light car, but I couldn't hear or see any indices. I think she was just completly unaware of the danger for herself and her kids and overstrained (right word?) with this situation. I had to follow her the whole way to my hometown, and she was constantly driving around 80km/h, even when only 50 were allowed.
This situation was quiet shocking for me.

I like the exhaust kissers most ^^

One time, wehn returning from a rock festival, I was going about 140 and thus on the left, overtaking lane on the highway, when a BMW drove up to me so close that I couldn't see his blinding Xenons anymore. So after flashing the brake lights, and even tapping the hazard lights, he still was at my tail.
So I did my worse and lifted off till I almost matched speed with a lorry. Well, to keep it short: he overtook on the emergency lane, gesturing quite rudely in my direction.

A similar thing occured when I went to venice with my GF and her father's caravan ... just that the car behind me (this time an alfa romeo) suddenly flashed blue lights. Damn those speeding carabinieri ^^

Someone was giving me a lift across a fair length of highway, driving on the fastest of the three lanes.
A motorcyclist comes up quickish from the rear, turn-indicator flashing to indicate he'd like to pass.. Driver gets irritated, because

Quote :

[...] Well, if I can't go that fast, well why should he??
It's not fair. [...] And he's a danger on the road. [yadda yadda]

Driver doesn't let rider by till I persuade her that the best solution is to just let him by so he can "crash" into someone else.

Some people just won't let you do what they can't do or have no use for, even if it's of no consequence to them either way..
Think about it.

Don't know what country you are in, but in the UK you MUST pull into the inside lane if you are not overtaking.

Outside lane hoggers PISS ME OFF

In reply to the thread maker, the first guy is just another person who is impatient, like most drivers, and the second was obviously too embarrassed to be overtaken by a car which has more than half its power (lol), I'm no driver yet but being in a car with my friend on various trips (long and short) you do see some dozey drivers and it makes you wonder how they got their license.

My friend's car is no sports car, but with him behind the wheel it can sure do a ton easily. The only "incident" i recall whilst going to Braintree on the A120, we were behind a Fiat Punto, a really old one, doing 30-35 in a national speed limit zone, and my friend put his foot down on this straight bit of road, despite the fact there was red Chevrons because of a crossroad ahead, and the punto put their foot down to try and match the speed we were going. I think we hit about 80mph going past and we nearly hit another stupid driver who wasnt paying attention to his left and we nearly took off the front of their car, luckily we got out destination safely "just". But people need to chill out whilst driving instead of rushing to wherever they are going, they are most likely to cause accidents both with cars and motorcycles.

Danowat, I would bet most countries would favor the common sense of not impeding the flow of traffic.
Lane hoggers aren't upset about the law, they're intent on getting their way in spite of others'.

I dunno, i hate when i'm not paying attention and someone skips the queue and jumps infront of me. Having said that though i think, fair play to them if they get away with it!... they have balls!
It does annoy me but hey, what can you do really?

There are , no doubt, some extremely annoying and stupid drivers in the UK.
I've seen far worse diving in Italy and Greece.
By far the scariest driving i have ever encountered is in India. Believe me, once you have experienced a lot of Indian roads/driving then nothing anyone does in the UK will seem bad again.
After 6 months in India i am not in the slightest bit worried about driving/other drivers in the UK.


Here follows a 'humorous' list of the road rules in India. It meant to be funny, but anyone with experience of Indian roads will tell you it's all absolutely true.


Rules Of The Road, Indian Style

Traveling on Indian Roads is an almost hallucinatory potion of sound, spectacle and experience. It is frequently heart-rending, sometimes hilarious, mostly exhilarating, always unforgettable -- and, when you are on the roads, extremely dangerous. Most Indian road users observe a version of the Highway Code based on a Sanskrit text. These 12 rules of the Indian road are published for the first time in English:

• ARTICLE I: The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.
  
  
• ARTICLE II: Indian traffic, like Indian society,is structured on a strict caste system. The following precedence must be accorded at all times. In descending order, give way to:
  
  
• 
  Cows, elephants, heavy trucks, buses, official cars, camels, light trucks, buffalo, jeeps, ox-carts, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal rickshaws, goats, bicycles (goods-carrying), handcarts, bicycles (passenger-carrying), dogs, pedestrians.
  
• ARTICLE III: All wheeled vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Indian drivers' mantra.
  
  
• ARTICLE IV: Use of horn (also known as the sonic fender or aural amulet):
  
  
• Cars (IV,1,a-c):
  1. Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, IE in clearing dogs, rickshaws and pedestrians from path.
     
  2. Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, IE to oncoming truck: "I am going too fast to stop, so unless you slow down we shall both die". In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic).
     
  3. Single blast (casual) means: "I have seen someone out of India's 870 million whom I recognise", "There is a bird in the road (which at this speed could go through my windscreen)" or "I have not blown my horn for several minutes."
     
• Trucks and buses (IV,2,a): All horn signals have the same meaning, viz: "I have an all-up weight of approximately 12.5 tons and have no intention of stopping, even if I could." This signal may be emphasised by the use of headlamps.
  Article IV remains subject to the provision of Order of Precedence in Article II above.
  
  
• ARTICLE V: All manoeuvres, use of horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.
  
  
• ARTICLE VI: In the absence of seat belts (which there is), car occupants shall wear garlands of marigolds. These should be kept fastened at all times.
  
  
• ARTICLE VII:
  1. Rights of way: Traffic entering a road from the left has priority. So has traffic from the right, and also traffic in the middle.
     
     
  2. Lane discipline (VII,1): All Indian traffic at all times and irrespective of direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.
     
• ARTICLE VIII: Roundabouts: India has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of crossroads have no traffic management function. Any other impression should be ignored.
  
  
• ARTICLE IX: Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you.
  Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind bends, at junctions and in the middle of villages/city centres. No more than two inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing -- and one inch in the case of bicycles or pedestrians.
  
  
• ARTICLE X: Nirvana may be obtained through the head-on crash.
  
  
• ARTICLE XI: Reversing: no longer applicable since no vehicle in India has reverse gear.
  

Trucks and Buses just work on the 'keep up the momentum' theory and therefore have right of way...they just don't slow down and will overtake anything, anytime. If your on the opposite lane and a bus/truck is overtaking then your expected to just get off the road to make way for it. It really has to be experienced to be believed.
I cant wait to go back...it's utter madness and i love it
Next time ill take a vid of buses careering down tight twisty mountain roads, overtaking everything with sheer thousand foot drops inches to the side. It's the ultimate thrill ride

I saw one episode of Lonely Planet where traveler took driving lesson in India. There is only one thing I remember, car came from bridge and it had right of way because it came from bridge, not because of direction. Maybe they don't have brakes, lol.

But check traffic in Vietnam, Malaysia or any other country from that area and it is almost the same.

India

Vietnam

Rofl, you get best idea from this one

Hehe....i've just spent the last 45 mins watching vids of indian driving on youtube. so many good clips, but none that really show you anything too scary. Still....it's got me motivated to get back there and experience more of it. It truly is a great buzz once you've got over the fact that you might not live to see the end of it

Quote from The Moose :

Hehe....i've just spent the last 45 mins watching vids of indian driving on youtube. so many good clips, but none that really show you anything too scary. Still....it's got me motivated to get back there and experience more of it. It truly is a great buzz once you've got over the fact that you might not live to see the end of it

I would imagine that spending few years driving in India would cure most of road rage from anyone

Life is for living, not for waiting death until 90 or something, so such things are there to have nice experience

I recently returned from a business trip to india, 4 hour journey from Mumbai airport right through the city and up about 150km into Gujarat.
I can clearly say that driving through Mumbai is the most harrowing time I have ever spent in a car, and I thought 5 years of saudi drivers was stressful. At least speed is not an issue in India, most cars seem to pootle around at 10 mph, so if you do hit something it doesn't hurt much. Every now and then you come across a dead cow or a still smouldering wreck of an overturned lorry.

I found Mumbai not too bad tbh. as you say,speed is not an issue (not in the cities anyway) its just the sheer mass of traffic thats amazing.

Its being on a bus thats racing another bus flat out, overtaking into the path of an oncoming bus and squeezing between the two of them with less than a rizla width to spare either side that gets my pulse up a little. All of that on a bridge that has little to stop you plummeting to a watery grave.

Quote from JTbo :

Life is for living, not for waiting death until 90 or something, so such things are there to have nice experience

My thoughts exactly i never felt so alive

My opinion is that speed is the most important factor of safety. If you follow the speed limit, then it is alot easier to avoid 90% of accidents. I personally never drive more then 5mph over the speed limit on purpose (I have accidentally gone 10mph over the speed limit once). The roads are for transportation, and I want to be as safe as possible. I'm not afraid of driving fast (well I am sort of), but I just prefer being safe. The slower you drive, the longer you are behind the wheel, the more scenery and stuff you can see. Even being late is no reason to speed IMO. I would speed if someones life is in danger, but not faster then 10mph over, with my brights on.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

My opinion is that speed is the most important factor of safety. If you follow the speed limit, then it is alot easier to avoid 90% of accidents. I personally never drive more then 5mph over the speed limit on purpose (I have accidentally gone 10mph over the speed limit once). The roads are for transportation, and I want to be as safe as possible. I'm not afraid of driving fast (well I am sort of), but I just prefer being safe. The slower you drive, the longer you are behind the wheel, the more scenery and stuff you can see. Even being late is no reason to speed IMO. I would speed if someones life is in danger, but not faster then 10mph over, with my brights on.

Only partly right, speed limit has nothing to do with safety, situation etc. are only things that matter. Well, speed limits only in that sense that others except you to go speed of speed limit.
Quite often safe speed is lot below limit, sometimes can be higher without causing more risk, but almost never limit speed, unfortainly.

The most important thing is to predict things, to make right decisions based on what is going to happen and act before it's too late. Sadly even if doing everything right and correctly can get you into wheelchair just because someone else thought that red light means nothing or overestimates his driving abilities. Basically part of traffic is to understand that green traffic light doesn't mean that you have safe route through the intersection or that having right of way doesn't mean that no one will drive in front of you without looking.

Now I'm going to test the Supreme commander demo. Anyone who disobeys my ordahs will feel the wrath of laser beam up his a**

Quote from wheel4hummer :

My opinion is that speed is the most important factor of safety. If you follow the speed limit, then it is alot easier to avoid 90% of accidents. I personally never drive more then 5mph over the speed limit on purpose (I have accidentally gone 10mph over the speed limit once). The roads are for transportation, and I want to be as safe as possible. I'm not afraid of driving fast (well I am sort of), but I just prefer being safe. The slower you drive, the longer you are behind the wheel, the more scenery and stuff you can see. Even being late is no reason to speed IMO. I would speed if someones life is in danger, but not faster then 10mph over, with my brights on.

Watching the speedo does not equal "driving safely". I'm not suggesting that you're saying it's that simple but it definitely isn't.
Your arbitrary 5mph personal limit is a bit whimsical too, I mean, does 5mph really make any difference to your journey time? Although, I know plenty of people who do the very same thing. Their reason, however, is usually that the police won't stop you for doing that.
This isn't a personal attack btw This is a subject which frustrates me.

In an ideal world we wouldn't need speed limits at all. We'd all drive at an appropriate speed, and be concentrating on the traffic, dogs on the pavement, kids stepping out into the road, rather than watching the speedo half the time to preserve our licenses. We'd just be driving.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

My opinion is that speed is the most important factor of safety. If you follow the speed limit, then it is alot easier to avoid 90% of accidents. I personally never drive more then 5mph over the speed limit on purpose (I have accidentally gone 10mph over the speed limit once). The roads are for transportation, and I want to be as safe as possible. I'm not afraid of driving fast (well I am sort of), but I just prefer being safe. The slower you drive, the longer you are behind the wheel, the more scenery and stuff you can see. Even being late is no reason to speed IMO. I would speed if someones life is in danger, but not faster then 10mph over, with my brights on.

I wouldn't support this. In my opinion, a speed limit makes driving more relaxed, but you lose concentration. In Germany, most accidents happen on restricted parts of the autobahn, and I heard from an experiment in denmark(they normaly have 130km/h as speed limit) where a long part of a highway was completly unrestricted, and the accident rate was halved in this time.

Quote from ACCAkut :

I wouldn't support this. In my opinion, a speed limit makes driving more relaxed, but you lose concentration. In Germany, most accidents happen on restricted parts of the autobahn, and I heard from an experiment in denmark(they normaly have 130km/h as speed limit) where a long part of a highway was completly unrestricted, and the accident rate was halved in this time.

Also we had experiment where 120kph speed limit was changed to 140kph on some motorway and accidents were decreased, speed limit was put back to 120kph because of safety issues

Whenever I drive to my girlfriend, I have to pass a very busy motorway interchange (looked that word up), it's so busy there you have to start qeueing on the side of the road. There are always people that act they don't know it, and they just pass you by and then have to stop on the freeway to try to squeeze in... You can imagine what kind of accidents that can cause! A while ago I see an officer pulling a truck over for trying to do this. Whenever someone tries to squeeze in I just close the gap. Especially because I queu in at the end of the line, while I have to be on a different lane which isn't blocked ever, but I can't get past because that lane is on the right, the queu is on the left.

And some ****s on the road: I was driving behind some guy, suddenly without using any signals he brakes hard and turns off the road, had to avoid him... I look in my rear view mirror and he just pulls away again. And I wasn't driving close to him or whatever.

The best one yet: during my driving lessons, I had to parallell park the car, so I turn my indicator on, the cars behind me stop, and suddenly some guy drives into the parking spot (straight, for the exam we have to do it backwards..), and me and my instructor were thinking what an **** he was and we just drove off again to find another spot to practice... I look in my mirror... He drives off!! Grrr