Motorway / dual carriageway driving is getting worse in the UK. The average follow distance is about a third of what is officially deemed safe. I have my ACC set to the shortest follow distance and compared to the majority of cars on the road it looks like I'm leaving a country mile to the car in front. I genuinely think people have recalibrated the two second rule in their own heads and are oblivious to the sections of chevroned motorway which are designed to reset your follow distance.
Then there are the tailgaters, which are becoming more common and less logical. If I'm dawdling in lane 2 with no one in front and no one to my side, fair enough. I can understand you putting a bit of pressure on to get me to move over. But mid overtake of a row of cars or in solid traffic with a car in front? What is the objective here?!
I genuinely think I'd get less tailgating if I was to be sitting up the chuff of the car in front but because there is a couple of second gap I think it doesn't register that I'm actually travelling as fast as I can and would be going quicker if the road was clear.
Most recent memorable one was the stereotypical white transit. Mate in the passenger seat to show off to, not a straight panel on it, chucking out thick black smoke and the driver in the hunched forward hands crossed over the top of the wheel position. Despite being in a line of traffic he kept gesticulating to "go on", where exactly I don't know. Eventually the car in front had overtaken all the cars in lane 2 and moved over, I carried on past and moved over myself (once I'd left a couple of second gap) and I got the sarcastic "well done" clapping. Meh, whatever, van carries on in lane 3 and I forget all about it.
Ten minutes and a couple of junctions later the traffic thins out and I catch up with the same van, now sat in lane 2, merrily trundling along a good 10+ mph slower than before. So what was the bloody rush?!
Yesterday I lost count of how many people blasted past, then slowed down, then sped up, then slowed down. I'm not talking the normal variance of people not using cruise, I'm talking 90 MPH overtakes and 60 MPH dawdling seemingly at random. Then you get the wide boys, normally in an M*40i it would seem who think the road is some kind of race track for their amusement carving through the traffic thinking they are gods gift when in reality it is other peoples awareness that is keeping them out of A&E. Again a memorable one from yesterday, with a private plate to remember the tool (OC67 ANE
) giving it the full beans then dawdling then undertaking traffic flat out in his tuned up Audi. Fair enough, I'm no saint but there is a time and a place and a motorway during commuting hours isn't it. Also whatever tune they were running could have done with some work as it was over fuelling badly.
