Tailgated at the 40 speed limit

Vampire said:
Yeah, this is fine until the the guy barges past on the next straight bit of road, then handbrakes it round to block the road and piles out carrying a bit of scaffold pole. Oh, and is about 6'8" and built like a gorilla.

This happened to me about 10 years ago, and was quite a scary incident. :eek: :(

Since then, I'll either try to ignore them, or slow down a bit, indicate and wave them past. It's just not worth the aggro if it's a loon.
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Thats what worries me. I lock my doors and try to ignore tailgating. I've just finished my first year of driving so still learning.

I go 30mph on a 30mph road yet people are right on my exhaust. I get worried and panic, can't take my eyes off them etc.

It winds me up more when i see people doing it to people on their driving tests, or lessons.
 
Camalot said:
I go 30mph on a 30mph road yet people are right on my exhaust. I get worried and panic, can't take my eyes off them etc.
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You should be going at 30mph and you have every right to, so try to stay relaxed. If you can tell they are getting really aggressive, like the one on my tail, when an overtaking opportunity arises, slow down and pull your car to the left a bit, possibly indicate if that can't be misinterpreted as turning left, and let them pass.

I always remember that really I should be driving no faster than the speed limit, and imagine how guilty I would feel if I ran someone over when speeding - it might have been unavoidable and not your fault anyway, e.g. they ran into the road, but if you were speeding you're going to look bad and feel worse.

Rgds
 
I don't usually get tailgated because when I floor it my diesel lays down a james bond smoke screen.
 
Talking of tailgating. I've just got back from driving my family to a pub for an evening meal, on the way there it was light and dry. On the way back it was dark and wet. Because of this I sat at bang on 60mph (speedo, ~55mph satnav) on the soaking wet twisty B roads with fog and general poor visibility, this didn't stop a complete **** sitting up the back of the car. After a few flashes of the rear fog he backed of...but then a few miles later decided that sitting up the back of my car was more interesting and carried on doing it. When I got to a dual carriageway I quickly got up to 70mph on a on the slip road, leaving him behind...for a little while, till he decided to do ~90mph past us in the pooring rain. :rolleyes:

Peugeot 307CC too, not like it was a real car. :p
 
iaind said:
I have to confess on a few occasions, I've got fed up and slammed on the brakes - if they go into the back of me, its their fault, no doubt about it...
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yeah, you see i'm pretty sure there is some doubt about it.
surely slamming on the brakes for no good reason and causing a shunt is 100% your fault, regardless of the distance to the car behind?

you need a reason to slam on the braks, you can't just do it because some **** is tailgating, no?
 
mjt said:
yeah, you see i'm pretty sure there is some doubt about it.
surely slamming on the brakes for no good reason and causing a shunt is 100% your fault, regardless of the distance to the car behind?

you need a reason to slam on the braks, you can't just do it because some **** is tailgating, no?
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I'm pretty sure this is the case. Although if there's no witnesses then it's his word against your's, and he went into the back of you.
 
iaind said:
I have to confess on a few occasions, I've got fed up and slammed on the brakes - if they go into the back of me, its their fault, no doubt about it...
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Not if there are any witnesses who saw you driving along and brake in a dangerous and sudden manner for no reason causing the person behind to hit you, even if they said he was tailgaiting it would go 50/50 at best as the accident is your fault.
 
InvaderGIR said:
When I got to a dual carriageway I quickly got up to 70mph on a on the slip road, leaving him behind...for a little while, till he decided to do ~90mph past us in the pooring rain. :rolleyes:

Peugeot 307CC too, not like it was a real car. :p
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Yes, I imagine it's even worse when you have the family in the car with you.

I was being tailgated by a relatively low powered Transit, my car is a 2.0 Turbodiesel. In an effort to not inconvenience them further, I was speeding up rapidly when I left the 40 zones, but I think in future I won't do this and give them an opportunity to get past first, even though overall that would probably be slower for them, but at least then they won't get the wrong impression that you're playing around with them. With some people, nothing is good enough, and you just have to accept that these types of people are on the planet too I guess.

Rgds
 
Aye, originally when they came up behind I assumed it was my sister (who had previously been following me...her in a 1.1 106 and me in a 2.8 3 series :p), then they got right up behind me and she's not stupid enough to do that.

I fully expected them to overtake me on some of the long straights, but they didn't seem to want to, only when I got to the dualie.

I'm not normally fussed about having someone behind me, as I'd usually just floor it or slow down so they could overtake. But it was dark and very wet and I had my mother and two of my brothers in the car, so refused to drive even remotely stupidly. I was mostly concerned about the possibility of me having to brake and then having them rear end me...they didn't seem fussed about it though, but would undoubtedly have blamed me 100% if they had. :rolleyes:

Still, got home fine, once they'd overtaken all was well. :)
 
And then you get the people who insist on undertaking, weaving in and out of cars to get ahead, and then they get stuck behind someone doing the speed limit in the left hand lane and sit inches from their bumper. Don't understand the mentality. I always wish there were an undercover cop car around in those moments.
 
MrLOL said:
last time i got tailgated, i slowed right down to about 20, then put the car in 1st, and waited for him to pull out to overtake. At which point i promptly put my foot down and left him for dead.

He didnt try again.
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OMG such a child, don't drop to their level, your as bad as they are, such a dangerous driver, could have killed thousands of babies and kittens :D

Would love to do that, just need a more powerful car.

I just dab the brakes a little, and if they stil do it then dab the brakes some more.

mjt said:
yeah, you see i'm pretty sure there is some doubt about it.
surely slamming on the brakes for no good reason and causing a shunt is 100% your fault, regardless of the distance to the car behind?

you need a reason to slam on the braks, you can't just do it because some **** is tailgating, no?
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Fruwfy white bunny jumped out ;)
 
We have some lovely flowing corners around here (A95) but some of them are quite tight. We were coming back from Grantown-on-Spey the other day and were doing a steady 65. I saw this van coming in the distance and he rapidly caught us up. He sat on our tail for a few miles every now and then popping out for a look. In the end he pulled out to overtake 30 feet before a blind left hand corner with double white lines down the center of the road. Halfway into the corner he was still on the other side of the road and not past me when he started to cut right across me. I had to stand on the brakes to avoid being knocked off the road. The reason? A dirty great lorry coming the other way blowing his horn at this moron. To say i was shook up is a understatement. We got going again only to see this idiot do exactly the same thing to another car in a 40mph zone as you descend to the village. Once again he was lucky. Of course, there are no traffic cops here as they rely on scamera vans too much. Morons like this should be bloody jailed or if they want to kill themselves, drive off a bloody cliff where they can't hurt anyone else.
 
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mjt said:
yeah, you see i'm pretty sure there is some doubt about it.
surely slamming on the brakes for no good reason and causing a shunt is 100% your fault, regardless of the distance to the car behind?
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not in this country

The insurers see this as quite simple. If your driving in accordance with the higwaycode, the driver in front should be able to stop instantly, almost as if they hit a brick wall, and you should stil be ablel brake and not hit them.

The highway codes stopping distances (which you observe at all times of course) make no account for the person in front of you stopping. They are based on stationary objects.

Going into the back of someone is your fault for not leaving sufficient braking distance, regardless of the reason for braking.
 
-Ad- said:
OMG such a child, don't drop to their level, your as bad as they are, such a dangerous driver, could have killed thousands of babies and kittens :D

Would love to do that, just need a more powerful car.
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it is completely childish, im just enjoying my new toy :D

in the picasso, i just used to carry on as normal, and move over and slow down when they were obviously going to overtake. I had neither the power nor the handling to do anything about them overtaking, so it was best just to let them get on with it, and make sure they didnt crash into me doing so.
 
MrLOL said:
Going into the back of someone is your fault for not leaving sufficient braking distance, regardless of the reason for braking.
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surely not always the case? if the car in front hits like a truck pulling out or something equally immovable and you hit into him because there is no possible way of stopping in time it wouldnt be your fault?
 
Rich1988 said:
surely not always the case? if the car in front hits like a truck pulling out or something equally immovable and you hit into him because there is no possible way of stopping in time it wouldnt be your fault?
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you should have allowed sufficient stopping distance

simple.

As already said, the highway code stopping distances are based on stationary objects. The above reason is exactly why they based so. As the chance of you comming across a stationary object in the middle of the road is a real one.
 
Rich1988 said:
surely not always the case? if the car in front hits like a truck pulling out or something equally immovable and you hit into him because there is no possible way of stopping in time it wouldnt be your fault?
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But that's different. Obviously if a truck pulls straight out in front of you there's little you can do. But say a car pulls out of a side road in front of the car ahead of you, the car in front brakes in time and you plough into the back of them, that's your fault.
 
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