Tailgated at the 40 speed limit

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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I dont know whats more wreckless and stupid, tailgating or deliberately speeding up to prevent another car overtaking. Overtaking is the most risky move you can make, taking action to prevent a car passing you once he's comitted to the overtake is foolish, wreckless and downright dangerous.

Hang your head in shame. It dissapoints me to see a usually level headed and respected member of these forums post something like that.
 
Typical drive home from relatives with the wife n kiddies on the A14 nearing the M1/M6....cue in the idiot in a horrible greeny/yellowy saab soft top.

Came flying up behind me whilst I was caught up behind a lorry overtaking a lorry. I thought he wasn't going to slow down got bigger n bigger in my mirror, must have been feet away from my rear. I ignored and pulled over once past the original overtakign lorry. Needless to say the saab booted it.

Fast forward a few miles I'm pottering alonlg at a brisk 80, low and behold saab now on left lane doing 65-70...wtf. As I pass hes nattering away on the mobile, with wife/girlfriend and 2 kids in the back!!! Again I just ignore and continue on.

Again fast forward another few miles, AGAIN saab come flying up behind me as I'm overtaking, again I pull in when I can and he boots it, were coming up to the M1/M6 so traffic is building for the roundabout.

I'm now behind the saab, who is stuck behind a car/caravan in the right lane (M1 lane) left lane is also queuing (M6). The idiot obviously is in a rush, we come up to traffic lights before joining motorway (2 lanes), car/caravan pull over into the left lane, saab goes for right.........and fails to see the lights have changed to RED! he goes straight though almost taking out the cars coming from the M6! Inches he missed by inches!

Me and the car/caravan driver are shaking heads at one another and the wife is 'OMG did you see that' etc...nope not the end of it.

I eventually...AGAIN catch up with saab on M1....60mph behind a lorry....driver looked less confident...especially with the missus bending his ear lol :D

What a pleb...WTF are these idiots thinking of when they drive like that :rolleyes:.
 
You werent there at the time and dont know the roads or conditions etc.. but this was late at night, on an empty straight road with good visibility. It was a bit of harmless fun

Its not like i was forcing him into oncomming trucks or anything. We were the only 2 cars on the road at the time.
 
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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Nope, there would be no question at all who was at fault.

Just to be clear, I'd never intentionally cause a crash, but if I did it would be 100% the fault of the driver behind.

As has already been said, it is the responsibility of the driver behind to leave enough stopping distance, the driver in front has no control over that distance so it is entirely their fault. If they cant stop in time, it is their fault for not leaving enough distance.

It wouldnt be hard to say a cat ran out in front, couldnt be proved either way.
 
iaind said:
It wouldnt be hard to say a cat ran out in front, couldnt be proved either way.
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whilst you're right on the stopping distances, braking for a cat isnt justifiable as requiring an emergency stop, in the terms of the law (as opposed to morals)
 
Tailgating, not really much you can do other than carry on or slow down.
You can always hope that when they attempt to overtake at the next blind bend, they'll be met by a few tonnes of truck and a visit to the 'no legs' ward.
 
Even if the insurance companies dont think it was a justified emergency stop, it doesnt change the fact that they didnt leave enough distance, so it's pretty irrelevant.

I dont recall there being anything in the highway code about requirements for an emergency stop...
 
iaind said:
Even if the insurance companies dont think it was a justified emergency stop, it doesnt change the fact that they didnt leave enough distance, so it's pretty irrelevant.

I dont recall there being anything in the highway code about requirements for an emergency stop...
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exactly

the insurance company dont care why you had to brake. At the end of the day, if you'd had left the highway code required braking distance, an accident wouldnt have happened. therefore its your fault.
 
Had a case the other night. Coming down a dualy at 70MPH I overtook a van which was doing around 60MPH. About 600 yards later the road is restricted to one lane due to roadworks so I start to slowdown. Seconds later a car doing 40ish merges from a slip road infront of me. I scrubbed some speed off and carried on behind it. By this time the van was inches away from my bumper weaving around and flashing it lights. The road works lasted for around 2 miles then it opened up back to 2 lanes. At this point I got back upto speed and didn't see the van again.

It seems the whole reason for the van driver to drive like an idiot was because I overtook him before the roadworks. Why was this a problem for him as a) I wasnt speeding and b) did it 600 yards before the cones started. While part of me wanted to use a captive bolt to eliminate any further problems I really wanted to know what his problem was.
 
Some people are idiots. Unfortunately there isn't any way to stop them driving cars yet so we just have to get on with as best we can. these days I tend to just let them past as its not worth the effort. Unless of course I'm off up the west coast in which case they have to be fast enough to catch me first :)
 
depending on what what type roads that i'm on. if i'm on the motorway, i move over and let them pass, and if there's only one lane i keep my speed dont care if they're tailgating me.
 
[TW]Fox;13878093 said:
Hang your head in shame. It dissapoints me to see a usually level headed and respected member of these forums post something like that.
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What? :p

Seriously though, the slowing down and speeding up when someone overtakes is a very stupid thing to do, and I don't understand why anyone would do it. Especially since I've overtaken someone only to have them speed up and me narrowly miss going under the front of a lorry due to their actions.
 
Had a business man in his mercedes tailgate us whilst driving along a dual carriageway, and surprise surprise he was on his mobile too. :rolleyes:
We pulled across to let him through to which he whizzed past.

At this point my colleague reaches into the right footwell, pulls out a blue light and sticks it on the roof.

Late for a business appointment? He enjoyed an extra 10 minutes, £60 fine and 3 penalty points on his licence.

Love my job sometimes. :)
 
Soviet said:
Had a business man in his mercedes tailgate us whilst driving along a dual carriageway, and surprise surprise he was on his mobile too. :rolleyes:
We pulled across to let him through to which he whizzed past.

At this point my colleague reaches into the right footwell, pulls out a blue light and sticks it on the roof.

Late for a business appointment? He enjoyed an extra 10 minutes, £60 fine and 3 penalty points on his licence.

Love my job sometimes. :)
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How do you sleep at night? :D
 
My dads a retired taxi driver and what he said is true. If you're doing 70 in a 60, there will always be someone overtaking you at 80. Same thing on the motorway. If your doing 80 in the fast lane, someone will overtake at 90
 
Soviet said:
Had a business man in his mercedes tailgate us whilst driving along a dual carriageway, and surprise surprise he was on his mobile too. :rolleyes:
We pulled across to let him through to which he whizzed past.

At this point my colleague reaches into the right footwell, pulls out a blue light and sticks it on the roof.

Late for a business appointment? He enjoyed an extra 10 minutes, £60 fine and 3 penalty points on his licence.

Love my job sometimes. :)
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:D You're just posting that to make the rest of us jealous that we can't do that!
 
Rich1988 said:
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.
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At which point you say that you thought you saw an oil spill/a pot hole/some furry animal ... if if there isn't one there the fact that you thought there was is enough
 
I try not to let it wind me up. I'm big enough to take care of myself, but I don't see why it should ever get to that stage anyway. If someone wants to over take I try and pull over to let them over take, I don't do things like brake tests or stick fingers up at them, it's just silly and they're likely to do something daft like overtake you on a blind bend. I sometimes do an up and down movement with a flat hand out of my driver window asking them to "slow" and actually most of the time they do to my surprise, though it's usually kids that think they're God's Gift, that carry on.

Most of the time I drive in a fairly spirited manner and seldom have this problem but when I do, I really try not to get riled up.
 
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