The Fear of Overtaking
Nov 21st, 2007 by Tim Skipper
Why are drivers so scared of overtaking these days? I wonder, is it because of the idiotic and poorly thought out way we are all slowly being brain washed into believing that Speed Kills? Whatever, it’s very annoying to be stuck behind a queue of cars who are all driving too close to each other (but slowly, so that’s ok, only speed kills remember) and afraid of pulling out and getting a move on.
Today coming home from Norwich I came upon a typical scenario on the A140. It’s a pain of a road at the best of times, but today I was stuck behind three cars doing 35 mph for almost 10 miles. The reason; the lead car was following a Moped and was afraid to pass it. Not an HGV, or a coach, a bloody moped!
Now I know you should give mopeds and cyclists room (well maybe not cyclists, they mostly deserve to be run over), but come on… at 35 mph any modern car has enough power to pass a moped with a brief gap in oncoming traffic.
But no, speed kills; overtaking is dangerous so we’ll all just plod along. Not me. Eventually I spotted a gap and took the whole lot out in one go. It goes without saying the lead car then starting flashing and hooting at me. A typical response from that other oh-so-British species; The Overtaker-Hater.
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