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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Tim - really enjoyed reading that - I see this regularly on my drive to and from work down rural roads - usually the stack is behind a tractor with the lead car driving so close to the tractor he’s technically under it. They can’t hope to be able to see to pass it, but as you’ve realised - they have no intention of passing - because somehow this has come to be seen as an agressive move. If by some miracle they are presented with a 2 mile empty straight and become really really brave, the subsequent overtaking maneovre is often comically over-exaggerated, perhaps because they’ve never done it before….
Cyclists on the road? Stationary objects to all intents and purposes - would you stand in the road with a collection of metal tubes? All other slow moving vehicles (tractors etc) generally have a flashing orange light on them - I propose bicyclists should have these fitted. They pay no road tax, have no insurance, require no license and quite often, no lights and no sense. I know they’re entitled blah blah blah but just because you are legally allowed to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Roads are busy and fast these days. OK if it’s your only means of transport - but the guys that dress up like power rangers and use the public roads as their own private velodrome - just have a look in the mirror before you go out… Don’t get me started on the horsists either - you can’t tell me they are driving those things to work.
As for the so-called “safety cameras” - how can people randomly braking (often because they don’t actually know the speed limit - it’s 70mph on a de-restricted dual carriaway btw all you guys who brake in front of me to below 60) make the roads safer? Not to mention the carnage caused by the mobile speed camera van parked just past a junction on a dual carriageway - people should be concentrating on merging with the fast moving traffic, not randomly swerving about and braking.
Nice blog!