BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Midchuck
Date: 24 Oct 15 - 07:21 AM

"There are two kinds of drivers: Idiots (those who drive slower than you) and assholes (those who drive faster than you)."

Yes. And the interesting thing is, that when I was 25 or 30, there were idiots everywhere, and only a few assholes. Now that I'm in my 70s, there are assholes everywhere, and only a few idiots. Why did so many people change?

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 23 Oct 15 - 05:55 PM

Driving at all.

At current rates of consumption, the world has 38 years of oil left. It's insane to use it on dragging people around one by one in private cars.

It's the bike for me now.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: BobL
Date: 23 Oct 15 - 04:11 AM

As any Classic Mini owner will know, when the oil level is seriously low you risk losing oil pressure on right-handers, unless you slow down a lot. If it happens anyway, the procedure is to switch off the engine, coast round the bend, wait a few seconds and then bump-start. This means the car slows sharply, without the brake lights coming on. I did this once in a Mini Scamp (kit car with a square tube-steel chassis that sticks out at all the corners): when I next looked in the mirror the tail-gater was at a safe distance...

BTW there was only one situation on the road I went out of my way to avoid: going round Hyde Park Corner. On a push bike.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Oct 15 - 01:47 AM

Yes, that's right. It's the Highway Code advice -- a car-length for every 10mph of your speed from the car in front.

BUT what is the solution to the unspeakable idiot who shoves his bonnet right up to your rear bumper, or overtakes to fill up that space you have carefully left between yourself and the car in front?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Bert
Date: 23 Oct 15 - 01:33 AM

A trick I learned while driving in The Middle East was to give myself plenty of room. That extra length or two between you and the car in front can be the difference between a near miss and a fender bender.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Oct 15 - 12:47 AM

I drove 30 miles on a forest road behind Mount St. Helens in Washington today. Then a sign said Pavement Ends. I should have turned around, but instead I drove another 40 miles on gravel, not sure I was on the right road. I wasn't, but I got to where I need to go. It got scary after it got dark, and I went for 40 miles without seeing a building or another vehicle. For most of the trip, all I could see were trees. A few times, a beautiful volcano popped into view for a few seconds - I think they were Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams.
I think I'll stay off poorly-marked forest roads in the future.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 11:00 AM

on roads with more than one lane in each direction, turning left into traffic when it is backed up and a charitable soul wants to let me out. it's difficult to see what the lane next to that driver is going to do and a gamble when nosing out to see around that driver. with body language i try to thank the driver for the courtesy and refuse it, or accept the courtesy, go right and do a 180 somewhere less dangerous.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 10:57 AM

Yes, those bloody average speed cameras are a nuisance, and yes the course was even informative. I learned that my reaction time is still the same as it was when I was 20, much to my surprise. And some clever tips about watching the line of tall street lights to predict bends and dual carriageways in advance in urban and suburban places.

Although any average speed camera can calculate average speed by reference to any other speed camera, watch out for the ones with TWO cameras on the same stalk. Those are focussed fractionally differently so they get your average speed over a distance as short as a few yards...

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,#
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 09:37 AM

"Driving Situations You Avoid or try to."

. . . and sand traps.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 08:25 AM

You are not the only one, Ian. My Daddy works here

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Charmion
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 08:23 AM

Janie, have you been checked for cataracts? The night-blindness you describe, especially your reaction to on-coming headlights, sounds very much like what I experienced while waiting for my turn with the eye surgeon.

I often think that the way I learned to drive -- as a young soldier, in slow old trucks, always moving as part of a convoy -- helped inoculate me against impatience on the road. I watch other drivers weave in and out of the traffic streams on the autoroute with a mixture of wonder and dread: wondering what in hell they think they are achieving, and dread that they will do something both rash and sudden while briefly occupying space in my immediate vicinity.

I like to settle down at a safe distance behind another vehicle doing what I consider to be a sensible speed and stay there for miles and miles and miles, memorizing its licence plate and bumper stickers. Then some over-excited jerk will pass the guy drafting on us and pull into the safe-following space I left between our front bumper and the guy I'm drafting on ... Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 07:56 AM

In the UK the new motorway signs that have a child's picture and say "my Daddy works here". I think he must work on underground drains because I often drive miles without seeing him.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 05:27 AM

The Critics Group once owned a van to transport members to and from bookings.
They worked a rota of who drove and who drank - sometimes it worked.
One night, coming back into London from the wedding of one of the members somewhere in Essex, the driver got hopelessly lost and eventually drew up to a roundabout.
He spotted a police car parked a few yards down a road opposite, drove anti-clockwise around the roundabout, stopped and asked the driver directions.
The rest is folk history....
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 05:07 AM

I was caught by them too, Steve. Easter Monday at 7AM. Road works on the M61 near Bradford. No traffic. No-one working. I think at times they are just a money making scam. But, still, I did break the rules :-(

One of the Lada estates I owned had quite a unique feature that assisted greatly with tailgaters. Before the era of reversing lights coming on automatically, this one had a reversing spotlight with a switch on the dashboard. Often contemplated fitting one to other cars since :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 08:33 PM

I haven't driven since 1982, and I learned to drive late in life, in 1965 at age 28. I can remember what worried me most then. I imagined being stopped at a stop sign on a side street, about to turn left onto a busy highway, and not being able to judge when it was safe to do so. Drivers would pile up behind me & start blowing their horns. At length I would panic, head into a gap that was in fact too short, and cause a collision. It never happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 07:34 PM

The situations I try hardest to avoid are in heavy, rush-hour traffic. Too many people in a hurry who are tired, hungry and angry lead to stupid behavior. Fortunately, I am not forced to do this often any more. I am not a pokey driver, but neither do I assume that the speed limit is "whatever you can get away with". I HATE belligerent tailgaters, and will find almost any way to get them past & gone.

I simply do not understand the problem stated above by several above about parking. Perhaps it is a real problem with spatial relationships and/or 3D vision. I can park anywhere there is legal room, and negotiate small spaces... according to the size of the vehicle I'm driving. I can parallel park if there's enough room, and sometimes when there's not. (I once parked an old VW bus in a space 2" shorter than itself...I wish I'd had a camera -1965 or so)
I am fortunate, at my age, to have good night vision, no serious health problems and good reflexes.... but I do not use this good fortune to take silly chances. I even brake for Red Lights! (and in this area, that's a sign you're not a native.)

   I know that modern life in a big city often makes driving 'seem' necessary, but if I had a vote, a driver's license would be a lot harder to get & keep. People CAN adapt.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 06:54 PM

Don't speed through those average speed cameras. I didn't think they worked either.

:-(


Still, the speed awareness course was quite entertaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 02:52 PM

Another good reason to avoid driving beside someone is mobile phone use by drivers. If some distracted fool is going to wander out of his lane, I'd rather be ahead of him or behind him, not beside him.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Janie
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 12:06 PM

I a confident driver and am told I am a good driver. There are two situations I will do everything I can to avoid driving in.

I will do all I can to avoid driving during an ice storm, of which we have many in the late winter in North Carolina. I don't mind driving much on snow covered roads - but thick frozen rain is all together different. (Will also avoid riding with some one else who is driving in an ice storm.)

I have become very nightblind over the past 3 years. I avoid driving 2 lane country roads at night if I don't know exactly where I am going, and especially if it is raining. I can manage the freeways at night because I don't have headlights coming directly at me due to the median. Much to my surprise, I do find that those yellow/amber colored plastic lenses do help cut down on the glare on on-coming cars - but still limit 2 lane road night driving.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 11:13 AM

The problem being Richard is that if you slow down they may hit you, a dab on the foglights you maintain your speed, they, hopefully, will back off.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 10:59 AM

There has been at least one prosecution of a member of the middle-lane owners' club.

I agree with Bee -D - L above.

Raggytash - it was not people up my bum that was the problem. I also find that a tiny flick of the brake lights to an idiot on my back bumper merely encourages them to come closer! Usually when I'm already breaking the speed limit and continuously overtaking as well.


But I have seen some HORRIFYING tailgating (UK meaning, not sitting with a pic-nic in the back of a pickup truck) recently. Convoys of people well over the speed limit with between a foot and three feet between them. I do TRY to leave the requisite two chevrons - but then some twunt just slips into the gap!

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 10:56 AM

Much of the problem of motorway middle-lane hogging is down to the "fast lane" misconception - there is no "fast-lane" on a motorway, just a normal lane (inside) and two (or however many) overtaking lanes.
I've even heard the term used on the media - stupidly irresponsible (almost as irresponsible as the boys-with-toys programme Top Gear, but then, Jeremy Clarkson might have had to go and find a proper job without it)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 10:42 AM

Motorway lane discipline in the UK is diabolical. I'll swear I heard a couple of years ago that the cops were going to clamp down on middle lane hogging. Gone a bit quiet, has that.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 10:22 AM

I try to avoid merging to the right (in US, left in UK). If I'm approaching a spot where a road narrows from, say, two lanes on my side to one, I try to be in the lane which continues instead of the one which must merge. If I'm not sure which lane that is, I try to be in the right lane so that if I do have to merge, I don't have to depend on my far-side mirror.

I also try to avoid driving directly beside other cars on open freeways, particularly large trucks and idiots driving slowly in the fast lane. The nearest I've ever come to a truly major collision was due to someone apparently realizing they were driving slowly in the fast lane and deciding to move over while I was beside them. I now assume that if someone is not sufficiently awake and aware to drive in the correct lane, there's a good chance they're not going to check their mirror before moving over.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,#
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 09:39 AM

"Driving Situations You Avoid or try to."

Water traps.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 08:04 AM

A cure of that Richard is to just dab your rear fog lights on and off, they soon back off.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 07:55 AM

Another three last night.

A Volvo V70 with blinding rear foglights on on a perfectly clear evening - ignored my headlamp flashing intended to alert him or her.

A hi-cube style car-based diesel van, large cloud of black smoke. I had left two chevrons clear (or maybe a bit less) as I waited in the outside lane for the vehicle in front of me to overtake a truck so that I could overtake a truck. Van arrives so fast I only just had time to see it, up my inside, pulled out in front of me, the car in front passed the truck and the van then did the same again to him - and two more people after that!

A BMW in the outside lane in the dark on the way home - doing about 100. Illegal but I don't care. What I hated was he had his HID headlights on full beam all the time, regardless of how close he was to the vehicles he was overtaking and so badly dazzling them.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Kampervan
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 07:50 AM

I once asked a friend, who had lived in Malta for some years, which side of the road they drove on.... 'The shady side', he replied.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 07:08 AM

Raggytash, someone did that in microcosm in Morrisons car park and ended up scraping the front of Mrs Steve's stationary car. She had been waiting for this woman to pass before driving on. The swinging out was followed by corner-cutting then straying to the wrong side of the lane, just as you describe. No witnesses, she wouldn't pay up, £228 up the swanee.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 06:58 AM

One of my (many) pet hates when driving are the W anchors who go to the crown of the road to turn bloody left and then stray all over the wrong side of the white line after they have got round the corner.


AARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG !!!!!!!!

UK Only you good people on the far side of the pond.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 06:39 AM

People who drive slow and are totally oblivious to the long line of cars behind them.

Elephant racing - i.e. One truck passing another going 1 mph faster and taking two miles to do it.

Drivers who park their cars directly opposite another reducing a three lane road to a single lane.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 05:53 AM

(2 posts up)"Michaelr: There are two kinds of drivers: Idiots (those who drive slower than you) and assholes (those who drive faster than you). Avoid them both!"

In a nutshell!
LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 04:43 AM

Every Honda Jazz-owning little old lady in Cornwall appears to have a alert buzzer in their house that lets them know when I'm about to set off in my car so that they can get on the road to drive at 22mph.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 10:35 PM

Parallel parking is something that newer cars are now learning to do for themselves, which I suppose is an indication that many drivers have trouble with it.

There are two kinds of drivers: Idiots (those who drive slower than you) and assholes (those who drive faster than you). Avoid them both!

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Ed T
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:59 PM

Passing tractor trailers on two lane roads in heavy rain conditions, especially at night.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:54 PM

Now you know what makes us Brits so patient, kind, charming, caring and indulgent, Charmion!

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Charmion
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:03 PM

I'm a good driver, well trained in my youth and with 40 years of experience, and there aren't many driving-related situations that I fear, but I won't ever drive in England again if I can avoid it.

To a Canadian, English roads are unbelievably cramped and cluttered, even in the country, and driving safely is exhausting -- not for one second could I relax and take my place in a steady stream of traffic, as I would do here. On the M-series autoroutes, where the speeds seem to be measured in Mach levels, our poor little rented Vauxhall could barely keep up, but hanging out in the slow lanes didn't work because of their nasty habit of turning into exit ramps, not to speak of the heavy truck traffic. The A roads were worse: no shoulders (!), a roundabout at every junction, vehicles parked higgledy-piggledy in lay-bys, and cyclists and pedestrians doing their best to not get killed. We were there for a month, travelling around Salisbury Plain and bopping in and out of Wales, and I needed every ounce of skill I have to get us to our various destinations without doing anything dangerous.

In North America, I most dislike driving through construction sites, especially in rain. I dread the day some road mender decides to pop out from behind a backhoe and dart in front of me as I'm negotiating the obstacle course.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:42 PM

About parallel parking: I never liked squeezing into a tight space, meaning I avoided places others didn't mind. My newish car has a rear camera, and it's become easier. I understand there are cars that also have a front camera. I won't buy a new car for a long time, but when I do, I hope I'll be able to afford a car with one.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 04:23 PM

I love driving. In traffic, on highways, in the country, wherever. Love it.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 07:20 AM

I've driven around Cyprus a few times. They drive on the left which is a plus for a Brit, but most Cypriots passed whatever passes for their driving test before roundabouts were introduced on the island. Do not even begin to think that Cypriots will behave predictably on roundabouts. They haven't a clue what to do. Just get your head down, step on the gas and get across as fast as you can!

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:55 AM

I avoid driving after 6 pints of Guiness or half a bottle of Grouse...

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:49 AM

Ah yes, Steve, the Amalfi coast one of my favourite places on earth also; but I wouldn't want to drive it either. How those coach drivers do it with their immense vehicles...??!

"Torna a Surriento!"

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:46 AM

Or like a conversation I had with a Maltese taxi driver who said rules of the road were only applied after an accident to sort out who owed who what. Without an accident no one cares, including the police.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:39 AM

Sounds like Madrid with a Spanish taxi driver!

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:27 AM

I went on holiday a couple of years ago to the Amalfi coast. There is one coast road about twenty or thirty miles long that connects all the towns from Salerno to beyond Positano. It weaves impressively in and out of all the inlets and promontories but is very narrow. It's my favourite place in the whole world so far. But add to that mix hundreds of tourist buses and coaches, scooters by the thousand and madcap Italian drivers, and you've never seen a road-going experience like it. You wouldn't get me driving on that road in a million years!

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 05:33 AM

I do know one UK driver who will go a long way off route to avoid turning right. Three lefts for her whenever she can.

As for parallel parking I (a male!) had a heck of a look trouble with it just Sunday night. The area had no lights. Park, get outand check. Too far from the kerb for my satisfaction. Try again. Still too far. Back and forth quite a few times before I was happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 05:20 AM

Perhaps if people are lacking in confidence when driving it may be time to sell the car and take taxi's?

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: banjoman
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 05:05 AM

I learnt to drive in a big city (Liverpool) and have driven everything from a motorbike to an artic HGV. However, having lived in rural Hampshire for many years, I now avoid driving in cities and large towns unless its really necessary. I don't think I would cope well with the traffic and congestion. I avoid night driving if I can as I am well aware, at 72, that my eyesight is not as good as it once was.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 12:39 AM

I do notice that there seem to be more and more arseholes on the road. Just the day before yesterday there was a young-ish chap obliviously toodling along in the third land of a four lane motorway at 60 when the limit was 70. I and a few others were queued up behind him while the fourth lane passed us. One went up his inside (so that's boo to both of them) one went round the outside when there was space and then tucked back sharply (a peccadillo rather than a sin) to show the middle lane owner where he should be. I gave him several flashes of full beam and my piercing airhorns to see if he was going to wake up - which he didn't - and then after indicating went outside once I was happy that he was not going to pull out. I pulled back to the clear inside lane - and the idiot stayed in the third lane at 60!

In my girlfriend's town I often see idiots usually in Audis BMWs or Mercs but sometimes hot Hondas who will push up the inside and then out into a queue, and/or push up the outside and into a queue, or furiously duck and weave and lane-change at up to 70 in a section that is a 30 limit.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,Janet
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:40 PM

I forgot to mention on my first thread that I have to admit, men are usually more confident in driving then women - not that men are necessarily better drivers but I know several women with many driving phobias. Four of my women friends do not drive on freeways at all.
Two used to - but don't anymore and the other two never drove on freeways even though they have all driven for many years.

Most guys I know feel more confident in parallel parking and have no problems with it at all. I can't recall any guy offhand that has any problem with parallel parking. Yes, I do know a few women who parallel park but also know many who avoid it all together.

I do not parallel park either so if I am parking on a regular street I will sometimes have to park far away just so that I can avoid a parallel parking spot close by.

I didn't get a car until I was about 29 years old so kind of started driving later then most. Then I was without a car for several years (in recent years) so I never really had the confidence that people have when they get a car in their teens or early 20's and start driving when they are young.

However, I have to say, unlike most - I do not drive and use a cell phone, Bluetooth, earpiece of any kind or any device that distracts people when driving.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:35 PM

I make use of the permanent handicapped placard if I can't find a parking place anywhere else. I don't like to use a place someone worse off could use.

As for driving, if I had a decent choice I wouldn't. But I don't have that freedom, so I do. I am not afraid to drive; I'm a good driver, but it's the other guy I fear. I can predict what I'm going to do but I have no control over another's actions. So I drive the best I can, try to avoid people who drive like their demented, and don't drive the speed limit on the Interstates -- which out here is 80mph.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:18 PM

If I can't find a drive-through parking spot so I can drive through the first space and into the second so that my car is nose-out, I will back in. I am less likely to hit a walker when I back into a parking space than when I back out.

If I want to turn left on a street with a lot of fast traffic and no traffic light at the intersection and can't seem to catch a break between cars to go left, I sometimes turn right and then left into a side street or parking lot. Then I turn right onto the busy road to go the way I want.

Where I live, drivers often run red lights. When the light turns green for me, I won't go unless the drivers with the red lights have stopped or at least slowed a lot so that I know they will stop. It is not unusual to have three consecutive drivers run a red light.

Welcome to Mudcat, Janet! My real name is Janet, too, and there are a few more of us here.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:11 PM

Yup. Last M5/M6 trip to Manchester, nine hours instead of five. Got there frazzled to find my owld mum in a bloody awful mood. Oh happy days.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:05 PM

I enjoy driving. But not on motorways when basically the cars there are parked. Sometimes for hours.

Subject: RE: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 08:54 PM

Well I'm the opposite. I get in my car and I go where I have to go and I drive with reasonable confidence that I can handle most routine situations. I do a lot of driving because I have to do a lot of long journeys to visit my mum. I hasten to add that Mrs Steve thinks I'm an extremely inconsiderate driver, so I'm not claiming to be a GOOD driver at all. Just saying that not much worries me. In parking lots I never bother reversing in. I can usually get plum in the middle first shot by driving in forwards. I do try to park on an end or as far away from the shop as possible because I need the exercise and I don't like my car to be dinged by eejits opening their doors on my car. This leads to an unfortunate consequence in that I keep losing my car. Several times I've commandeered other shoppers in the car park to help me to find it.

Subject: BS: Driving Situations You Avoid or try to.
From: GUEST,Janet
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 08:31 PM

I guess most of us try to avoid certain driving situations - either entirely or as much as possible due to various reasons:

Could be night driving - your eyes aren't as good as they once were or freeway driving due to fear of the higher speed of driving freeways. Maybe you are a really confident person when it comes to driving in all or most situations but I am curious as to peoples phobias or just feeling of uncomfortable in some driving situations.

Well here are a few of mine. Maybe some can relate or maybe they are entirely mine. :-))

1. Freeway driving - day or night. Don't driveway freeways anymore but I used to up until about the mid 1990's. No, I was never involved in an accident but just started to feel nervous about getting on freeways with freeways speeds in California.

2. Night driving anywhere unless in a very well lit area and only very close to home where I am very familiar with the roads.

3. Here is an odd one: Driving in reverse. I'll explain.
If I am going into a parking lot - for a bank or grocery store or restaurant, just any parking lot really, I like to be able to pull forward to a space, so that when I leave, I don't have to go in reverse to pull out of spot. Now this is not always easy. Some parking lots here have a cement barrier thing - so you cannot pull forward to a space and you have to go into reverse. Or a very busy parking lot and perhaps no spaces that you can pull forward to available at the time.

It is probably due to being short it is harder for me to see when I am going in reverse out of parking space to see around that well. I do have a small car but the seats came have high backs.
Now if it is not a busy place and not many cars around, then it doesn't bother me as I don't feel too uncomfortable about backing out -( as long as there are not many cars around me.)

4. People coming up fast behind me when coming to a stop at a red light or a stop sign. Always seems to be someone in their 20's or 30's most of the time.

I know, too many things! Unfortunately not good bus service in my area at all. Closest bus is 20 minutes away and coming home it is walking uphill. Bus only runs once an hour & less on weekends.
Plus some sections where I have to walk there is not even a sidewalk. It is all residential with houses and just some areas don't have a sidewalk, so you either have to walk in the street partly or on the grass which is not level. Hard to carry groceries for sure and not even easy pulling a shopping cart due to the non-sidewalk sections.

Well would like to hear from others and some of your driving situations you avoid or try to avoid as much as possible.