Stupid Driver Stories

Fucking hell, almost ran over a kid earlier today...

He was dribbling a basketball while walking along the sidewalk, hit his foot, ball bounced on the road and his first reaction was to follow it. Right in front of me. It's a good thing I was keeping an eye out for him and expected just such an outcome...

>_<

Perfect opportunity to rid the gene pool of idiocy... wasted!
 
Is it just me or is his avatar upside down?

(I kid, I kid)
 
Took me a while to reconcile that you drive on the wrong side of the road :p In a situation like this you just move in, they will move out of your way (most of the time). People are generally douchebags about that, when I'm in a position when two lanes converge if you have a blinker on I will let you in, on the other hand if you don't I will be 5mm from the car in front of me.

I tend to be more aggressive these days. Smaller, faster car encourages this. I used to drive a Commodore wagon which was 5m long and had a gearbox which would take its very merry time to respond to throttle inputs. Trying to merge into fast traffic while going uphill with your foot flat to the floor but the car losing speed because it doesn't want to change down from 4th was annoying and the main reason I now hate automatics.
 
I tend to be more aggressive these days. Smaller, faster car encourages this. I used to drive a Commodore wagon which was 5m long and had a gearbox which would take its very merry time to respond to throttle inputs. Trying to merge into fast traffic while going uphill with your foot flat to the floor but the car losing speed because it doesn't want to change down from 4th was annoying and the main reason I now hate automatics.
I feel your pain man, I used to drive a Buick with the gearbox that behaved exactly like that. You could floor it at any speed and it would just refuse to shift down, I'm fairly certain it would actually go to 4th as soon as you get up to about 10mph....
 
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Not so much as a stupid driver story, but more of "How-did-I-live-through-that" kind of thing. Bracing for negrep, but here goes:
So I was turning right on a large T intersection coming from north, with 5 lanes in the road I was turning into. There's a lane for getting up to speed on the right, but it's rather short, so I waited until the road was clear. Unfortunately, someone behind me was rather impatient, started flashing me and then honking. I looked in the mirror and saw a small car, thought to myself "well fuck him", opened my window and middle-fingered him. I now know not to ever do that again, because as I turned into the road, the car behind me (who followed because the road was now clear) moved to the next lane. Turned out it wasn't a small car- it was a W210 Merc, in black. I probably lost a few months off my life as the driver caught my speed, and rolled besides me. I did my best not to look at him, fearing he might, I dunno, hold a gun against me, XD. Eventually he went past me, and violently cut me off (within a few centimetres from me). Fortunately he then proceeded to go another way.

tl;dr - never middle finger anybody on the road. I got out lucky D:
 
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I think you are perfectly fine flying the bird to the impatient prick.
 
I used to drive a Commodore wagon which was 5m long and had a gearbox which would take its very merry time to respond to throttle inputs. Trying to merge into fast traffic while going uphill with your foot flat to the floor but the car losing speed because it doesn't want to change down from 4th was annoying and the main reason I now hate automatics.

There is a 3 on the gear selector for a reason! Just because the car doesn't feel like changing gear doesn't mean you have to put up with its shit :p
 
I mean with two cars and two drivers. Seems there would be a lot of technique to it.
 
There is a 3 on the gear selector for a reason! Just because the car doesn't feel like changing gear doesn't mean you have to put up with its shit :p
If I'm going to do that I might as well have a manual! :p

Besides, it needed to be in 2nd at least. And I don't think it would have responded any quicker doing that than putting my foot to the floor. :lol:
 

Meh, it all seems to be pretty stable, as long as the car beeing towed still has brakes and steering only thing I could realy see going wrong is the cable attachementpoints breaking, the cable itself is probably steel and will easily hold.
Better way would have been to simply but the Opel on a cartrailer obviously but that probably wasen't a practical reality in this case, I agree it's reckless, but not nearly as reckless as 90% of stupid shit done by the average commutist in a hurry.

It always struck me as odd that Germany is Ok with people going 200+ on the autobahn yet towing anything over 90 is considered crazy....well it is if you do it with a Berlingo, but things like a Q7? That ain't going anywere stabilitywise unless you try towing +2 tons at speed.
 
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Well, the problem is not the stability but if the car which tows has to brake a bit harder than usual there is no reaction time for the driver in the towed car to react. You have very limited sight, even if you drive offset a bit. If someone pulls out in front at 100 kph (which happens a lot) you can't see it in the towed car since the massive Q7 is between you and the right lane where the slow car pulled out - voil?, accident happened.

That's why you have to maintain a certain minimum distance to the car in front of you, even (or for this reason) if you drive 200+ kph. I know, at those speeds the minimum distance is fairly large (rule of thumb: half the tacho reading in metres, e.g. at 200 kph at least 100 m) and no one really obeys that, but that's another story.
 
Well, the problem is not the stability but if the car which tows has to brake a bit harder than usual there is no reaction time for the driver in the towed car to react. You have very limited sight, even if you drive offset a bit. If someone pulls out in front at 100 kph (which happens a lot) you can't see it in the towed car since the massive Q7 is between you and the right lane where the slow car pulled out - voil?, accident happened.

That's why you have to maintain a certain minimum distance to the car in front of you, even (or for this reason) if you drive 200+ kph. I know, at those speeds the minimum distance is fairly large (rule of thumb: half the tacho reading in metres, e.g. at 200 kph at least 100 m) and no one really obeys that, but that's another story.

Damn, your right, compleetly forgot about that, I was thinking about normal towing with a fixed attachement, not a cable.

Note to self : do not post and talk expert while hungover.
 
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