What to do to stop people cutting me off?!

[Mr Brooksy]

I know its worse in Syd and other capital cities, its just that recently I have noticed a sharp rise in stupid behaviour on the road.

[Ducati888]

Originally Posted by gocruzin

Just one of those things cob, we will always have to look out for the lowest common denominator :(

Dead right Gocruzin. Problem is, the lowest common denominator (LCD) pervades in to all walks of life, not just driving. It's also about 70% of the population IMO. I guess that's why it's so hard to get a gun licence these days.

Hell, have you seen our current PM? Only cretins could have put him there. Can you even interpret a word he says?

It's any wonder the Americans sit there with propellors on their baseball caps and polish their shotguns. Maybe they're a few years ahead of us...

[Ibrox90]

Might is right, buy an F-250 or bigger. new exhaust and beefed up tyres and suspension new horn with its own exclusive battery. PROBLEM SOLVED

[xls3v]

people here cant drive cut corner dont keep left and dont know the road rules cant wait to get back to the city

[gocruzin]

Originally Posted by Peuty

What? Is around $100 not affordable?

It's a lot for a young bloke on minimum wage with the 300-400 dollars for licence fees im just saying not everyone can afford it besides the last i looked a two day course cost 200+

[Peuty]

Originally Posted by gocruzin

It's a lot for a young bloke on minimum wage with the 300-400 dollars for licence fees im just saying not everyone can afford it besides the last i looked a two day course cost 200+

Well that's about right, as I was talking about a one day course.

Considering a young bloke in his Falcodore would spend close to that for a tank of fuel, I don't see it as much of a stretch.

[gocruzin]

quick google to driver skills aust site minimum for one day course 225$ 3 day 395$
if the gov't did subsidise that it would be 90-odd bucks
but it's never going to happen anyway so it's moot point

[RG]

Originally Posted by gocruzin

quick google to driver skills aust site minimum for one day course 225$ 3 day 395$
if the gov't did subsidise that it would be 90-odd bucks
but it's never going to happen anyway so it's moot point

Don't argue with Peuty about pricing of driver training, it's what he does all day lol (god knows how)

Try driving where I live, no one has any kind of bloody clue whatsoever. It's absolutely nuts.

[DJM83]

Originally Posted by PepeLePew

Mines 'the new white' also Lights on helps

I agree IMO everyone should drive with lights on in the day time aswell as night time.

Originally Posted by RG

Try driving where I live, no one has any kind of bloody clue whatsoever. It's absolutely nuts.

Not wrong there Russ was down your way last week was shocking on the road. :togo:

[gocruzin]

Not a prob mate like i said moot point not gonna happen anyway

[BPXR6T]

The morons around here actually wave to say thankyou when they cut me off. Atleast they're polite fools I guess...

[Peuty]

Originally Posted by BPXR6T

The morons around here actually wave to say thankyou when they cut me off. Atleast they're polite fools I guess...

You sure it's not a "sorry" wave?

[Green X]

I find when I'm out in the old Hilux other cars just seem to stay out of my way, Must have something to do with the Bull bar, 3" Lift and the fact it could just drive over there car if they cut me off

[BPXR6T]

Originally Posted by Peuty

You sure it's not a "sorry" wave?

No because they stop, wave, then accelerate out in front of me. :

[EFPWR]

Yeah.. you try painting your car yellow and putting a dome on the roof.. THEN you see all the worst driving! People have it out for cabs when they drive.. I'm always avoiding people.. they don't slow, just charge thru intersections, merge into you, tailgate like no tomorrow, overtake then brake.

I guess it's good experience really :P

[Paull]

Many years ago I had a dark brown ZG Fairlane and as you can imagine, I had every man and his dog pulling out in front of me. So much so that on one particular Friday afternoon, I was on a roundabout and had a young P plater run straight into me. Destroyed the whole left side of the car.

Since then I have always driven with the head-lights on and rarely if ever, do I have people pulling out in front of me. I too drive a silver coloured car and agree with the aforementioned remarks regarding the 'blending in' so to speak.

On a side bar though: I was leaving a mates place the other day (day time that is) and as I did so, I switched on my headlights and to my surprise, he had a go at me in saying "what the are you putting your headlights on for?" Needless to say it made me realise that there are many people out there who simply refuse to do this, I just don't know why.

[duaned]

MrBrooksy, coming to Newcastle ( from adelaide) has really opened my eyes up to the stupidity of drivers here. However, to my surprise, it is the females that drive recklessly here. I spend many hours a day on the road and the fermale P-platers and middle aged women don't indicate, speed well over the limit, u-turns at lights, sit right up your *** and weave in and out of traffic for you to only catch up with them at the next set of lights! However when I am in my van it seems nobody has patience here. Drivers do anything to get in front of me!

[XR6Runner]

Originally Posted by Paull

On a side bar though: I was leaving a mates place the other day (day time that is) and as I did so, I switched on my headlights and to my surprise, he had a go at me in saying "what the are you putting your headlights on for?" Needless to say it made me realise that there are many people out there who simply refuse to do this, I just don't know why.

He actually had a go at you for that? Well at least that tells me that having the head lights on grabs a lot of attention...

[nugget378]

The easiest way to avoid it.
when someone indicates they wish to merge into your lane, back off a little and leave some room, instead of moving closer to the car in front to try and keep your "pole" position.

I bet this would solve 80% of these type of incidents.

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by duaned

MrBrooksy, coming to Newcastle ( from adelaide) has really opened my eyes up to the stupidity of drivers here. However, to my surprise, it is the females that drive recklessly here. I spend many hours a day on the road and the fermale P-platers and middle aged women don't indicate, speed well over the limit, u-turns at lights, sit right up your *** and weave in and out of traffic for you to only catch up with them at the next set of lights! However when I am in my van it seems nobody has patience here. Drivers do anything to get in front of me!

Heh.

Just arrived home after a quick jaunt behind Eastern Creek Raceway.

Majority of the way is a 60 zone with a short 80 zone. I was sitting on 60 with a woman in a Pulsar right up my clacker. Luckily for her, I passed 2 unmarked police heading the other way, a green and a blue F6 as she wasn't interested in doing the speed limit.

Arrive at the 80 zone, accelerate to 80. Halfway through I realise this woman is now actually beside me (single lane road) and just sat beside me for a good 200 meters - another car clears the crest and is bearing down on us. Clearly she wasn't going to back off so I had to brake as she quickly slotted in - would have been less than a metre of clearance between her rear and my front and the car coming the other way had already began to slow and pull over onto the shoulder as to avoid a head-on.

She merrily speeds off, oblivious to the fact that she was almost put through her windscreen. Shame the cops weren't coming the other way 2 minutes later. Scary to me that these are the sorts of people that I have to share the road with.

[Dezza]

Originally Posted by baboon

I have a theory, the colour of your car is similar to the sky on an overcast day, so you seem like your camo'ed or seem further away when you give a quick glance.

Try driving a red car or a green car for a couple of weeks to see if this theory holds. The silver cars/ dark grey cars 'tend' to match the colour of the sky at different times of day. Just a thought!

Good luck.

Plenty of truth to this. I regularly get cut off too and our cars are very similarly coloured

[Allen]

Originally Posted by nugget378

The easiest way to avoid it.
when someone indicates they wish to merge into your lane, back off a little and leave some room, instead of moving closer to the car in front to try and keep your "pole" position.

I bet this would solve 80% of these type of incidents.

I do this when ever possible.

But even then you get people who will absentmindedly continue driving along in the slip lane with the indicator on, and refuse to merge until they end up driving in the emergency lane.

Or, when you back off to create a gap for someone to merge into, some other jerk will force his way into the gap between yourself and the car you let in, causing you to slam on the brakes.

But, I suppose as long as they aren't 3k's over the limit, nothing can be done about these kind of drivers :P

[Ross-b]

Originally Posted by Peuty

Well that's about right, as I was talking about a one day course.

Considering a young bloke in his Falcodore would spend close to that for a tank of fuel, I don't see it as much of a stretch.

if the moneys not spent on the tank of fuel then the driving course is pretty pointless :P

[Ross-b]

Originally Posted by nugget378

The easiest way to avoid it.
when someone indicates they wish to merge into your lane, back off a little and leave some room, instead of moving closer to the car in front to try and keep your "pole" position.

I bet this would solve 80% of these type of incidents.

have you read the thread or have i mis read your post

the whole meaning of being cut off sorta implies that theres no indication of the event

[388cube_edxr8]

My car is dark green but I swear some people must think its covered in targets or something.

I too have noticed an unusual spike in just plain dangerous drivers who have little or no idea whats going on.

I think I have figured out what caused it tho. I lost my job recently and over the last few weeks I have had to drive during the day. Generally it's the senior citizens that cause the most chaos on the roads. Anyone who has seen the episode of South Park called 'Grey Dawn' will know exactly what its like to drive in Brisbane during the daytime. Its gotten to the point where I will just plain refuse to drive during between peak hours anymore because old XR grills and stuff are hard to find.

[nugget378]

Originally Posted by Ross-b

have you read the thread or have i mis read your post

the whole meaning of being cut off sorta implies that there's no indication of the event

My post is just a comment on what I see everyday, driving in Sydney traffic, it isn't specifically aimed at any one situation or post in this thread.

Many drivers here wont let you merge, so some have learnt to dart in before the driver in the next lane has got wind they are about to merge and pushes forward to stop it.

The point I was trying yo make is, a bit of courtesy on the road would go a long way to stopping all this, and would help traffic flow where one lane merges into another.

[Mr Brooksy]

Ok, So I dont agree with some of this, but I found it to be interesting reading since my frustration over the weekend and ealry part of this week.

Any merit?

Men & NSW drivers Australia’s worst – report
August 10th, 2009 35 Comments

A recent survey published by Galaxy Poll has discovered men admit to being Australia’s worst drivers while NSW motorists have been found as the country’s “most rude and dangerous”.

The survey also divulged that men were more likely than women to admit to driving recklessly with more males polled saying they’ve failed to give way, stop at pedestrian crossings, use the horn more often, speed or have been involved in a road rage incident.

And while it’s these admissions that have put men in the bad books it is women who seem to get more upset by poor behaviour on our roads with 52 per cent of females polled saying they were “annoyed by drivers who failed to give a wave of acknowledgment for courtesy”. Only 44 per cent of men seemed to mind in the same situation.

Although NSW drivers were rated as the worst in the country it seems that south of the border Victoria drivers were found to be those most likely to speed or provoke road rage.

As for what ticks us off, it seems poor road etiquette upset us most with 85 per cent of those surveyed saying they were annoyed by drivers who failed to indicate.

Second on the list were drivers who failed to indicate or check their blind spot when changing lanes which annoyed 73 per cent of those polled.

The poll was carried out for insurer 1Cover with managing director Eddie Feltham saying he was not surprised by the findings:

“This is reflected by our claims data, which shows men have far more accidents than women,” he said. “In fact, it is an industry-wide standard that car insurance premiums are more expensive for men.”

[data_mine]

Originally Posted by Mr Brooksy

Maybe I should drive around with my lights on?!

Do this.

I used to get all sorts of trouble, now I drive with my lights on all the time, and trouble is a rarity.

[baboon]

Originally Posted by Dezza!

Plenty of truth to this. I regularly get cut off too and our cars are very similarly coloured

Your avatar seems to suggest this. Have a look at the sky and the colour of your car, its almost the same colour. I know its just a picture but if you were to give a quick glance in the mirror you'd probably need to look twice before changing lanes!

I also did notice your headlights on good work!

[marcusregan]

Similar experience last weekend.

driving my shitter bright white long wheel base ford econovan, doing 50km, bright sunny saturday afternoon in the suburbs, wideee open roads and driver in a brand new commodore pulls straight out into on comming traffic and proceeds to t- bone my rear quater..

First thing out his mouth "sorry man i didnt see you, lets just forget about this hey?".... small dent in side of my van, caved in fornt quater and light of ve, econovan 1 - commodore 0

asked how much, offered me 200 dollars he had in his wallet and i 'forgot' about it, car only cost me 500 so i didnt really care but thinking back now i really do feel a bit bad, should have reported him..

then yesterday i almost got t boned by a police car running a giveway sign or more accurately, slowed slightly for give way sign, saw me approaching at 5kms under the speed limit and drove straight through leaving me to come to a screeching halt. Reported the incident to the local constability but i severly doubt the likley hood of anything coming from it..

your not alone mate.

EDIT: could go on and on about near misses but one that really put the up me recently was on the high way sitting ont he speed limit at 110kms, looked in the rear vision and i had a semi trailer behind me and i swear if there wasent glass in the rear van window you could have reached out without stretching and grabbed his bull bar he was that close.. you just have to question the mentality of these people? if i had too even tap the brakes i would have been his new hood ornimant..