The Law is the Law!?

There's a vast difference from doing 90mph on an empty motorway at 3am from during the daytime.


Police Patrol Cars may regularly hit 100, 120-even 140mph in 'exceptional circumstances'

I've seen TV/Youtube Police Dashcam footage that made me wince at the chances that are taken sometimes.

I don't believe that haring off after a Honda Fireblade is safe, when you are doing 140mph and middle-lane traffic is only doing 80mph. And then tailgating Joe Public, during the pursuit, (doing 95mph in the outside lane), joking on-camera about the numpty who doesn't look in his mirrors)

And I know all the the Advanced Driver mitigation and that sometimes it is necessary.

Risks get taken by all, but Speed Limits can sometimes be ignored, but only with a great deal of sense.

The more expensive the car, the more people moan about bad driving. Such as flash BMWs and Audis. Reality is, this isn't really the case and people just notice expensive cars more and they cause no more accidents or commit any more offences than any other make. There is more than a pinch of jealousy too.

Certain types of car do appeal to certain demographics, which may have certain inherent traits. But bad driving is caused by bad drivers.

I'm disagreeing with you, not the fact that speed is a factor in accident stats. Having completed many such stats over the years though, I do understand they are far more complex than the one line quote you gave.

Fatal accidents are a very small percentage of all accidents, and unless you can come up with genuine evidence that German cars are driven worse than any other, I'll continue to call your "research" nonsense.

The problem is, most people exceed the limit not as an exception when necessary or that empty motorway scenario....they do it in a 20, a 30/40/50 and so on.

I suspect it won't be long before your cars EDR (event data recorder) is used against the driver as routine after an accident. Claiming your were doing the limit after the fact would be pointless as your impact speed would be recorded. Made up rules are useless if you abandon them when something goes wrong.

The outcome of an accident is nothing to do with the cause. Let's get the terminology straight - what he should have said is that not wearing a seatbelt is a cause of fatal injuries, not the cause of the accident. As another poster said, he was mixing up cause and effect.

Toyota Yaris - very slow pootling at all times and usually braking for speed cameras to 20mph below speed.

Any people carrier (but especially Citroen and Vauxhall ones) - As above but with random accelerating and slowing down

Audi / BMW / Newer Volvo - up the arse of everything and overtaking on blind bends

Souped up corsa - usually full of young lads wanting to race me

Matiz / hyundai / Honda jazz - very slow at all times on 60 mph roads except when the speed goes down to 30mph when they for some reason decide to speed up.

The worst driven cars are any being operated by people who seemingly have all the time in the world to leisurely trundle from A to B on any major road, oblivious to the mounting traffic queue behind them as they go. Most people on the roads these days are there because they have somewhere to get to, and invariably by a certain time. If you want to do under 40 on National Speed Limit roads, then stick to back-roads and lanes which are still aplenty. Such drivers are contemptibly selfish arseholes at best and dangerously hesitant and fibbling accident-makers waiting to happen at worst.

No BMW drivers really don't indicate and drive like idiots, I have no problem with most other expensive cars.

Toyota Prius with a roundel in the back, we have an army of 30,000 in London that exclusively drive using sat nav, they slow right down, put their left indicator on, their left indicator off, they do the hokey cokey and they turn around

Seen them all have you?

I drive a long distance every week and it's you do notice the lack of indication from so many BMW drivers and terrible driving. Not all of them are the same, but it does seem to be the car that over confident men who think they're above everyone else are attracted to.

I'm usually pretty good at keeping within the speed limit. As long as conditions are ok I drive just below the limit. I don't dawdle. BUT if I'm being tail gaited you can bet your life its an Audi. I've taken to using my wind screen washers on these occasions. Sometimes the penny drops and they keep their distance. Those in convertibles may get a good splash of screen wash and fairy liquid!!😁

I was thinking of getting a Honda Jazz next time, but don't want to stereotyped as a grandad.
I wonder if some drivers are more likely to tailgate you if your driving a car with a certain image. Just so mr BMW behind can think he is clever and superior.

I have a Honda Jazz and live in an old-folks County. I don't give a shit what people think. They're great cars.

I don't often get tailgated, or more than any other model of car. I'm not a slow driver anyway. I 'keep up with the traffic'


The lack of transmission tunnel and the seats folding completely flat means it is as big as many Estate Cars.

For tailgaters, I will maybe move over, and lose my place in a queue of traffic if I'm scared they are a real nutter.

Or I will appear to behave incompetently (helps in a Honda Jazz, they have already made assumptions), and tap my brake pedal every few seconds without slowing down.

They usually back off.

Few would dispute that the Jazz is a good car. Many of the owners, sadly, are another thing. But don't worry too much, with the jazz there are enough exceptions. The Prius, I have yet to see one being driven in any manner I'd want to be anywhere near.

interesting that bmw and audi drivers get a bad time, nice, expensive motors, nothing to do with jealousy then, no ?

strange, no mention of white van tattoed tosser man ?

universally bad and intolerant pin headed c***s, cruising at a exhaust banging 80mph in a rust bucket 2001 reg transit, mobile in hand, they can hardly see out of the front windscreen due to week old copies of the sun, old burger king coffee cups and crisp packets.

Hmmmm, my mums retired friend drove 6miles in her Vauxhall zafira (old model), between towns at night (street lighting is turned off for most of the route), without any lights on at all (this zafira is too old for driving lights as well). Apparently she got pulled over by the cops and given a stern talking to. Surely the fact that A, she would have been unable to see much at all on the road and B, the dashboard would have been all in darkness, would have made her think some thing was very wrong?

One of those nearly side swiped my sister recently not paying attention to other road users it seemed. All he did was stare at her blankly with an expression 'like what did I do something wrong ? '

She was expecting some sort of acknowlegment of an apology like a raised hand but no he had his mobile in it so not a chance. The sooner the punishment for driving while using a phone is doubled the better.

The brain can be easily tricked or distracted. You know something isn't right but can't quantify it. She obviously had sufficient light (Bright Moon?) to not drive off the road and maybe wanted to just "get home"

My Mum was fine most of the time, but had Arteriosclerosis, and presumably a reduced blood brain supply. Most days she was fine, mentally, but some days she would be fine but confused for a few minutes.

It would seem like she had had 2 small sherries (she never drank more than that). She was a heavy smoker though.

She died at 70 yrs old, in hospital, when the supply to her stomach and colon collapsed and the doctors were still scratching their heads over her exact (physical) problems and what to do.


Maybe your Mum's friend needs another visit to her GP.
Who takes their life in their hands by suggesting it? No-one likes getting old, and a feisty response may result.

Agree, the Jazz and the small Toyotas are by far the worst. Mostly driven by those lacking in driving confidence, not able to judge distances correctly (hence smaller car the better) and those that think that 40MPH in a 60mph limit is fast enough.
You know when to be wary also when they sidle up to the kurb if there is another car behind them within a mile.

My first car was a knackered old Austin 1300, in which I was treated with contempt by bullying drivers.

But I stuck a new engine in it, electronic ignition add-on, Xenon front fog-lamps and a very loud strident air-horn.


Me and my Wolf-in-sheeps-clothing derived a certain amount of glee teaching arseholes a lesson, on occasion.

The worst driving I`ve seen all week. Driving back from Loughborough up the M1, just approaching junc 27, it was dark and wet and busy. In my rear view mirror I see a car sweep into the inside lane and rip past a car in the second lane (which was doing the speed limit incidentally) then back out into the second lane to overtake me, then back into the inside lane. Tosser, I thought but assumed he was turning off at junc 27.
Err no. He (for I`d bet pounds it pennies it was a bloke) then went past another car on the inside before then sweeping across all four lanes into the outside lane and disappearing into the distance.
Oh yes, just to make matters even worse, the car doing all this moronic diving, at night, was black in colour.
Now, what type of car do you think this could have been ?
An Audi maybe ?
Err, yes actually, how did you guess ?
Oh just a stab in the dark (quite appropriately under the circumstances.....).


How right you are, though not all Audi driers are tossers, and not all tossers drive Audis, just a higher proportion than other makes of car.

You have an awful lot of attention to spare from your own driving, Justin.

Fatal accidents might be only a small percentage of the total but, as I`m sure any traffic officer who has to inform the families would agree, they`re by far the most significant.

Two straight questions for you, if you please.

We`ll skirt the question of if speeding is bad driving and just ask this : are you disagreeing that German cars are driven faster (certainly on the motorway) than non German cars ? If so, how do you explain these statistics ?

Second question, if you`re saying German cars are not driven any worse than non German cars, why is it that approx. 50% of the really bad driving is in German cars, yet they only make up 20 to 25% of cars on the roads ?

Just one more thing, is this Audi being driven badly ? (Were I still doing my study it would make it into the list......) :