Highway Driving
So: I'm on the M4 somewhere around Silverwater at about 8:00pm at night. It's a three lane road with not much traffic at that time, but enough cars around that i'm in the right hand lane. Now, i'm doing spot on 100km/h, when the speed limit around there is 90km/h... so, i'm certainly no angel. But...
I see this hot-rod far in the distance, approching the car behind me... fast. He flashes his headlights as he gets closer, and the guy behind me moves over for him. He's still doing what I estimate to be around 140km/h, but certainly much faster than me, and i'm already doing 10km/h faster than the limit. So he rapidly gains on me, and flashes his lights a few times... I'm thinking: How rude!! As if i'm not going fast enough already. You can go around me if you're going to be like that. So I check my speed and maintain exatly 100km/h.
Now at this point the next lane across is actually empty for 100m in either direction, so he could easily have gone past on my left. By the same token, i'm meant to keep left unless overtaking, and I could have moved left, then out again when it came for me to overtake someone else. But... not for this jerk.
By this time he's had to brake a lot, so he *holds* his lights on high beam for me. Hmpf. So I put my hazard lights on, and think seriously about reducing speed gradually till i'm doing the actual speed limit. But before I get a chance to do that, he's already given up and changed lanes (without indicating, of course). I can also hear the thumpa-thumpa emanating from his shiny black car. When he moved out in front of me, I held my lights on high-beam, for a good second or so.
I know if it came down to it, I could easily have been fined for quite a few things in that situation. I believe you're supposed to just comply with them in order to not further risk an accident (or even better: 'keep left unless overtaking'). I'm sure my point didn't get across either. *shrugs* Well, that's all.
I see this hot-rod far in the distance, approching the car behind me... fast. He flashes his headlights as he gets closer, and the guy behind me moves over for him. He's still doing what I estimate to be around 140km/h, but certainly much faster than me, and i'm already doing 10km/h faster than the limit. So he rapidly gains on me, and flashes his lights a few times... I'm thinking: How rude!! As if i'm not going fast enough already. You can go around me if you're going to be like that. So I check my speed and maintain exatly 100km/h.
Now at this point the next lane across is actually empty for 100m in either direction, so he could easily have gone past on my left. By the same token, i'm meant to keep left unless overtaking, and I could have moved left, then out again when it came for me to overtake someone else. But... not for this jerk.
By this time he's had to brake a lot, so he *holds* his lights on high beam for me. Hmpf. So I put my hazard lights on, and think seriously about reducing speed gradually till i'm doing the actual speed limit. But before I get a chance to do that, he's already given up and changed lanes (without indicating, of course). I can also hear the thumpa-thumpa emanating from his shiny black car. When he moved out in front of me, I held my lights on high-beam, for a good second or so.
I know if it came down to it, I could easily have been fined for quite a few things in that situation. I believe you're supposed to just comply with them in order to not further risk an accident (or even better: 'keep left unless overtaking'). I'm sure my point didn't get across either. *shrugs* Well, that's all.