The Irish Mitsubishi FTO Owners Club

Some pet hates:

-Pulling out into a hard shoulder and assuming they'll be let in front of me if they stick their nose into my lane enough

-Overtaking which consists of 'picking off' every car in a row of traffic

-White line/coming to a bend over taking

-Crossing over me in a roundabout after YOU entered in the WRONG lane!!!

-TAILGATING Someday, I will stop the car and get out. Here, I brake test people a lot. My car is worth 700, how much is yours worth?

-Not using indicators

-Parking right up on my drivers side so I can't get in/out. Sure fire way of assuring I'll ram my door into your car. Several times.

-Coming at you at full speed when an obstacle is on THEIR side!!!!

-Stupid driving and then you realise they are on the mobile

-Cars speeding up when you try to overtake them!!! OMG!!!! WTF like??!

-Mothers turning around to their kids in the backseat while driving

-Being up my hole when I'm doing 50 in a 50 zone

-Abnormally slow driving in 100 zone

-BMWs and Mercs getting angry when you overtake them in a 1.3, learn to do 100 in a 100 zone...

-Braking at EVERY bend or when a car is coming against you

-Full lights at night when someone is behind you. Then you get the fog light treatment.

-Putting the handbrake down to pull off just after the light has gone green and getting beeped. ARGHHH!!!! Dublin people in particular are bastards for this. This equals (depending on my mood) getting out of the car OR staying stopped at green and then tearing off while issuing a 'peace' sign at the next green

-Bikers not saluting when I pull in for them when they are overtaking

I think that's it really, care to add to it?

Oh dear god...

Agree with all the above....and....

Seeing young lads trying to keep up with 1000cc bikes by driving dangerously close to them......not looking forward to that aggression when i get the CBR in a week

You left out driving with the fog lights on (when there isn't any fog)

Otherwise I agree with all of them - except when I'm doing any of them : )

How about 'for sale' signs with phone numbers on cars you know aren't for sale?

That's only so they can get the beores though...

Haha haven't heard the word Beoures in AAAGGGGGEEEESSSSS haha

optical illusion wrote:-Putting the handbrake down to pull off just after the light has gone green and getting beeped. ARGHHH!!!! Dublin people in particular are bastards for this.

Thats a bit strong (and I'm biased of course) - personally, I've seen this practice all around the country, no more or less than in Dublin.

Some additions:

People who can't decide which lane they're in and straddle both.

Dangerous undertaking or pulling across traffic at the last minute to exit a motorway.

The M50

HGVs that refuse to get out of the overtaking lane

The M50

Apparently immune pedestrians who walk around roads as if vehicular traffic doesn't exist.

The M50

CJ

Tolls bridges on a motorway..

I mean where's the logic in stopping traffic flow??!

Clamping... so somebody has parked where they're not supposed to - a clamp isn't going to make them move any faster is it??!

Roadworks on the m50 - it's taking waaay too long lads - and even after the upgrade the m50 still can't cope with the volume..

Roadworks leaving an already bad road in a worse state

Road tax - why?? Where does the money go? Admin??! The good roads are all toll roads anyways..

CJ, I take it your a fan of the M50 so...?

optical illusion wrote:CJ, I take it your a fan of the M50 so...?

Its a scourge of a motorway, whenever possible, I avoid it and use the roads that the M50 was designed to alliviate traffic from.

CJ

Tail-gating?!?! I've actually had enough of driving on Irish roads guys. Seriously. I was on a small back road heading towards the M1 sliproad yesterday. And I was doing about 80kph (limit was actually 60kph). This woman in a big 4x4 landrover or landcruiser etc came flying up behing me at about 120kph. yes on a tiny backroad. she sat 2 metres from my back bumper. so I slowly let off the gas back to 60kph. I could see her in the mirror she looked like her mind was elsewhere, like maybe she had a row with someone and stormed off, or something like that. Still, I don't care, I don't tolerate people sitting 1 or 2 metres from my bumper at 80kph on a road barely wide enough for two vehicles. not safe. so we got to the sliproad of M50 and I went down the onramp and she came barrelling after me (without yielding at the roundabout onto the on ramp). I couldn't wait to get onto the Motorway at this stage and let her shoot off in the fast lane. seriously. I wasn;t angry or didn't want to pull onto the motorway and accelerate, I just wanted her away from my car cause she was taking risks the way she was driving flat out aggressively. On the on ramp I spot a silver colt ahead of me and down the very bottom of the slip road is a broken down articulated truck. brilliant. an 18 wheeler breaks down/pulls in 200metres further then the bottom of an on ramp. genius. so Im driving down the slip road, her stuck to my bumper, and a silver colt about 50metres in front of me and a truck about 300metre in front of him. I am indicating to pull out but the hatch markings have only just started etc and Im just waiting for a gap. added to which, the traffic is crazy busy... trucks and cars whizzing by in both lanes... suddenly, the silver colt slams on the brakes. I think he was suddenly confused about running out of slip road lane and didn;t know whether to stop behind the truck or pull out across the remaining hatchings and go around the truck.. seriously. he slammed on from about 80kph at the end of the sliproad about 50 metres behind the truck. I had to swerve around him into the traffic lane of the M1. It is just absolutely pure luck I didn't get cleaned out by a truck or car. yes, possibly my fault. I 'assumed' he would continue at his speed and drive around the truck, not sit in middle of slip lane and hit brakes. your whan barely missed him too. As I drove past the colt I saw it was a foreign driver. Now this is very important that you understand this... I'm not being racist in my comments at all. but alot of the foreigners who are driving here don't understand the rules of the road. they drive by instinct, by the seat of their pants... yes I am referring to non-europeans mostly who maybe don't have the same standard of roads as us and don't know anything about lane discipline or roundabouts. I cannot even mention the number of times I've had someone in the left lane of a roundabout go for the third exit and cut me up. happens all the time. and yes, unfortunately it happens a lot with foreigners who look like they are not in control of the car but just gripping the steering wheel for dear life and rolling with wherever the car takes them. no awareness of people near them or the dangers they are causing. surely someone should need an EU license to come on the roads and just drive. Or at least some sort of test tthat proves they have a rudimentary understanding of the rules. anyways, the whole thing was a combination of things, but yes, ultimately I need to take responsibility for my own close call. The truck was stopped in the worst possible place for a truck to stop. the girl was stuck to my bumper like she wanted to hit me. the guy in the colt paniced and didn't know what to do because he seemed to think he must drive all the way until the slip road merges naturally with the motorway so the truck suddenly confused him and he slammed on. and me. I should of just drove at 30kph given all the above situations. When I say it was a close call, I mean seriously, I was blessed. When I swerved to avoid him I instinctively pulled right around him and didn't have time to consider if something was approaching me from behind. very stupid. I got a serious "shock". you know when you get that dump of adrenaline like when you miss a step on a stairs in the dark or something. anyway, all I can say is, driving in Ireland is absolutely bananas. you need rocks in your head... On the same trip I saw 3 other close calls. sunday evening, everyone rushing somewhere at 730pm? going home after the weekend maybe. another guy later in the trip nearly caused a serious crash too... Where the M1 meets the M50 roundabout, there is a slip road to get onto the M50 (just after big airport roundabout). the tailback was about 600m long to get onto the M50. so everyone was queued up, but some smart lad (like you always get) thought he would just skip the Q so he drove on past the Q all the way up to the hatch markings, then pointed his car into the sliproad onto M50 Q. the back ar$e of his car still in the motorway lane. a truck came roaring past him and missed the back of his car by less than a foot. the horn screaming as he passed.... Madness..... ok. feel a bit better now venting all that... cheers...

Not really a pet hate as such but one thing that happened me on the M50 (which is a pet hate) and a similar story to McGon there. I was driving back to Dun Laoghaire one tuesday about 2 weeks after I bought the FTO and still getting to grips with it. Going at a nice pace along the M50 in the left lane and there was a white Caddy van in front of me. I was about 3 car lengths behind him. Coming up to exit 13 on the M50 there was road works going on at that junction. He indicated left as if to join the slip road then started pulling in. I went to go around him and as I done so he swerved right back out onto the road in front of me. On pure instinct I swerved right into the next lane otherwise I would have ploughed straight into the back of him. If I had moved into the next lane a second later a woman in a big range rover would have ended my life and my two friends in the car. She sat on the horn and was flashing her lights at me. I pulled in as soon as I got a chance and she pulled in behind me. When I got out of the car I was white as a sheet and could hardly stand and she realised then it wasn't my fault. I sat there in the hard shoulder for about 20 minutes. I was literally a second from being killed. Stupid Caddy driver had absolutely no awareness or consideration of other people on the road. If I was speeding or tailgating then fair enough but he could have caused 3 deaths and it would look like it was my fault. I could see the headline "Boy racer kills himself and friends and injures mother of 2 in high speed antics on M50"...

Still shocked to this day

Scary stories there lads.

There are no other words for it, simply, a lot of Irish drivers are retarded.

..

.....without generalising too much!

I hate when people stick badges from performance cars onto their non-performance cars.

Saw a 1999 Ford Fiesta TypeR at the gym the other day. But the one that annoys me the most is the Audi A4 1.9tdi with full quattro kit, milltek (I think) exhaust and RS6 alloys...... not too bad you might say and given it's actually a good job...... but then ya go and ruin it with by sticking on S4 badges without even taking off the 1.9tdi badges. Why, oh why?

I just feel a little sad for people like that. Saw a good one before, some fella had a 3series coupe, with an M3 badge on the back that said "(I wish)" after it, gave me a bit of a laugh.