Dangerous road users

[mcgon1979]

Does anyone find that driving a waxed and spotless FTO gives other drivers a serious inferiority complex? I drive normal speeds and have not driven "fast" since I was in my early 20s. Yet I repeatedly get people driving from nehind me as fast as they can and then pulling in right in front of me. not boy racers either. lads in their 30s in audi A4 1.9tdi types. I think the FTO brings out the racer in these people. seriously. no jokes. its very annoying. a guy pulled in front of me today after going through a gap that was not really there to get ahead of me. dangerous. then kept looking in his mirror then when the lights came he drove away like it was a stolen car. Obviously I did not follow him at any speed at all and ignored him. but I am seeing this all the time these days. FFS. Im not sitting in my c ar revving it, im not driving fast, Im not acting like a tool, Im doing nothing to warrant this attention. tossers. I get annoyed when someone cuts me up like this and drives excessively fats as if to prove something to me. Like "in your face sports car young man, my 1.9tdi is much faster, you boy racer you". Its no surprise we have so many road deaths...

[Wildhound]

Definitely had this happen a good number of times in the FTO and never responded as it's asking for trouble.

A lot of people have an inferiority complex in their slower cars and obviously passing an FTO when it's not trying to keep up allows them to delude themselves.

It's probably mostly people who drive a company car or couldn't have a sporty coupe for practical reasons etc.

[Mickthepieman]

Don't get me started on this one I could go on all night

As the actress said to the bishop

[mcgon1979]

thank god for that. Its not just me then.. Good to know other people know the type I am on about. eases the frustration abit.

[kevinod]

Don't usually get quite the level of aggression you're talking about, but you do get the occasional guy who wants to prove his car is as/more powerful.

Actually interesting you mentioned it was an Audi, I find Audi drivers the most aggressive on the road for some reason...

[Myfeckin FTO]

Don't usually get quite the level of aggression you're talking about, but you do get the occasional guy who wants to prove his car is as/more powerful.

Actually interesting you mentioned it was an Audi, I find Audi drivers the most aggressive on the road for some reason...

Snap - The TDI heads always seem out to prove a point even against the Zed. - Seems to be a case of - "I betya didn't know my diesels this fast -eh!"

I've actually been rightly put off Audi TDI's these days - theres some amount of heads driving them - that and the amount of RS4 badges on them.

[Dragonheart]

Ditto, though a lot of the time its cars tailgateing to see what type it is, trying to look at the name in the back. But I've always been meaning to take a video shot of driving home from work on the south link, driving at exactly 100, see how many Mercs, Beemers, Audis, and Lexus fly past compared to tegs, levins, celicas and the like. And they call us the dangerous ones!

[kevinod]

I know what you mean... I think the fear of points is well and truly gone.

[optical illusion]

Jesus don't start me!! The night I drove it down from Kildare there were guys so up my hole (one in particular in a van) just because I was driving at the speed limit. It's like they assume, just coz you have that type of car that you are going to be driving it like a mad person and when you don't they get all thick.

It's stupid.

[Mustang]

Does anyone find that driving a waxed and spotless FTO gives other drivers a serious inferiority complex?

No.

I do take the above points about TDI (and modern diesel saloon) drivers in particular. The way the TDI heads rave about power and performance is tiring.
I'm talking about the passat/A4 TDI, Mondeo TDCI etc. They all have about 130bhp, and plenty of low down torque.
Now here's the thing If you scroll back 15 years or so all diesels were laughably slow, and many not even fitted with a turbo. If you are now in your 30's or older, chances are your parents had a crap car (Hillman hunter, corolla, opel kadett, renault 18 etc) when you were growing up and when you became old enough to drive you too got a crap car as you could not afford to buy or insure anything of merit, so you ended up with a starlet, corsa, etc. This has been the motoring exposure of the masses. Now you sit into a TDI with all it's low range torque it feels like an untamed beast chomping at the bit for you to unleash the full extent of it's power. Because this car has what you've never experienced before -low range torque. The is new to TDI man, because any car he's experienced up to now needs to be revved to within an inch of it's life to get any sort of movement and even then, such things as over taking are strickly a kamakasi manouvre. TDI man thinks he has all this power at low revs and with a flawed logic extrapolates this (based on the experience up to now) thinking to himself, theres so much power down low I'm nearly frightened to use the upper bounds of the rev range in case I bend the space-time continuim (think DeLorean in Back to the future) Problem is that that low range torque is it, that's all the car has, that's it's party piece. It doesn't matter if it's spinning at 1500rpm or the 4500rpm limit you get the same performance. Don't get me wrong these are good cars and a sensible way of mile munching the motorways, what they are not, is performance cars. The previous incarnation of this, in the mid 90's was the BMW316i drivers. Now the 316i would not pull the skin off a rice pudding, So the wanna be yuppy had to drive the stones off the thing to pass out so that we could all see what a powerful car he had.

Just on a general note on the diesel. I'm not a diesel head but i've recently driven a passat TDI 105 bhp and clio 1.5dci 85bhp. Now they both have a decent amount of torque, nowhere near as much as I was expecting, but there is just no power to accompany it.

[mcgon1979]

Good piece Mustang I can see the logic in it.

[Uncle B]

^^ Ditto, I'd say it could be a jealously thing too though.

"Look at this fecker in his fast/expensive looking car, I'll show him who's faster"

EDIT is it just me or do people mostly do this coming up to a DC/motorway, they race to get ahead of you then you ease by them once you hit the good roads? Seem to happen all the time when I go from Galway to Shannon.

[miss-enzo]

ya ive noticed it alot too.... seems to be mainly older ppl in their TDI's etc! i get if off the lads in civics and tegs too..... the childish ones who think im gonna put the shoe down so they can see if their car is as fast/faster

I try not to let it bother me nemore tho! i used get really pissed off with people actin like d1ckheads!

[Bernard]

@ Mustang

Your post just reminded me of the diesel 504 estate my parents used to have.... ooh the memories

[Mustang]

@ Mustang

Your post just reminded me of the diesel 504 estate my parents used to have.... ooh the memories

Bernard, get yourself over to Nigeria and take one of these puppies for a test drive down memory lane http://www.peugeotnigeria.com/configure ... p?gamme=vp
select the 504 model in the 'family' drop down menu. Would make an interesting import 08 LK 504, has a nice ring to it.....