Nuxx:5c40e517-66b5-4d76-9864-84024065985f@38g2000yqr.googlegroups.com

Path: num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!38g2000yqr.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <5c40e517-66b5-4d76-9864-84024065985f@38g2000yqr.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.legal,uk.politics.misc,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving,uk.transport Subject: Re: Driving in groups banned Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 15:21:35 -0700 (PDT) References: <4a98149f.3657781@news.virginmedia.com>  <1i8g9552kj8nf7r2q7vl3k6ckf7fni7o7r@4ax.com>       Lines: 60 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.153.43.36 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1252275695 25577 127.0.0.1 (6 Sep 2009 22:21:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 22:21:35 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 38g2000yqr.googlegroups.com; posting-host=86.153.43.36; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 4809 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:730525

On Sep 6, 2:31 pm, "Ret." wrote: > oldMaxim wrote: > > On Sep 6, 12:53 pm, "Ret." wrote: > >> oldMaxim wrote: > >>> The prats that annoy me are the tailgaters, inveriably seem to be > >>> male BMW's drivers for some reason.... bugger, now I'm stereotyping > >>> - and sounding like one of your self righteous prats! > > >> ISTM that tail-gating is becoming more and more prevalent. I lose > >> track of the number of times I look in my rear view mirror and > >> cannot see the grille on the car behind because he is so close. It > >> even happens when you're in a long line of traffic with no hope of > >> an overtake. Just what do they think they are achieving by driving > >> so close? > > >> Kev > > > ...seems to be a social trend these days, as folks selfishness and > > sense of self importance grows, so their respect for anybody else > > becomes less and less as does their patience. They just want you to > > move out of their way! > > > You say you can't see the grill - wonder if that's why some cars wear > > their logo's atop the bonnets ;-) > > LOL! Possibly! > > I think I'm becoming a 'grumpy old man'. I could give Victor Meldrew a run > for his money at times. > Another thing that infuriates me is when drivers ignore 'Keep Clear' painted > in big white letters of the road surface. You know the situation - where a > queue for traffic lights invariably backs up past a junction. In order to > allow traffic to move in and out of the junction the LA paints two white > lines either side of the mouth of the junction - and 'KEEP CLEAR' in between > the lines. And what happens?  Nine out of ten drivers ignore the > instruction completely and park right on top of it. Just what is the > *matter* with these people?

I'm not sure if you were aware of this, but there is no *legal* requirement to observe those "KEEP CLEAR" markings; they're just advisory (unlike, say, criss-cross yellow markings). That's not to say that it's necessarily particularly considerate to stop on a "KEEP CLEAR" when someone in the side road would clearly benefit from your not doing so, but on the other side of the coin, stopping in such a place when there's no-one anywhere to be seen in the side road can't really be complained about too much IMHO.

There's also the issue that with traffic-activated traffic lights (which are usually otherwise much better than fixed-time lights, except according to those morons who like to see car drivers held up unnecessarily, many of whom can be found on uk.rec.cycling), if someone dithers when let out at a "KEEP CLEAR" marking, the lights may change to red because of that dithering and so that may encourage people to park on the "KEEP CLEAR" marking in order to prevent such a situation occurring (particular when they're, say, trying to get to work). And I don't think anyone can really blame them for that TBH. Ditherers who just sit there looking gormless when you give them a perfectly clear indication that you're allowing them to proceed are irritating enough at the best of times, but especially in cases like the above.