Other road users

How do we feel about other [i.e. not cars] road users ?
1. We have a demographic phenomena in UK - White Van Man. This is the small/medium workhorse van driven [apparently] by GP racers on their days off. They are the only people on the road and exempt from the law and the Highway Code. Do you recognise this ?
2. Animals [sorry Texas. I'm talking horses again] In the Highway Code, horses take priority over cars. Their riders act like their steeds have high I.Q.'s, knowing the braking distance of every car in existence. Sheep - in my neck of the woods, i.e. the high moors, we have a breed of sheep with an appalling attitude towards road users. They stand in the middle of the road, daring you to take them on - i'm sure they are carniverous. I always stay in the car with the doors locked.
3. Finally , the spawn of Hell, cyclists [bikes with pedals not motors]. These actively defy the rules and laws of the road. They ride on pavements [sidewalks to you], they ride through red lights, they ride the wrong way down one-way streets, they ride too close and scratch your paint,. The list of their crimes goes on and on. Most do not carry insurance and so act with impunity. If they are in an incident with a car, you are always in the wrong. The weird thing is that many of them are also car drivers. They seem to lose all sense when they mount the weapons. I am sure most have a fetish for tight Lycra and saddles fitting in bum cheeks.
Does any of this rant ring bells with you or am I just a miserable git ?

1 - No
 
2 - Deer and other wild animals are pretty much the only problems.
 
3 - Eh...not so much. I hate getting behind a group that are riding 3-5 wide down the middle of the road. Generally they stay to the far right of the road or have their own lane but they don't always stay in their designated lane.

1 - UPS drivers drive pretty bad down here in Mississippi.  Tearing through neighborhoods at breakneck speeds.  But I know they are not exempt from the laws and rules of the road.  Were you serious about the white van drivers really being exempt from the laws?  Or were you making a joke?
2 - Deer are aweful in Mississippi.  They get huge (even friends from Texas say the Mississippi white tail deer are bigger here.)  I work in insurance claims so this time of year I see many deer claims.
3 - When I was in college, the bicycle riders were aweful too.  I remember a writer for the school paper even wrote an articla about it.  How they would ride down the road like a car, but then when they came to a stop sign, they would jump up on the sidewalk and run the stopsign!  I always swore I was going to hit one with the old beat up mustang.  but I didn't want vehicular manslaughter to be on my permanent record when I was looking for a job.
 
In Mississippi we have soooo many drivers who just put along at about 20 mph below the speed limit.  This is actually more dangerous than speeding.  Plus it makes everyone around them have road rage. 
Also, why do people with handicap tags always go so slow?  If I couldn't walk fast or was handicapped I would drive my car fast everywhere!  I have a buddy who has hip problems and is handicapped and he drives fast.

Just a joke about White Van Man but that is their mind set. They also always seem to have a mobile phone glued to one ear.
Dont have much problem here with slow drivers, rather the opposite.
On our motorways, if you drive at 70mph [the legal max overall] you will have a commercial vehicle trying to have sexual relations with your exhaust and flashing you to speed up. Everyone breaks the law on speed most of the time [Dont tell anyone but I break the speed limit daily but I have a totally clean licence and have never been pulled by the fuzz in some 40 years.]

I figured it was a joke about the White Van Man.  That's why I mentioned UPS since it reminded me so much of them down here.
Yeah we have lots of slow drivers; then a few speed maniacs that you think are going to kill you; but other than that, normal people stay within 5 mph or so over the speed limit.
The deer suck, but in Texas they have hogs that can weigh up to 1000 lbs.  One of my friends from the Houston area once told me a story about a friend of his who was driving a Ford F350 Dually(4 wheels in the rear) who ran over a huge hog and broke both axles on that heavy duty truck.  Imagine if someone had hit that same hog driving a Honda!
I have seen a few claims involving people hitting cows though.  One was a fatality (the cow and the vehicle driver).

Almost every day we have press reports of drivers pulled at over 100mph. i think the worst I saw was 155 on a crowded motorway. The problem is that we dont regard it as a crime.
Strangely, some of the reports were of police being clocked. One was a Chief Constable in Wales who was running an antispeeding campaign AND it was his third offence.
Mississipi sounds so exotic like Sangri La or Bali Hai.
have a nice day !
Oh. meant to ask. My Morning Paper headlines were "Two minutes to War" . There was a face-off in the Gulf between American warships and Iranian gun boats. Did you here that ?

I didn't see that in the news.  That's crazy.
Speeding over here is actually a pretty big deal.  if you are caught doubling the speed limit (say 70 in a 35) it is considered reckless driving or reckless endangerment and they can arrest you.  If you are going more than 20 mph over the speed limit on the interstate (speed limit 70mph) they can also arrest you and charge you with reckless endangerment. I don't think they arrest many people though for speeding.  Unless they are drunk or have drugs on them or something.  But a speeding ticket for going that fast is gonna be steep.

I think the whole Texas stuff is really blanketed... I've lived in TX my entire life, all over it.. and have never once seen an animal on any major road...

Now if you're talking in the country, then yeah.. you'll find a cow in the road or some deer.. never seen/heard of a hog in a road, but i wouldn't doubt it..

but yeah.. in Houston, Dallas, Austin, and even El Paso - I've never once seen an animal aside from a bird on the road...

And get the whole cowboy thing out of your head... unless you go to extremely west texas or maybe way east, you're not going to see anyone riding horses... in fact, whites are the minority here in dallas and in houston - so you'll almost never even see a cowboy unless you go to the skirts of the metroplex. and even still he'll most likely be in a big pick-em-up truck.. not a horse.

try amish country if you wanna see horses n buggies.

quote:

ORIGINAL: academic


Oh. meant to ask. My Morning Paper headlines were "Two minutes to War" . There was a face-off in the Gulf between American warships and Iranian gun boats. Did you here that ?

 
nah .... the american media hasn't had a chance to change facts, make us look better and in general republicanize that piece of news yet.

funny thing about the whole van thing, they had that on top gear last night.  each of the top gear guys had to pick a van and they had compeitions, one of them being who could tail gate the closest lol...
 
just thought i would let everyone know, and if you dont know what and or dont watch top gear you should

I'm that bicyclist...
 
Actually, no.  I'm a fairly serious cyclist, but I'm just as pissed off by riders who do all that stuff.  How are we (cyclists) supposed to expect any credibility on the street with all those riders doing that stupid stuff.
 
Bicyclists actually led the lobbying effort to get good roads in the first place.  In 1880 there weren't many cars, but bycyclists became a political power to get improved roads.  So we really DO own the road...
 

I think cyclists are ok when they obey the same traffic laws as a motor vehicle, ride with the flow of traffic, if you are slower than traffic then move to the right, if you are on wheels (skateboards included) then red means stop....  We're having some issues as of late down in missoula (a bit south of us) since there are so many cyclists that fail to obey traffic signs there have been a number of deaths in the past year...

As for wildlife, I hate them, I've already hit more than my fair share of deer, I wound up in the ditch avoiding one....  During the winter is the worst because if you spike the brakes to try and stop the roads are so slick there is no telling what's going to happen...

quote:

ORIGINAL: academic
Mississipi sounds so exotic like Sangri La or Bali Hai.

 
ROTFLMAO!!!!!! Jon, I love Mississippi, but Bali Hai? 
Academic: Mississippi is beautiful land, but is also home
to the economically poorest community in the USA.  It's called Sugar Ditch.  No one there has EVER been employed.  I'm not joking-they are all descended from freed slaves who live on the land their families were granded upon release, collecting government welfare only.  There are no employers at all anywhere near there.  It's really quite sad.

quote:

ORIGINAL: honda97valdeez

quote:

ORIGINAL: academic
Mississipi sounds so exotic like Sangri La or Bali Hai.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!! Jon, I love Mississippi, but Bali Hai? 
Academic: Mississippi is beautiful land, but is also home
to the economically poorest community in the USA.  It's called Sugar Ditch.  No one there has EVER been employed.  I'm not joking-they are all descended from freed slaves who live on the land their families were granded upon release, collecting government welfare only.  There are no employers at all anywhere near there.  It's really quite sad.

America - land of obscene wealth and abject poverty. Sad doesn't even come close does it.

i almost hit a deer nearly weekly up here in wisconsin. there everywhere, especially since i live right next to a forest.

and yes, white van drivers are crazy.

american media is so censored its not even funny.
like the report they must have "missed" about the govt kidnapping a german citizen, torturing and waterboarding him asking for information on terrorist plots, then realizing it was a case of mistaken identity. the supreme court refused to hear his case, and he hasnt even gotten a trial. they cited "national security" as a reason not to hear it. he was reported missing in germany for 6 months before he was returned to his family (wife and kids). turns my stomach.
i get all my news from BBC online after reading that story.

i biked for a long time before i got a car, and i know how hard it is to get around on the roads without a car. dont hate the cyclists.

Academic, could you please post your thoughts (if you have any) on "squatter's rights" in the "landlord kept deposit"(sic) thread?  I can't remember exactly, but I somehow have heard a UKer using "the squat" in conversation. As in "I was walking to the squat when I ran across the local hooker..."
Aren't "squats" abandoned buildings lived in by homeless?
I took it to mean the landlord wasn't allowed to toss out the squatters, and the law protected the trespassers, not the landlord.  Please fill me in.
 
The Florida Keys portion of US Hwy. 1 has had 18 deaths so far this year (!), 3 of which were on bicycles.  The bikers were riding (well within their rights) on a heavily trafficed 2 lane highway.  You can't fix stupid. 
 
On said highway, the users that burn me most are the truck and boat combos.  I have seen some really funny s--t when it comes to boat trailering.  The best is when a customer will call for directions from a part of this small town that a truck/boattrailer has NO where to go. Customer:"I was trying to turn around down here on Duval street and now I'm hung on a parking meter and a street sign.  The fire department is gonna cut the trailer off the meter and that should free it.  Where's y'all's ramp?"  Me:" We don't have a ramp.  I told you 3 months ago."
Then he will call back to tell me he's getting cuffed for failing a breathylizer...
 
Speaking of which- drunken staggering tourists are Public Enemy #1 of Other Road Users.  Ususally someone wearing black socks pulled up tight out of their Birkenstocks and speaking french or german whilst staring up at oblivion.
 
Nafango2-BRUSHGUARDS! LOL!  Put a deer pusher on your car...and take the victims to the processor!  The arctic air of Wisconsin keeps the meat fresh.  Mmmmm venison stroganoff with extra cheese mmmmmm.  Pass me a LaBatts! 
 
 

haha too bad they just bounce up and go through the windshield on most cars. Deer are big!

Yeah, I know-I'm from Tennessee.  Big deer there too.
You might need some sort of exterior roll-cage mod with barbs to keep the deer on the hood.  Fried Curds Rock!

Deer and drunk bums are the only things I have to worry about hitting.... I live in a really small town and somehow almost hit a drunk, staggering guy almost every week. I love the look on their face when you lay on the horn and scare the heck out ofem as you dodge them.... Priceless

damn, we dont get that many drunk people in my part of town.

once or twice a year ill see someone smoking a bowl in their car... (not joking) but i dont run into a lot of drunk people.

which is wierd, because wisconsin has the most drunk driving arrests/accidents, highest per capita number of bars, and highest number avg amount of liquor consumed/person of any other state...

You can always rely on good old Auntie Beeby. Our govt. hates it, thank God.

Valdeez, I have thoughts and opinions on everything especially things I know nothing about. I am a teacher afterall. You are correct on the squatter thing. if you leave a property empty, it could be occupied by a squatter and then you need the law to evict them - long and costly process [ mustn't deny parasite lawyers their slice of the cake, must we].
My daughter in London had her own flat but lived with her husband when they married. her flate was rented out. Ok For some time then the rentee's stopped paying rent. i wanted to go down and padlock the door after throwing their belongings into the street. I was told that this was against the law. She eventually managed to get them out but lost about £2000 in unpaid rent.

I must be getting senile ! I omitted the absolute worst "other road users" CARAVANS ! How could I possibly forget them. I support the Top Gear crew absolutely in this.

 
Is L2000 more or less than the EURO?  I looked up the euro and that's 2958 dollars!  OUCH!

quote:

ORIGINAL: honda97valdeez

 
Is L2000 more or less than the EURO?  I looked up the euro and that's 2958 dollars!  OUCH!

We had a referendum on the Euro [whether to adopt it or not] The resounded reply was "Stick it up your ar.." So we remain with the Pound Sterling [roughly same dollar value as the Euro, couple of cents up, couple of cents down] Some UK shops will take Euro, some will not.
We are also having a battle over metric weights and measures. In my city, a market trader was fined for selling bananas by the pound weight rather than the kilo. This became a cause celebre for the Euro phobes and he became known as the Metric Martyr. The last I heard, he had been given permission to continue selling in pounds and an apology from the jobsworth in the local govt. Sadly, the apology was posthumous but others picked up his banner. The same battle is being fought over our traditional pub pint - interference here will result in bloody revolution. Told you that we are awkward sods, didn't I.