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 arein 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 fittingin 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 Mississippiwhite 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 beon my permanent record when I was looking for a job.

In Mississippi we have soooomany 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 havelots ofslow 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.

 

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