Road Rage

The most spectacularly stupid bit of road rage I have ever been involved in.
Driving my truck up King Street about 7 o'clock one morning and a cab takes a right-hand turn from the left-hand lane (King Street is one way and 4 lanes wide) straight across the front of my truck. We were only driving at about 10 km an hour so all it did was wipe out his driver's side door.
Why did he do this? Apparently, one block earlier, he claims that I have brushed against his driver's side mirror and broken it. He wanted to stop me so that I could pay for it.
Unfortunately any evidence has just been destroyed.

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Buster fin said..

Macroscien said..
Everybody proud here of their V6 and V8, horse powers and kilowatts of torque, but
when it comes to start at green light, postie bike get if first across.

Lights turns red again, and two or three cars managed to cross intersection.

Yeah, what's with proud engine folks? I can buy all the horsepower I want. How does it make me macho?
Your granny can too. Does she do macho?

Yeah but I bet you couldn't do the work yourself, nor could your granny,
but then again those people take said work somewhere else, not on the streets

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sn said..

Toph said..
The one that ****s me the most, are the ones who come to a stop at a green light because the 'prepare to stop' flashing amber lights started flashing just as they came up to the signal. You can easily get another two cars through before the actual traffic signals turn amber. I watched what would've been a certain fatality (if it wasn't for the quick reaction of the truckie), as a car came to a stop but the truckie was going to continue on. The right lane was clear so the truck swerved into the right lane missing the car, and continued through the lights before they turned from green.

one of our truckies had a similar incident.

"netball-mum" in a tarago pulled in front of his semi and hit the brakes for a stale red light.

Truckie had anticipated the lights being about to go to green and had slowed down so he would not have to stop for the red.
He very nearly steam roller-ed the mum and her van with it's load of kids - luckily managing to drift the semi into the other lane - but sliding through the intersection barely under control as the lights turned green.

At the next set of lights he was stuck next to netballmum, so he [sort of] politely asked her, "what did she think she was doing cutting in front of a loaded semi."

her answer........

"you have more wheels, so you should be able to stop faster"

I'm pretty happy to not be driving trucks anymore


stephen

That's just truckies driving beyond their brakes. It scares me to see truckies dicing with motor cars at 10 kph over the speed limit expecting other drivers to allow for their longer stopping distances. They only have to back off 10kph and their stopping distances are the same as the car that has just ducked in front.


Check the figures for 40 mph. ~ 60 kph. Stopping distance is proportional to the square of speed. Compare the ratios of 60 squared with 50 squared and then compare the ratio of 125 feet with 80 feet. If truckies travelled 10 kph slower through the suburbs, put away the mobile phones, drove within their brakes, the economy would not grind to a halt and novice car drivers as described by Toph would not be killed.

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purefun said..

so the 460 fatalities on Australian roads this yr was simply dumb people??????
do smart people ever die or cause accidents???

by your reckoning, truckies have the most potential to cause harm on the roads, are they societies smartest....

how to you rate your own intelligence?
are you above the average
what about nascar drivers
you must think they are unbelievable intelligent

dumb people say dumb things......

Obviously.
Of course, dumb people cause the accidents.

Uh?

Well.
Yes.
Dunno, that ****'s boring.
Nope. Fans of, even lower.

If you say so.

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sn said..

Toph said..
The one that ****s me the most, are the ones who come to a stop at a green light because the 'prepare to stop' flashing amber lights started flashing just as they came up to the signal. You can easily get another two cars through before the actual traffic signals turn amber. I watched what would've been a certain fatality (if it wasn't for the quick reaction of the truckie), as a car came to a stop but the truckie was going to continue on. The right lane was clear so the truck swerved into the right lane missing the car, and continued through the lights before they turned from green.

one of our truckies had a similar incident.

"netball-mum" in a tarago pulled in front of his semi and hit the brakes for a stale red light.

Truckie had anticipated the lights being about to go to green and had slowed down so he would not have to stop for the red.
He very nearly steam roller-ed the mum and her van with it's load of kids - luckily managing to drift the semi into the other lane - but sliding through the intersection barely under control as the lights turned green.

At the next set of lights he was stuck next to netballmum, so he [sort of] politely asked her, "what did she think she was doing cutting in front of a loaded semi."

her answer........

"you have more wheels, so you should be able to stop faster"

I'm pretty happy to not be driving trucks anymore


stephen

this might help

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Ian K said..


That's just truckies driving beyond their brakes. It scares me to see truckies dicing with motor cars at 10 kph over the speed limit expecting other drivers to allow for their longer stopping distances. They only have to back off 10kph and their stopping distances are the same as the car that has just ducked in front.

I think you must have missed half of what I wrote.........

The truckie had slowed, using his gears to slow down but still maintain momentum so he would not have to come to a complete stop at the lights.
A semi loaded with concrete takes some time to get moving - and if he cops a red light, it is likely that no one else will make it through.

Any decent truck [or car] driver is looking a lot further than the next vehicle in front of them - they are monitoring the road way ahead so they can smooth out the trip.

Braking and accelerating cause wear and tear and excessive fuel consumption.

When I was trucking, I would test myself by seeing how far I could get without needing to use brakes purely by anticipating traffic and using gears.
Several times I made it from Kwinana to Midland via Kewdale [admittedly not usually during peak hour]
Longest run was Kewdale to Karratha and return.[I was driving 2up, co-driver didn't bother]
My trip from Baldivis explosives reserve to Augusta with no clutch was interesting


Anyway - the semi driver WAS driving safely - not "dicing" - it was the numpty in the van who risked killing herself and her passengers by diving in front of the semi and standing on the brakes.


Same principal of a car trying to beat a train over a railway crossing - you don't blame the train driver for the accident. incident


stephen

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ThinkaBowtit said...
Schools should be teaching stuff like ^^ that, along with all the other relevant driving skills needed to be a driver who is aware of your own vehicle's limitations, as well of those you share the roads with. Could save a lot of grief - if you can't pass a driving class in school, you are not ready to hold a licence.

But your 1st car can be a v8,

Doesnt WA have power/weight restrictions for young drivers?

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ka43 said..
Its todays attitude of "*** you as long as Im OK". Unfortunately a lot of people don't give a **** and this extends to their driving. They think they have a right to do what ever they want and others will allow for this behaviour. I watched a dummy mummy in her 4wd reverse park into a spot at our local shops. She actually got out to see how her effort was. Problem, she was 2/3 in her spot but 1/3 in the next one. She shrugged, grabbed her keys and walked off. If you say anhthing you cop a gobful or the old "Ill only be 5 minutes" Doesn't ****** matter dumb arse.
Says it all really.

Same thing in my local shopping centre car park on a very busy day, had to leave a twig in the tyre valve. Just need to pump it up again.

like I said........

I'm pretty happy to not be driving trucks anymore

The Sandwichmaker is even happier about it - and was positively beaming when I had my truck license downgraded to a basic car license so I couldn't be tempted to moonlight when the old bosses ran short of D.G. and Explosives permitted drivers.

Sometimes bridges need to be burnt.

The funny thing though, is I am still professionally driving - chauffeuring Nuns around Perth - which is the most stress free job I have ever had!


stephen

Here's a shocking case of road rage in Queensland.

I've seen that video before..
The thing is we don't know what happened before...

I noticed my young boy showed a finger to someone once... I said to him: " son, never do that again, because one day someone come to you and smash your nose for that... "

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dmitri said..
I've seen that video before..
The thing is we don't know what happened before...

Doesn't really matter what happened before, ute guy lost the plot and shouldn't have. No one deserves to be treated like that, whether they've done something or not.

Around 20 years back I was involved in a sort of road rage incident.

Driving along Nicholson Rd doing aout 60-70 km/h i slowed down to turn left into Langford Avenue.

There was a City of Canning large truck behind me who didn't fancy putting his brakes on.

I had pissed him off a bit about 30 seconds earlier when I indicated to move into the left lane of Nicholson Rd ( in front of him) ready to turn left into Langford Av.

As I slowed down to turn left he was about 80-100 metres behind me but didn't break one bit!

I had to take evasive action in the end to stop being whacked from behind by a 10 ton truck and actually accelerated around the corner very fast.

I then did a U-turn and followed him all the way to the Canning Vale Depot.

My blood was boiling and when he got out of the truck I gave him a earful,though I was a bit fearful with all of his fellow employees sitting around the depot!

Would not react that way again but when you've nearly just been killed by a fruit loop its hard not to.

Funny thing about that incident is from where the incident took place to the Canning Vale depot is around 10kms,but no joke he took the biggest detour of all time---- around 20-30 Kms!


Perhaps the sight of my car in his rear vision mirror all the way had something to do with that.

In the end I guess he figured out he better return to base before it closes

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myusernam said..

Semi drivers - speed limited to 100 makes them try and overtake you without enough space. I've been overtaken by a b double (my speedo said 100) and he's not even made it past the first trailer before he's started to move back in to the left lane. Forcing me to brake to avoid collision. But I see it a lot here (single carriageway highway) . they also follow too close (not all speed limited), try and push people along etc.

Anyone up with how the tachygraph/electronic vehicle monitoring matter is developing? it is several years since I drove heavy vehicles and Ive lost track of the topic.