…and in particular, to anyone who’s going to be driving in the rural, no-overtaking-places-at-all bits at a time when I’m trying to get home.
You’re allowed to drive at 60mph on roads where the speed limit is 60mph.
Yes!
Really!
11 thoughts on “Important advice to anyone planning to drive in Scotland…”
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You are forgetting the dual-mode cars which you are guaranteed to meet on these roads. There are two settings – stop and 40mph. This includes villages, towns, car-parks, school playgrounds and the like. These cannot reach 60mph but also cannot go any slower without halting.
One of my biggest pet hates! Couldn’t agree more!
I usually come across the 40/50mph idiots in the Clyde Tunnel. The tunnel is a 30, but they’ll drive up your rear end the whole way through, then overtake you and speed off at 50mph towards the motorway. Then, a few minutes later, you pass by them on the motoroway. They’ll be sitting in the middle lane doing 50mph and you have to go all the way out to pass them at 70mph. They effectively turn a 3 lane motorway into a 2 lane dual carriageway.
Get yourself Burnout Revenge for your 360. You’ll find smashing the slow traffic out of your way very theraputic…
I’m convinced I’m a much safer driver since I got my first copy of Burnout 3. I have nothing to prove on the real roads.
My person favorite bad drivers are those rare, but stunning people who insist on slowing down *every time a vehicle approaches from the opposite direction*. Didn’t they expect that? I generally assume anyone I see like that is drunk or whacked on something.
Oh and I keep seeing this one large black SUV driving down the same (streetlit) section of the M8 in the dark with it’s headlights off. I assume it’s always the same one I’m seeing – instead of their being three or four idiots with the same car making the same mistake at the same place.
> those rare, but stunning people who insist on slowing down *every time a vehicle approaches from the opposite direction*.
I was behind *several* of them yesterday. I really think such people shouldn’t be allowed on the roads – not because they annoy me (of course they do) but because if they’re that scared of driving, they’re not safe drivers.
You know who I hate? People who get into the outside lane because they intend to turn right in a couple of miles. And they slow down, because they’re intending to turn off in a couple of miles.
And people who can’t use slip roads. In an attempt to join fast-moving traffic, they slow down. Sometimes, they stop.
> if they’re that scared of driving, they’re not safe drivers.
Absolutely. I think you should have to sit a driving test every ten years to keep your license, and excessive nervousness should be a reason for a fail on all but your first one.
You are forgetting the dual-mode cars which you are guaranteed to meet on these roads. There are two settings – stop and 40mph.
That would be the Toyota Yaris. Those things must be fitted with limiters to stop the car going over 40mph. Actually, I think the limiter might be called “the engine”.
> And people who can’t use slip roads. In an attempt to join fast-moving traffic, they slow down. Sometimes, they stop.
I agree that they should be trying to speed up to join the traffic, but at the end of the day, if they have to stop then that’s fair enough. A slip road is a give-way.
The whole point of the design of a slip road is that you never need to stop when coming off it, short of traffic jams. You get up to the speed of the traffic you’re joining, then you join it. The only two reasons you would ever need to give way are (a) you’re going at a different speed to the traffic you’re trying to join, in which case you’ve screwed up, or (b) you’re trying to pull out next to another vehicle instead of in front or behind it, in which case you’re insane.
They teach this in some countries. Not Britain, though, for some reason.
That would be the Toyota Yaris.
A lot of the time, yeah. What makes me weep hot salty tears is when the vehicle in question is something nice, like an Audi quattro. That’s just rubbing salt into the wound.
The only two reasons you would ever need to give way are
There’s a third, at least on motorways: because while the middle lane is empty, the inside lane is completely full of twats who pretend they can’t see you and refuse to move out. There’s a few bits going onto the M8 like that.
Even if they ignore you, if they’re going a reasonable speed, there are going to be gaps. Just match speeds next to a gap, and slowly, but inexorably, without a hint of hesitation, move into the gap. It’ll open up. If you slow down or stop, though, there is no chance of getting in.