Drivers and their problems

andystow wrote:

Does Wednesday actually have more travel? Or is this a historical accident where traffic is worse on Wednesday which means the busses are slower so more people drive on Wednesdays and the traffic is worse so the busses are even slower so more people drive on Wednesdays?

At that rate, they'd soon reach a Commuter Event Horizon where nobody moves anywhere and everyone just lives in their car, stuck stationarily on the road.

Not just the live blog.

Most news.

This page has latest comments on the bottom.

Missing on buyers guide.

But of course you might not see this comment...

I avoid the lake at all costs since I was one of the morons who did £800 worth of damage to my previous BMW.... needed new lights which aren't just a new bulb as in the good old days. The only car I thought suitable was the Land Rover. The rest just risked it and got lucky!

Cugel wrote:

The big question then: is it just human nature or is there something about cars that hugely amplifies many of the nastier aspects of human nature whilst suppressing the nicer?

Modern cars are, I think, seen as an extension of people's houses.  I think they turn people into the annoying dog which sits by its gate and barks at everyone who goes past, just to remind them not to even think about going into its territory.

giff77 wrote:

So the shopkeepers aren't happy with the prospect of customers living directly on their doorsteps. Thats pretty forward thinking. 

It's something to do with Bacon Tax Sunak's new anti-15-minute cities  - customers have to live more than 15 minutes away.

Hirsute wrote:

"the bus company should use shorter buses " !!

Well they don't need such big buses. Whenever I pass them while I am driving on my own in my MPV, they only have a couple of passengers on them. It's such a waste of space and fuel!

Yup.  You can add to "sudden unexpected events" things like "in winter sometimes the roads are weirdly slippy".

Then the perrenials of "sometimes lots of water falls out of the sky and this impairs vision and makes the car handle funny", "some mornings and evenings the sun appears right on the horizon in front of you, depending on which way you're heading" plus "at night it can get dark and hard to see!"

All that is irrelevant however because "I had to drive".

chrisonatrike wrote:

David9694 wrote:

A VAN blocking a path has been seized by police in Malvern - and officers also found there was no tax or insurance in place on the vehicle after performing extra checks.

The van parked in Green Lane in the Priory area of Malvern was blocking the path so no pedestrians could use it.

Hang on this can't be right.  First - surely when asked about a vehicle blocking a path they said "you need to speak to the council"?  Then - why would the police be interested in tax and insurance?  "That's the DVLA mate".

And don't the council just say they can't do anything if they can't reach the owner?  Seem to recall a recent case here where they "had to" work around a car when resurfacing.

All I know is that this wouldn't have happened in Lancashire...

Perhaps the chief constable lives on green lane in the priory area of malvern...?

polainm wrote:

Half a mile is about 800m, which can be walked in well under 15minutes. #carbound

In some locales, folk become so habituated to sitting, in car or idiotbox sofa (or even the chair in front of their PC) that walking any distance at all becomes a real trial of their extremely enfeebled and perhaps also bleb-like bodies.

One can have sympathy with those who find themselves forced into this condition by ill health or being badly pranged by a car, but for huge numbers of such it was a lifestye "choice" (although they had been hypnotised by adverts at the time). Even as they wheeze and strain when getting out of their chair or sofa, they prefer its "comfort and convenience" to having to get fit enough to walk about, even from sofa to car, without inducing "a bad turn".

It's inconvenient having to ask a teenager to fetch your junksnak & grog bottle from the fridge, though.

Of course, their lifestyle choice with the consequent reliance on car seems to have severely restricted or demeaned the lifestyle choices of others, who must learn car-dodging skills if they are not to be murdered or maimed by a bleb-feeble "driving" a car who has terrible reaction times and an inability to look away from their hypno-gizmo.

What's required is A Nanny of uncompromising intentions to improve the lives of bleb-feebles, whether they want them improved or not. First - confiscate the car.

But no one should listen to me as I am a-one o' them would-be thieves of personages' freedumbs to bugger up everything, including the lives of not just themselves but everyone else; and every thing else. A pink-livered bluddy socialist snowflake or summick, me! I should be run over.

brooksby wrote:

At that rate, they'd soon reach a Commuter Event Horizon where nobody moves anywhere and everyone just lives in their car, stuck stationarily on the road.

It'd be like in that BBC documentary, Gridlock

essexian wrote:

I avoid the lake at all costs since I was one of the morons 

Sounds about right

It starts with a Bacon Tax - then before you know it some officious oink is saying "can't pork there mate".

We'll all end up like Jack Sprat.  I've never heard of a rasher policy.

chrisonatrike wrote:

Yup.  You can add to "sudden unexpected events" things like "in winter sometimes the roads are weirdly slippy".

Then the perrenials of "sometimes lots of water falls out of the sky and this impairs vision and makes the car handle funny", "some mornings and evenings the sun appears right on the horizon in front of you, depending on which way you're heading" plus "at night it can get dark and hard to see!"

All that is irrelevant however because "I had to drive".

It's clearly not their fault that the weather changes.. so why should they change how they drive. How they drive is 95% perfectly accident free for most of the year so they must be right. 

Cugel wrote:

...

Do you have some sort of AI filter to translate normal English into something out of Finnegans Wake?

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

At that rate, they'd soon reach a Commuter Event Horizon where nobody moves anywhere and everyone just lives in their car, stuck stationarily on the road.

It'd be like in that BBC documentary, Gridlock

Wasn't that the 'documentary' starring Father Dougal as a talking cat?

Oh Hi Loser. 

Half term I see. 

brooksby wrote:

Wasn't that the 'documentary' starring Father Dougal as a talking cat?

essexian wrote:

Oh Hi Loser. 

Half term I see. 

Is that the Loser who whines continually claiming that other people follow him around leaving negative comments?

David9694 wrote:

This? 

Close

Cugel wrote:

The big question then: is it just human nature or is there something about cars that hugely amplifies many of the nastier aspects of human nature whilst suppressing the nicer?

Is it that the car itself is an inherently dangerous thing, because of its power and complexity of function, making cars not truly suited to the very limited abilities of humans to control such powerful and complex technology?

What about the culture of the manufacturers and purveyors, who realise that certain nasty aspects of human nature alloyed with the powerful nature of the car, provide an opportunity to sell more via the design and portrayal of the things as "weapons of choice" for go-getting thrusters-about not allowed guns or blunt instruments of more obvious intent?

**********

Well, some leading questions there! 

But without understanding all the factors that make driving motorised vehicles such a dangerous and damaging phenomenon, how do we ever solve all the pressing problems they create?

I think there's an ego-inflation issue as drivers think of the car as being an extension of themselves (which makes sense so that our brains treat distances and gaps appropriately). This leads to some drivers treating any bump against their vehicle as a personal attack upon themselves and respond with anger or fear (fight or flight response) despite it obviously not causing any pain or danger. There's probably a big contribution from the large cost of some cars and certainly the "prestige" brands tend to have very poor drivers.

There's a big problem with drivers who treat making progress as a sign of their competence, virility or power and this can lead to them acting like a toddler when they encounter a delay which often results in an emotional breakdown - most commonly anger.

Another emotional problem that most drivers face is frustration with being stuck in traffic. The best drivers are usually the ones that learn how to deal with that in a calm manner and hopefully without resorting to using their phone to escape the boredom.

Also, the car advertisements don't help as they're selling a dream of carefree driving along empty roads, typically in forests or mountain-sides, and that hardly matches up with the usual scenario of being stuck in a line of vehicles in a dirty urban environment whilst breathing in fumes and pollution from the rest of the traffic.