Driving standards

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 

The only thing that Approval would achieve would be to increase the cost of servicing and repairs even further.  There are plenty of poor leccy and gas tradesman around, despite regulation. 

I'd much rather see a widespread (and regular) "spot check" system whereby cars with known faults are submitted for MOT or service and see what the outcome is, with a double five star point system:

First Rating:  0 (Conning B'stad) up to 5 (Dead Honest)

Second Rating: 0 (Hasn't a Clue) up to 5 (Should be on the F1 Circuit).

 

That'd be far more useful

 

There is a system of inspection of MoT testing which pretty much works like that. MoT tester accreditation can be withdrawn. 

[boxbrownie]

8 hours ago, kevinlms said:

A bad driving habit that I haven't seen mentioned here before.

 

People driving with their foot on the brake pedal when not required.

 

Yesterday I was behind a 4WD that had the brake lights on continuously for 5km, including going up hills, before I turned off. Very confusing as you don't know when and if, they are really going to actually brake.  All you can do is stay well back, in case they do.

 

They must have very short brake pad life & heavy fuel consumption, because even if they are using the brake pedal as a foot rest, they must slightly apply the brakes at times.

 

Almost certainly, they were driving an automatic, with the left foot on the brake - very nasty as if they brake in an emergency, they probably press hard with both feet, giving lots of power, just when you need to stop!

Another thing it could be of course is a dodgy brake light switch, either on the foot pedal or brake cylinder, either can cause the brake light to come on at random and or continuously for periods.

Hard to detect by the driver unless noticed in road signs rearward at night.

[newbryford]

I've just come back from a holiday in Portugal.

 

UK bad driving is tame by their standards.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Aren't brake light switches nowadays more frequently microswitches operating from the brake pedal arm?

If so, not as robust a piece of kit as the ones fitted into the brake pipework, although a lot easier to replace.

 

Mike.

[Enterprisingwestern]

Just now, newbryford said:

I've just come back from a holiday in Portugal.

 

UK bad driving is tame by their standards.

 

Could be generalised as Iberia I think, it must be the sun on the head wot does it.

Hence front and rear cameras in my car.

 

Mike,

[boxbrownie]

2 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Aren't brake light switches nowadays more frequently microswitches operating from the brake pedal arm?

If so, not as robust a piece of kit as the ones fitted into the brake pipework, although a lot easier to replace.

 

Mike.

Yes a lot are and these are the most unreliable as they can become loose/dislodged/misaligned which can cause either brake light randomly coming on or not at all (even worse), the older type and some very modern types rely on pressure from the brake fluid system and these are pretty reliable.

[eastglosmog]

7 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Could be generalised as Iberia I think, it must be the sun on the head wot does it.

Hence front and rear cameras in my car.

 

Mike,

You could be right about the sun on the head, because if you go down to Nigeria, drivers are even worse!

[kevinlms]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

When I was working in N Lincs earlier this year, the traffic safety people told me that there was an increasingly widespread habit of driving automatics in Cruise Control, using the brake pedal as a footrest for the right foot. They attributed it to the speed cameras which infest the county’s featureless main roads. 

The few cars I've driven with Cruise Control, all drop out of CC as soon as the brake or accelerator are touched. 

In that case if you did nothing about it, the vehicle would drop to idle and slow right down. So you couldn't drive around with CC on AND the brake lights.

 

But perhaps some vehicles are different?

[rockershovel]

13 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

The few cars I've driven with Cruise Control, all drop out of CC as soon as the brake or accelerator are touched. 

In that case if you did nothing about it, the vehicle would drop to idle and slow right down. So you couldn't drive around with CC on AND the brake lights.

 

But perhaps some vehicles are different?

 

The CC in my Skoda consists of a couple of buttons on the left-hand stalk; one to engage/disengage, one to set the speed. It doesn’t engage or disengage automatically, and it doesn’t detect the distance to the car in front. 

 

Also, the clutch pedal has a switch that works the engine start/stop function. Keep one foot touching the pedal, and the engine keeps running. 

Edited December 30, 2019 by rockershovel

[boxbrownie]

5 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

The CC in my Skoda consists of a couple of buttons on the left-hand stalk; one to engage/disengage, one to set the speed. It doesn’t engage or disengage automatically, and it doesn’t detect the distance to the car in front. 

 

Also, the clutch pedal has a switch that works the engine start/stop function. Keep one foot touching the pedal, and the engine keeps running. 

If you brake while in CC the system should disengage automatically, you then use the “resume” function to re-engage the CC at the previously set speed, if it’s not disengaging there is something wrong with it.

[rockershovel]

I’ve worked and travelled fairly widely in the FSU countries, and driving standards there are distinctly schizophrenic; mostly quite careful in town, rapidly becoming increasingly wild out of it. Russians are probably the worst of the lot, but I wouldn’t be insistent on the point.. Russian vehicle maintenance is non-existent, and huge distances mean that fatigued lorry-drivers are a real problem, not helped by the general lack of security which means that drivers will not stop along the road unless they absolutely cannot avoid it. 

 

 Azerbaijan isn’t bad, mostly because of the heavy police presence on the few main roads. Kazakhstan has very light traffic, wide roads and pretty much nil maintenance, so it’s self-policing. 

 

The worst driving I’ve ever seen has been in India and Pakistan, along with the worst surfaces and vehicle maintenance, although Teheran traffic is pretty dire. Pakistan is about the only place I can recall, rejecting a hire car (from a major chain, at that) as unfit to drive. 

 

 

[rockershovel]

14 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

If you brake while in CC the system should disengage automatically, you then use the “resume” function to re-engage the CC at the previously set speed, if it’s not disengaging there is something wrong with it.

 

A quick browse on the owner’s group website reveals numerous comments, few of them favourable, about the cruise control on Octavias - and the Scout in particular. I have found over the time I’ve had it, that there are various quirks which derive from its origins as a “parts bin special” using Audi surplus capacity; especially, that the front sensors aren’t fitted, and most Scouts are manuals. 

 

Scouts vary considerably from year to year, I find. I had considerable difficulty getting a towbar fitted, for the same reason; the dealer would happily ORDER one, at over twice the price of a Witter, but NOT fit it OR provide fitting instructions because they couldn’t be certain that it actually worked. 

 

I’m told that the new Superb Scout variant has addressed these issues, they aren’t currently available in U.K. so who knows? Not me. 

[Pannier Tank]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

The few cars I've driven with Cruise Control, all drop out of CC as soon as the brake or accelerator are touched. 

In that case if you did nothing about it, the vehicle would drop to idle and slow right down.

 

The Auto Fords that I have driven with CC 'on' allow you to accelerate above the CC Setting (for overtaking move etc) and then when you release the Throttle, the Speed will drop back to the CC Set Speed. As soon as you hit the brakes the CC is disabled.

[kevinlms]

31 minutes ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

The Auto Fords that I have driven with CC 'on' allow you to accelerate above the CC Setting (for overtaking move etc) and then when you release the Throttle, the Speed will drop back to the CC Set Speed. As soon as you hit the brakes the CC is disabled.

Wife's 2007 Ford, does NOT do that. If either the brake or accelerator are touched, the CC is disabled and the Resume button (or speed up or down) must be activated, to well resume.

 

[Sidecar Racer]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

 Russian vehicle maintenance is non-existent, and huge distances mean that fatigued lorry-drivers are a real problem, not helped by the general lack of security which means that drivers will not stop along the road unless they absolutely cannot avoid it. 

 

 

 

 But they do come together when needed .   

 

 

[kevinlms]

10 minutes ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 But they do come together when needed .   

 

 

Ends up just a little one-sided!

 

Still they will probably hi-jack another car, before the day is out.

[rockershovel]

Russia is very much the Wild East. Drivers travel in convoys when they can, many are armed (you can see a driver at the 5:30 mark, clearly carrying a shotgun) and any bandit who chances his arm against a convoy, is very much “on his own”. 

 

Drivers of individual cars are most at risk. 

Edited December 30, 2019 by rockershovel

[Pannier Tank]

14 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Wife's 2007 Ford, does NOT do that. If either the brake or accelerator are touched, the CC is disabled and the Resume button (or speed up or down) must be activated, to well resume.

 

I think the first Ford I had with CC was a 2011 Model, so probably had updated software. The current model does a software update automatically whilst  sitting on the drive connected to the Internet!

[PhilJ W]

 

[37114]

25 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

Legendary...

 

I have seen a few like that in my time,

1) guy straps fence panel to the roof of car, sets off from B&Q, all good in traffic, gets on the A350, winds it up to 60 mph at which point the wind gets under the fence panel snapping it in half, fence panel everywhere..

 

2)I am at Wickes, Guy buys 8x4 sheet of ply with his mate, tries to get it in the back of a Qashqai,  no fit, try all different ways for 3 mins. By this time a couple of builders stood next to me having a smirk as well. The chaps mate says try it in my car. I look round the car park thinking he has a Ford Galaxy or similar but can't see one in the car park....They then walk up to some sort of Alfa coupe... the car park starts laughing before one of the builders asks if he needs an 8x4 sheet or could it be cut. Apparently it is to be cut so customer heaves the board back onto to trolley and goes back in to store only to find that Wickes don't have a cutting machine....

 

3) Wiser guy; realises that the fence panel won't fit in car, clearly only wants half a panel so starts chopping it up with a saw in B&Q car park. Which is fine except fence panels don't cut that well and when halfway through the panel the thing falls apart into a mess...

[Sidecar Racer]

50 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

 

 That would'nt have been quite as bad if he'd turned it ninety degrees , it would still probably have

fallen off but with less chance of decapitating pedestrians on the way .

 

 

[boxbrownie]

And it’s seeing stunts like that which makes me wonder if we deserve to be highest on the food chain........unbelievable!

[Welly]

I had a rather dim colleague at one time, he was doing his house up and bought some plaster boards from a DIY place. Of course he strapped them to the roof of his car and as soon as he went on the bypass, the boards flew off his car and damaged the windscreen of the car behind him. He drove off without leaving his details so the police traced him and he was done for insecure load and failing to stop after an accident!

 

[37114]

1 hour ago, Welly said:

I had a rather dim colleague at one time, he was doing his house up and bought some plaster boards from a DIY place. Of course he strapped them to the roof of his car and as soon as he went on the bypass, the boards flew off his car and damaged the windscreen of the car behind him. He drove off without leaving his details so the police traced him and he was done for insecure load and failing to stop after an accident!

 

Another good reason for getting a dash cam!

[57xx]

22 hours ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

The Auto Fords that I have driven with CC 'on' allow you to accelerate above the CC Setting (for overtaking move etc) and then when you release the Throttle, the Speed will drop back to the CC Set Speed. As soon as you hit the brakes the CC is disabled.

 

My 2010 Focus was a manual with CC. If you touched the brake or clutch, it would disengage but allowed use of the accelerator for overtakes etc (flashes up "Override" on the dash). Current 2016 Focus has Powershift and ACC and works the same with the pedals (but no clutch of course). The ACC will disengage automatically if your speed drops below ~15mph. My brother's old Golf with DSG however would come to a complete stop using ACC (e.g. in traffic jam) and then resume as the traffic moved forward.