Collision detection

Drive fast!

Or more often a warning on a slight bend, followed by no warning on the subsequent, far sharper bend.

SteveW

That is the recommended course of action and what learners are taught. If someone behind is too close (assuming that they are not about to pull out to overtake), you are supposed to slow down and increase the gap in front of you. The idea being that there is less chance that you will then have to brake suddenly and so their proximity will not mean them ruuning into the back of you in an emergency.

SteveW

Yes I've noticed that. "That wasn't that sharp.... oh my god! Brake brake brake!" I don't think the folk in charge of roadsigns are all that bright.

They should have pulled out before they got that close.

They're just engine limiters, not a cruise control. Anyway, you can't drop a gear if its a manual box.

Yeah, that'll work, I'm sure no one has every tried that one before!

Certainly if they're members of the IAM then yes, they're probably self righteous old gits who think shuffle steering and never going above 70mph under any circumstances makes them driving gods. I was thinking more of a test that requires people to be taught the specifics of motorway driving which AFAIK they're not right now and unless they can prove they know what to do then they're not allowed on them upon pain of losing their license if caught.

Thats news to me.

What if there is no one in front, what then? Do you still slow down and hold up the guy behind, probably pissing him off even more and escalating the situation?

I'd have thought the sensible advice would be if you've got a tailgater behind you who's bothering you then pull over and let him pass at the first opportunity. Its what I do on some country roads when you often get some local boy racer who knows the road like the back of his hand and gives no quarter to people who don't sitting on your tail no matter what speed you do.

Some of the French seem to like tailgating as a prelude to overtaking. I had one recently, on a wide, dead straight road with light oncoming. I was doing about 70kph, slightly to the right of the driving line, doing my best to keep steady to avoid the driver having to lose momentum when an opportunity occurred.

There were at least 3 easy opportunities missed.

My kid brother has been a trucker for decades, and when the limitter laws came out he said "those things will kill someone" A few days before his 40th birthday it almost killed him. On a long slight downgrade out of Calgary after a week-long rain he dropped one trailer wheel off the pavement into the soft wet gravel on a curve, and with the truck just slightly over-running the limitter he was unable to apply power to pull the load back onto the pavement and it pulled the whole rig, upside-down, into a gully. He litterally "walked away" with a broken kneck and first respoders could not believe he was the driver and had survived. Took the whole top and sleeper off the cab, and the only thing still connecting the cab to the chassis was one air conditioning hose.He did "get back on the horse" and drove for quite some time after recovering, but is now working part time as a crane operator in the oilfields instead.

With french cars I've driven, you need to drop WAY back and "slingshot" to get past traffic. (Renault and Peugeot)

Doesn't sound a whole lot safer tbh!

They should, but it is not uncommon on motorways for someone to get pretty close, as they don't want to drop their speed and struggle to get out and can see a gap coming up in the next lane.

SteveW

Which is fine and sensible, unless you are on a road where there is nowhere to pull over for a couple of miles.

SteveW

Better to use a condom than rely on pulling out. Many a baby can testify to that.

Or many a Catholic parent ;)

SteveW

Possibly an argument for a minimum power to weight ratio required for cars before they can go in the outside lane on a motorway. The current crop of gutless garbage the manufacturers are chucking out simply to meet emissions requirements (eg the mondeo with a 1.0 3 cyl engine) should be banned from it IMO.

Top speed is limiued by power to drag, not power to weight.

AQ typical truck might have a 360 bhp diesel and weigh 36 tonnes all up. So around 10bhp per tonne. limited to 90kmh

And eco boost engine is 99bp and the car probably weighs about 1.5 tonnes. so 60bhp per ton.

Frontal area which governs drag is provaby about 1/3 for the car suggesting that bhp per drag unit is a bit less for the car.

Well ok, total friction is obviously important, but weight matters during acceleration and going up hills.

Profile matters more than frontal area and the barn door styling of the average euro truck doesn't exactly lend itself to a good drag coefficient unlike the swept back design of most cars and thats before you move onto the huge rolling resistance of trucks.