Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

For entertainment on those boring long journeys........

Wait for a tailgaiter to attempt to conjoin with your car, preferably when there is no opportunity for them to over/undertake.

Ideally, they need to be talking to their passenger, or concentrating on the mobile phone conversation.

Select a moment when it is safe for you & you can spend several seconds looking in the rear view mirror. Then..

SLAM ON THE BRAKES...

Then accelerate and watch their faces contort into a mass of sheer terror/panic whilst they drop the phone/swear/try to push their brake pedal though the floor.

Oh.....make sure you have a faster car as well!

When it works well, its great fun! See if you can mouthread their thoughts!!:rofl::rofl::rofl::p

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

That's got to be a state difference. Here I find I spend most of my time on highways behind people who are going 10-20kph below the limit. Whereas in London, if traffic was moving freely, hardly anyone drove slower than the limit.

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I have got used to Sydney driving after 5 months- the weaving in and out means you have to be more aware of everything that is going on- however, from someone who was too scared to drive anywhere near London, I have now driven to the airport twice from the Northern Beaches area! Although you do get tailgated a bit, it is about the same as it was in High Wycombe and Slough, and the speed limits are lower. I have only been flashed once, and that was by a mercedes driver as I left the airport, warning me that I was in a taxi lane- couldn't get out as the taxi's wouldn't let me, so I had to cut in! What I find hard is thinking that you can turn right or left and getting to the junction only to find that you can't! (not marked on the map) I have no sat nav, as I'd never be able to programme it, and they are a distraction if you are looking at the screen instead of the road. :eek:

My gripe is roundabouts- not many people seem to know how to use them, or indicate properly- but that was the same in the UK

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

:eek: I understand the frustration, but don't kill yourself or anyone else in order to make a point!

Em x

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I guess you live near Wol. He admits driving onto roundabouts while people are still coming around indicating right :sneaky::D

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I plead the fifth!

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

Naughty boy Wol- luckily it isn't you as I'm a Sydneysider!:D

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

Martin, that is mainly the case because police now have a 0%(zero) tolerance for the speed of a vehicle. It is well acknowledged by experts from motoring organisations, that speedos have at least a +/- 5-10% margin in error for accuracy, but police guidelines nationwide cannot accept this. Once you could sail through a radartrap in, for example, a 100kph zone, doing 105-109kph, without fear of being caught. This is now no longer the case.

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

Sorry Sean, but that tired old speed excuse by the Government is a load of crap. I've been driving that road, on and off, for over 27 years and I can honestly say that in most cases, it is the design of the road that is a fault, and the lack of major funding for upgrades. Take for example the exit into the Matilda Roadhouse on the other side of Gympie. A right-hand turn in the middle of the road, on the brow of a hill, on a blind corner (both ways), with just enough room in the turning lane for a medium size truck. In fact the entire Highway from Gympie to Corooy has not been widened since I started driving on it 27 years ago to accommodate the masively increased volume of traffic. As far as I recall, they have only taken out 1 dangerous bend down near Amamoor State Forest in all that time. Also, if I remember, the stretch from Bells Bridge to Maryborough was a crap road then as well.
If you go to Goomeri, you will find that they have only just replaced the road and bridge at Fat Hen Creek, which was a nightmare to drive along in that time, as well as in the process of replacing another single-lane bridge near Goomeri. Both stretches have had no major work, save filling in potholes (to make the cars bounce all over the road) in nearly 50 odd years. BTW, they are on a major regional Highway.
Lack of funds is to blame, not speed, in most cases.


This makes interesting reading.... http://www.racq.com.au/about_us/corp...y_racq_members

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I know it's because of the strict enforcement in Vic (2kph tolerance for fixed cameras and 3kph for mobile ones). Burbage's assertion is not true here. But was very true in London (and most of the UK). (I think he likes to paint Aussies with a brush ;))

On speedo accuracy the Aus standard states that speedos should never understate the speed (i.e. show a speed that is less than the actual speed) and are allowed to overstate the speed by up to 10%. The +/- thing is a myth. So it is possible that someone driving at 100 is only doing 90. I know my speedo is 2kph out at 100 and is out by more at slower speeds (4kph at 40).

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

Just north of Melbourne on the Calder Freeway (I _think_ thats what its called) there used to be a gantry over the motorway which had a speed trap that would show your speed. I dont know if it was connected to anything with flashing lights, but it atleast let you know that your speedo showed you were travelling slower than you thought.

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

Yep. I saw that one the other day (although it didn't work). You get them over other freeways as well. There are a couple on the Hume (one just outside Mellie and one just outside Wodonga). Occasionally you get something similar in roadworks.

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I agree that the roads are structurally more dangerous than UK ones. You rarely see right hand turns through the median strip nowadays in the UK. They're still there but not as common as they used to be. Another factor that I think contributes to the higher Aussie road toll are the higher urban speed limits. Most accidents happen in towns.

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I think one of the biggest reasons for tail gating is simply because drivers here (and the UK for that matter) fail to understand the sign that reads UNLESS OVERTAKING KEEP LEFT.

UNLESS OVERTAKING KEEP LEFT does not mean sit in the middle lane on the freeway, it means get in the left lane unless frigging overtaking. How many times a see a car just sat in the middle lane with no other traffic anywhere near astounds me.

Now I personally do not tail gate, recognising its dangers, however, if there is a car sat in the middle lane, I will pull out from the left lane to the right lane then over take before pulling back into the far left lane. A dramatic procedure compared to having to just over take one lane if they were in the right lane in the first place. Other drivers are possibly more frustrated and decide to sit up the car's rear in the hope they can educate the driver to pull over into the correct lane - something that rarely happens.

Re: Tailgating!!! What is the point?
 

I drove from Cairns to the Gold Coast and back at exactly the speed limit, as I always do, and I was the slowest vehicle on the road. Of course you could say that because I was going at a certain speed then I didn't encounter others who were going at the speed limit. On the other hand, I think I overtook a slower car only a couple of times, and if the volume of traffic coming the other way was similr to the volume going my way then yes, I'd say eeryone was breaking the speed limit. I saw quite a few of them pulled in too. One idiot in a merc 4x4 suddenly appeared behind me between a couple of checks in my mirror and was doing the tailgate job on me. Next thing he knew was blue and red flashy lights behind him. Hahahahaha.

Saw one accident too, which wasn't as funny, but was almost certainly caused by excessive speed.

Trouble with the Bruce Highway is that it's single carriageway most fot he way and there are a lot of impatient drivers out there. I pulled over a couple of times to let the dangerous drivers pass me. It's better to have in idiot in front of you where you can see him/her.

I agree though that with local traffic there's not as much speeding as you'd see in the UK. The thing that gets me is that if they can travel exactly at a 110kmh or 115kmh, why can't they travel at 100kmh? Just not able to do it, I guess.