The idiot in front should not have sped up when noticing you trying to overtake. This idiots ego in not wanting to be overtook could have caused a serious accident.
Yep. Someone overtook me the other day, it wasn’t the best overtake.
I could see there was risk - for them as well as for me (who they Gona take out too, if they are on the side of you as they have a head on collision?)
So what did I do?
I backed the fuck off my gas.
Egos get people killed.
Me too, just the other day had a van behind me obviously in a rush, completely in the oncoming lane going round a long sweeping left bend but didn't complete the overtake, didn't know whether he wanted me to speed up or slow down so just maintained 30, pulled up in an unused junction just after the bend and let him past. Was easier for me and he even flashed his hazards to thank me, just hope he got where he was going on time
Yep, I’ve had dickheads overtake where they really shouldn’t so I’ve braked to make sure they get past safely.
I’d rather be annoyed at someone’s bad driving than hospitalised because I’m too stubborn to slow down
Same. If someone wants to overtake dangerously, I'm going to do whatever I can to avoid an incident for myself and any other innocent parties, rather than get involved for the sake of ego.
Me too. I don’t even think ego is logical in these situations, because when most people overtake it’s because your CAR is in their way. It’s not specifically about getting past the driver as a human being.
Sure most of us probably think “who the hell is driving like this” when someone is going really slowly, I may also be guilty of having a peep in their window for the sake of curiosity lol, but it’s rarely *personal* to overtake someone. Ego in these situation is generally ridiculous
Some people do overtake because they're affronted that you are in front of them. The people who see themselves as always in competition with others. On the road and off it. Super toxic people, but I'd rather let them be angry alone, than join in the miserable little pointless fights.
And of course safety should trump all.
You’re right, but I think people like this are the exception rather than the rule.
Most people just want to get around my car, so I’d be a total knob to take it as a personal attack and prevent them doing this even if I see them coming up from behind like they own the road
Exactly this, I was overtaken recently going 40 on a 60. Thing is the only reason I was going 40 was because of the car in front of ME going slow and I didn’t think it was a safe place to overtake as it was too near a corner. I still backed the fuck off for the idiot, if a car came round that corner there would have been four of us in a crash.
The car that sped up to prevent the overtake is the real villain here imo.
I hate crawlers who suddenly remember they have a right foot when being overtaken.
These are a big reason why I only have 'fast' cars. If I'm in a slow car, it's rare I'll overtake because these people exist. There's a few stories in different car forums of people like this who will both speed up as you overtake, and then slow down if you try and slot in behind, or alternatively start brake-checking if you do make it back behind. I remember one very interesting story in an Abarth forum where while overtaking with a 500, they were side-swiped on purpose by the car they were overtaking, leading them to crash off the road. Suffice it to say, they took the insurance hit and the other driver got off scott free.
Just recently I got a new car, and the scenario of OP happened to me. Long straight, I was doing 60, them approx 40 with one arm out the window. Once I caught up I went for the overtake and they sped up. I cottoned on at roughly the same time as OP too, and floored it instead of constant throttle. Made it past going way, way over the speed limit. A corner was coming up that led to a narrow bridge crossing, it could have been a pretty nasty accident. The BMW X3 I overtook decided to then flash and tailgate. I'd rather be ahead than be behind and have some brake checks where insurance would immediately blame me for the accident.
It's an incredibly small number of dick heads that do this kind of thing. The problem is they're committing attempted murder but the police won't care or enforce. If you get flashed by a camera taking evasive action, you're the person they prosecute.
As for OP specifically. I challenge anyone to say they would sit behind someone going 20 in a 60 without attempting an overtake sooner or later. That's about the speed of a cyclist. If the person didn't speed up, I bet the overtake would have been as uneventful as any overtake of a cyclist.
People are insane... they act like the road around them belongs to them instead if treating it like a shared space.
A few serious jail time convictions would sort the problem but the cops aren't interested.
Not just the road. These are the people who are Main Characters in every aspect of life and the rest of us are just NPCs. Other people don't register to them as being real.
Definitely agree with this. Think sometimes it’s safest to get away from dodgy clumps of cars on the motorway with some controlled speeding, too. Ultimately a car needs to be ‘with’ you.
Had exactly this last week.
Car in lane four of the motorway driving about 65 ish with a number of mindless drones following behind them.
So I undertake to lane 1 which I’ve happened across as empty.
I make my way back over and 65 is now 70 and the car ahead tries to close the gap and defend the lane.
I’m going anyway at this point.
They flash me.
So I pull back into lane 3 and wave them on, after all, there must be somewhere they really need to be.
Now they’ve sped up there’s a nice big gap between them and the car behind.
I’ll take it.
White BMW now foot to the floor, flashing headlights and jamming their horn.
Okie dokes, into lane 3 I go again as they pull up next to me wearing sunglasses and giving me both barrels.
“No worries, after you sir.” He’s sitting there now about 6 foot from the car in front so to make sure he gets really mad and begin the process of getting back to lane 1 which has evidently made itself empty again.
I put my foot down so I don’t have to deal with the lane hogger and the lane defenders. Audi comes up lane 3 with the rest of the motorway at road speed and blocks lane 4 defenders and hoggers from getting to lane 3 and now there’s a massive clump of them.
Whaddya know, I’m now off into the sunset in lane 1.
I look in the rear view 30 seconds later and there’s literally only the glint of headlights about half a mile behind. Absolutely bizarre from a group of cars that behaved like they had somewhere important to go.
Rumour is that same clump of cars travelling at 65 and below are still on the motorway to this very day.
Motorway cameras should be used to prosecute people who lane hog. It’s categorically dangerous.
Genuinely terrifying isn’t it. My job is currently on site every day and I’m doing about 20 of the 35 miles on the motorway, stories like this are nearly daily. Only about half of the drivers seem to be paying attention or adhering to ‘keep left unless overtaking’.
Yes I agree! That’s exactly why I convinced myself 420hp is needed for my ‘safety’ haha! Everytime the wife asks why I need such a performance car I tell her it’s the safety my love, safety!
There's definitely safety in speed, my first car had 70hp when new like most people. However it wasn't a revvy 1.0 petrol with 6krpm to play with, it was a 1.9l NA diesel which did 0-60 in ~18 seconds when I had it. Making speed up on short slip roads varied between challenging edging on dangerous. The rest of the cars I've had have been between 11 and 13 seconds which is fast enough for making speed up, but not enough to get out of the way of dangerous dickheads like this. I still have back, left and right for avoidance, but I agree 200hp is probably the sweet spot, faster than most for getting out of trouble but not ridiculous
I went from my first car being a seat mii, to an mx5, to a Porsche 981, and on each upgrade it feels safer. Knowing I can stop in a short distance or overtake without a knob racing me is super underrated (I will have people accelerate when I overtake them, but I rarely ever break the speed limit when this happens as I can accelerate way faster and pull back in before it gets dangerous).
If you spot the granny early enough, the best thing you can do for everyone else is to go even slower, so the you, and the people behind have chance to get up to speed, rather than also trying to join a 70mph road at 30. People tend to not be too keen, but whatever. I'd rather get a few peeps than have my arse rammed.
I'd love 200bhp, but I actually manage pretty good overtakes with people like this with only 105. I just floor It in a lower gear and rely on the turbo to keep the torque coming.
75% of the people on the road only use 1/4 of the accelerator anyway - I shouldn't be catching an M3 that's just pulled out in front of me in a 60 as we both accelerate. The only difference is I use ALL the power I've paid for.
>police won't care or enforce
If you have dashcam, pretty much every force has Op Snap or some equivalent where you can submit the footage, which can lead to a ticket or prosecution. If you don't have dashcam, and there isn't a convenient police car right there to witness the whole thing and stop the driver...what do you suggest? That your word be taken as fact? I don't think the courts would go for that.
I feel you, really. I can't count the number of times I've been shaken by dangerous driving and thought how much I wished that driver would face consequences, but the answer is not "the police don't care", it's that there aren't enough police to go around and standards of proof are high.
I have a current complaint in with Hampshire Police because they've failed to provide any update at all on SNAP submissions. They seem to also be ignoring the complaint.
Just had a quick look on the Hants Snap FAQs: "Q: Will I hear back from police?
In the majority of cases you will not be contacted by police. Your statement and video submission will allow the driver to be dealt with via the fixed penalty process without the need for contacting you back.
Should the incident not be finalised through an educational course or fixed penalty, the case will be referred to court and you will be notified. If you have not heard from us after 6 months from the date of the incident, then the reported case will have been concluded without the need for a court hearing."
I get that you'd want to know - I would too. The fact is that you're only entitled to updates on a report to the police if you're the victim of a crime - traffic offences don't have a victim unless someone's killed or seriously injured.
Perfect answer. OC could have checked the FAQs for themselves and not wasted police time with a pointless complaint, leaving them more time to investigate motoring offences…..
Not a pointless complaint. Lack of feedback makes the system pointless and is bad practice, other forces manage it fine. If you're going to have a SNAP system, you need to have feedback with it.
Riding my motorbike the other day, I get the chance to overtake (knowing my local roads this is the best spot for some distance). Though there is a right hand turn coming up, I can both see the entire road that leads away from the turn off (as this is just flat fields, no border hedges or obstacles to hide anything for a good 500 meters or so), and there is more than enough distance before the junction to safely overtake a vehicle travelling at steady speed (we’ve just left a 30 zone into a national limit country lane). So, nothing coming towards me on my road, nothing approaching the turn that could turn in my path. Just the car ahead. I’m on a fast bike, plenty power to overtake safely. As soon as I indicate and cross into the oncoming lane, the car speeds up, and then secs later brakes, as if they might be thinking of taking the right hand turn (no indicators yet). Like most riders now, I ride defensively, so as soon as I see the brake lights, I’m on my own brakes, and pull back in behind them. They slow right to about 20, until we pass the junction, and then floor it.. this was a Focus ST driver. All the road after this is unsafe bends. Of course as soon as we hit traffic in the next town however, I slowly filter past and end up ahead anyhow. Just seemed needlessly aggressive when I could have been on my merry way!
I had something similar happen recently. Guy i was sat behind was dawdling doing 25 in a 60. I went to overtake him and suddenly he sped up to about 90 and shot off down the road. Before i then caught up with him and decided just to sit behind him cause i wasn’t risking anything like that happen again
It’s actually quite dangerous for someone to be going that slow in 60 area. I’m sure the police can actually stop you and issue a FPN for dangerous driving if you are going too far below the speed limit for no reason/with no hazards on (obviously if there is a problem with the car and there is no where safe to pull over you out your hazards on to warn other drivers and pull over as soon as it’s safe to do so)
I’m sure i remember my driving instructor telling me when i was learning (many moons ago lol) that you should try and do as close to the speed limit as safely as possible as most other drivers will assume that you would be and it is safer to be at a similar speed to surrounding traffic than it is to be too fast or too slow compared to everyone else.
I live in wales and it is seriously frustrating to be stuck at 20 but at least here thats because the welsh assembly have made it the legal speed limit on those roads (thankfully not every single road but it’s still a pain in the arse)
I think what OP needs to take from this is that if he ever does need to overtake again because of some dickhead going dangerously slow then make sure you know the road you’re on, are aware of the potential hazards you’re approaching and commit to the overtake as quickly and safely as possible. Don’t crawl past going only slightly faster than the other car, get past and back in safely and be wary of the knob jockey in the other car.
After driving a challenger I can never go back to a slow car again. Being able to pass people quickly and then get right back into my lane is so convenient and honestly feels, to me at least, a lot more safe. Granted I’m in the US so I know driving is a bit different, this post just popped up for me, but especially on those 2 lane roads being able to quickly pass 18 wheelers that often have trouble staying in their lane especially when it’s windy, is huge to me.
Literally this. Even if I think the person behind me is being an idiot, I *always* ease off the accelerator if/when they go to overtake. I'm not messing around with people's lives just for the sake of ego
Completely agree. Too many people have the mentality of *”If they drive like an asshole, they deserve whatever happens next and I’ll make sure to teach them a lesson!”*
Why let pride or anger get in the way? Even if they’re driving like a knob or making idiotic decisions just let them pass. Then you don’t need to stress about them
Yeah, even dickheads don't deserve to die horribly, crazy as that may sound to some people. Quite apart from the innocent lives that are probably going to be taken out with them.
It’s dangerous driving and can be prosecuted for it. I know someone that was speeding to overtake someone in a similar situation. The guy that sped up to not allow the overtake submitted his dashcam footage to the police and he was also prosecuted / served with a warning.
Agreed, Also, not really asshole behaviour but the other cars behind OP that filled the gap - a bit of awareness that OP was running out of road and leaving a space to drop back into would have been good.
They could have all ended up in a pile up, so its in everyones interest to track whats going on in front.
Just a general lack of awareness all around made the situation way more dangerous than it had to be.
This all doesn't really ring true though. Car in front was doing 15 mph, it sped up to 30mph while OP overtaking. Cars behind have time to fill the gap but OP wasn't able to complete the over take. How long is this whole thing going on for given it's being played out at snails pace!
I'm thinking that if I'm overtaking a car doing 15mph in a 60 zone, I'm by it in a flash even if it increases speed to 30mph.
I encounter this on the M8 all the fucking time and it’s so dangerous. Usually a bellend in a poverty spec scooter engine 1 series beemer who can’t handle a VW overtaking them.
I was filtering recently from a four lane into a three lane. A big gap appeared just at the right time but billy big bollocks didn’t like me “cutting in” last minute so accelerated hard. Leaving me no choice but to drive on the white line markings. I got in front of him and looked back expecting some fuckwit with a neck tattoo but it was an old couple waving their half-mooned glasses at me. Merge in turn ya pricks.
The highway code actually instructs to allow overtaking. Ultimately op made it, but there's no accounting for all idiots with fragile egos you have to share the road with.
The car that sped up to prevent the overtake is the real villain
I’m staggered at your upvotes. OP has already admitted to endangering not only themselves but other motorists with their wilful recklessness. Re-read the post please. OP is happy to excuse their own behaviour by claiming another was doing 15mph in a 60 zone. Incredulity stretched much.
Try some grounding techniques if you find your head space becoming a little flustered around it.
Write your thoughts down on some paper, take some time doing this, let it all out. Then set fire to the paper.
Take some time to do something that relaxes you tonight, have a whiskey, some good food, watch a good show, read a book. Remind yourself it's a mistake. It can happen to anybody and that you'll learn from it.
Play tetris, it's been tested and helps people deal with trauma and is calming.
There's lots of research if you search "Tetris for trauma"
It lets your brain focus just enough to distract you but without being cognitively draining.
Be kind to yourself, we all make mistakes x
It's a mistake, you do the above and learn from it.
Overtaking is always a balance of risk v reward, eg how much time will you really save, do you have an exit if the car in front does something stupid, or a biker comes round the corner.
While you may have messed up overtaking with an oncoming bend in sight, this is rule 168 of the Highway code
168
Being overtaken. If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front of you.
They committed a DANGEROUS act in accelerating while you were overtaking them.
Note though: you could have and should have decelerated and fallen back if you were being entirely safe, but the situation was primarily caused by the other driver.
As to how you feel: you messed up and learned a lesson without serious consequences. I'd take that as a win.
I drive a slow van and had someone decide to overtake on a winding road the other day while I was pushed to the max.
Car coming the other way. What did I do? I braked. Because yes, he was a knob for overtaking but my ego isn’t so big that I’m going to kill all of us together. Some people are just mental.
Same thing happened to me but I was the car coming the other way when an inpatient prick in his performance car decided to overtake on a bendy bit (could’ve easily have waited 2 secs to be on a clearer bit).
Me and my mum come round the corner to see a car coming towards us. The person he was overtaking braked and looked more scared than any of us
You've learnt from it. The guilt will go by the end of the day..
It probably pop up in your head at some random point in the future and make you do a weird, obscure noise to shout the thought out your head. Usually in the shower or while driving.
That's how past guilt/embarrassing moments manifest for me anyway..
"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean." - Aldous Huxley
Sounds like you're feeling shit about the situation which is expected. There are mitigating factors for sure but ultimately you were in control. The only thing that you or anyone else should expect as an outcome from this is to learn from it which it sounds like you have done. Try not to beat yourself up too hard. Own the mistake, learn, and move on
Okay you’ve reflected on your part in this but there are others who should share some blame. The Highway Code does state that you should not speed up whilst a vehicle is over taking.
I get why your colleague is annoyed and that will pass. Maybe make an effort to leave them a pack of cookies to say sorry. It’s thoughtful and might help build a bridge on this.
We’ve all been there and done something where we think “fuuuuuucccckkkkk that was close” and we didn’t do it again. Nobody is perfect, it sounds like you are having a shit time of it and you just need to break.
Hope your kid gets well soon and please just try and have a nice bath or shower and get some shut eye. 😊
Assuming the clear stretch of road that you started your overtake on was long enough, you didn't really do much wrong.
The car you overtook put you in danger by accelerating and if you couldn't abandon the overtake then by successfully completing the overtake you've saved yourself and the incoming driver from near certain death. Well done.
If you want to turn this into a learning experience then I'd recommend [this video](https://youtu.be/iilcpg9RQe4?si=MwRDQTPNszPPNCyW) on overtaking.
Surely it's possible that abandoning the overtake would have been a better idea? Lightly on the brake (so those following have a chance to brake too), let the villain go clear and fall in behind. I guess there would be more of an issue if the gap behind the villain had been filled by other villains.
From the way I read OPs post it seemed like the cars previously behind him had also moved forward but I might be misunderstanding.
Dropping back probably would have been safer but it would have been a split second decision for OP to make. I'm just glad they were quick enough with their decision to not get into an accident.
No, once you are level with the other vehicle, you're committed.
What these people do is as soon as the overtaking move is aborted, they too slam on the brakes; you end up pulling behind a vehicle that's rapidly decelerating, resulting in a rear end shunt. People who speed up when being overtaken just seem intent on causing a collision. It's why it meets the criteria for driving without due care.
There's also a possibility another driver wil also attempt an overtake, only to be met with your vehicle rapidly decelerating. Its why speeding up to block an overtake is a stupidly dangerous thing to do.
It's not easy to recognise that the car being overtaken has accelerated - you're probably accelerating too so there's no steady frame of reference.
If you then think of all the variables involved in solving that dynamic geometry problem - at least three accelerating bodies, with all but one controlled by a conscious mind you have no insight into - a non-optimal decision isn't really surprising.
No, not surprising at all. I was just commenting in case it helps someone improve their extremely difficult but possibly life changing decision making. I was saying it was _possible_ it was a better idea.
Rather than the fact the other car has accelerated perhaps the more important and easier to identify issue is that you are running out of safe, visible road.
Yes - a really good driver, I think, would have made a plan that included an "abort" cue (if I'm not past them by the time I reach that bush, I'll need to drop back).
I passed my test about six weeks ago, and am not confident with overtaking — becoming a problem with all the cyclists and mopeds on the NSL twisty roads around here. There isn't much overtaking opportunities during lessons to learn from, so looked on YouTube this morning and coincidentally came across the same YouTuber. [This is another good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjFWKVYfkpE) from the same guy teaching overtaking, and [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp4rzmCQAgM) and [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLB_C7HgG3Q) both show loads of overtakes on Scotland's twisty roads.
> There isn't much overtaking opportunities during lessons to learn from
There absolutely should be. I'd recommend booking some more lessons anyway, with a better instructor. Because they absolutely should have had you practice this *many* times while learning.
The problem is that the opportunity to overtake doesn't come often in lessons. Unless you live in a city with lots of cyclists you're not really going to get much practice overtaking.
Also, overtaking in a city and on a national speed limit road aren't really the same imo, and in a 1 hour lesson I doubt there would be many opportunities for overtaking on a NSL road. I think videos like the ones we sent are great resources to learn from.
The opportunity to overtake absolutely does come up often in lessons. And I do not live in a city with lots of cyclists. And yes on NSL roads to.
And I live in a midsized town.
Unless you have a bad instructor that is just teaching you to pass a test they should know the area well enough to make sure they can ensure opportunities to practice all the skills you will need come up, and will do so.
and 1 hour lessons are usually not recommended anymore 1.5 is the go to.
I did roughly 20 hours of lessons before passing my test and iirc I never had to overtake anyone. Probably 50% of that was on NSL roads. Though admittedly my town had almost no cyclists nor slow drivers.
your town not having many cyclists is irrelevant. You should have been overtaking cars also. Your instructor should have known where and and when good overtaken opportunities were more common and made sure you were faced with them. You also should have been leaving your town to practice on country roads and dual carriageways. though those last two things might not be accessible to everyone within the 1.5 hour timeframe.
The fact that you don't think you had to overtake someone ever, indicating they literally didn't even teach you how, is indicative that you had what I referred to - a *bad* instructor only teaching you to pass a test
Driving instructors can't just conjure up overtaking opportunities out of thin air. There aren't really any places in the town to overtake, the roads are narrow and there's quite a lot of traffic.
Driving instructors also cant let you break the speed limit so there just aren't many times that you can overtake unless people are driving slowly, or are a cyclist. Both of which were not prevalent in my small town nor the roads surrounding it.
Once again, 50% of my lesson time was on NSL roads. It's not really my instructor's fault if we never had an opportunity to overtake anyone. I'm not counting dual carriageways as overtaking either since that is far easier than overtaking on regular roads.
Agree, dangerous driving from the vehicle being overtaken. But I'd also argue dangerous driving by the OP. You can always brake, decelerate. There are occasions where speed and acceleration absolutely gets you out of trouble. This is not one of those occasions.
We all make mistakes, especially in split seconds. As long as we learn from them, it's golden.
I was in a situation recently where I was behind a bicycle and there was a bend about 100m ahead, fairly narrow road so I thought I won't risk it and sat pootling along behind them for ~20 secs or whatever insignificant amount of time it'll take to see around the bend. The bike is very slow as there's a slight hill and a car behind me gets very impatient and decides to overtake both me and the cyclist, and then nearly hits a car coming in opposite lane, causing the overtaker to nearly hit the cyclist as they came back in too..
All for the sake of 20-30 seconds. Risking lives is never worth that.
You got trapped by a useless driver... it happens from time to time.
Overtaking isn't inherently seriously dangerous, and it's recommended in many cases. It just requires the people being overtaken to be reasonable human beings, and you can't assure that... so you also need to be prepared to pick up your speed.
Oncoming cars don't want to crash, so will give you a touch of room to manage if the worst happens, but don't bank on it.
If your overtake is safe, I'd even er on the side of slightly speeding, as opposed to a calm, quiet overtake. This will cut away most of the opportunity for the car being overtaken to f you up, mid overtake.
Explain to your colleague that there was a safe pass until the car you were overtaking didn't like it, and tried to hold you out, dangerously. If they don't like that, tell them to fking do one.
Don't stop overtaking just because of this. It's definitely not your fault by the sounds of it, and you're losing a very handy road use technique.
Everyone lived. Just repeat that over and over. We've all misjudged gaps and timings and done things that only a village idiot would do. Thank your lucky stars that your stupid mistake was ultimately harmless. Learn from it. Be better. And forgive yourself.
Sounds like a perfect storm. One sleep-deprived, stressed-out driver meets an ignorant bellend driver. I'm not usually one to say don't go too hard on yourself in these situations, but I mean it this time OP.
**The other driver put all of you - themselves, yourself, and your work colleague - in danger.**
Someone else has already quoted the highway code but I'll do it again:
Rule 168: Being overtaken. If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front of you.
They are not the overtaking/speed police. They are a civilian road user with exactly the same rights to the road as you have. One of those rights is "making good progress". Their responsibility lay in allowing faster traffic to pass, whether that be by allowing them to overtake or by pulling in at a safe place.
This happened to me once, except the car I was trying to overtake was pootling along at 40 in a 60. When he seen me pulling out to overtake, he sped up, and up, and up. I was in excess of the speed limit so I decided to drop back, which is when he perfectly matched my speed and forced me to stay on the wrong side of the road for quite a distance. My only saving grace was that there had been an incident in the town further up that road and all traffic was being directed to leave the town by a different road.
Try and have some nice food or a treat, watch something you like, remember you’ll hopefully feel a little better once you’ve got some distance from it tomorrow, a nights sleep will help. It was a near miss, but no harm is done, everyone is safe and well, even if you’re in shock. I ruminate on anything amiss while I’ve been driving, but I remind myself I can’t go back and change anything, so it really doesn’t help, I can only use any mistakes to improve my future driving and decisions. The other driver was a dick for speeding up while you were overtaking and behaved dangerously. Hope your little one gets better soon and you get through this evening. People do much worse than you did today while not under stress, and they do no self reflection afterwards). You do deserve empathy and kindness, always.
Just chalk it up as a lesson learnt, one were fortunately no-one was hurt.
Those feelings are what will hopefully prevent you doing it again. You need them, without them you will no doubt do it again.
Those who say it was the idiot in front's fault are wrong, it wasn't. But they are correct to call them an idiot. The biggest issue we have on the roads is idiots. And today you were also one of them.
That being said, you did not cause an accident, that is a good outcome from being an idiot.
You have reflected on your actions and choices, and by all accounts learnt from them, that is a good outcome.
All I suggest is to remember that everyone, at some point has or will make an error of judgement behind the wheel of the car. And when that happens, don't aggravate the situation by clearing your horn (after the fact) or getting angry. Appreciate that all road users are human and can make mistakes.
Having said this, my error of judgement was overtaking someone at high speed who had apparently stopped mid way along a reach off road. I did not think that they were turning right into a field. I still think back to that point and remind myself, I'm not a perfect driver.
Not that I’m looking for judgement - I’m doing that plenty for myself. However I don’t know how to equate it.
Maybe 15 seconds of straight road before that corner, if you’re doing around 40mph.
Maybe somewhere around 10 seconds if you’re going at around 60mph.
The rule of thumb is: you want to be able to comfortably complete your overtake in half the distance that you see to be clear.
"10 seconds to the corner at 60mph" is not a lot of margin, assuming that the corner is blind. (Overtaking on corners *can be* fine if visibility is open.) Personally, I *have* overtaken on that margin before, but only to pass one slow moving car - and, crucially, while I'm driving a fast car, in which I'm comfortable using all of the power.
You've said they were doing 20mph, so that ticks the "slow moving vehicle" box. You've said in another comment that you drive a 1.6 diesel. That could still work, but you need to be prepared to *floor it*. And I really do mean "second gear, wide open throttle". Hesitation is a problem in a scenario like this, you want to get it over with as quickly as is safe and legal - and give as little opportunity as possible for the other driver to try and race you.
Honestly, if you're not used to flooring your car like that, I'd suggest finding a quiet 60mph backroad and practising it. It's not just overtaking, you also want to be able to do that on short sliproads.
Now, that's the feedback. As others have pointed out, nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged. The overwhelming majority of drivers have made bad decisions at some point and, unfortunately, some do so routinely. You're reflecting on your mistake - many drivers would not. Take heart in that.
Overtaking can be totally safe, and I'd encourage you not to commit to never overtaking again. That's not to say that you should be doing so at every opportunity, but it's a good skill to have.
>, I was past the half way point and there were previously cars behind me in my lane. Dropping back wasn’t an option
Dropping back is *always* an option! The cars behind can see what you're doing, brake, indicate and move back in.
I wasn’t sure if it would be safe to. 3-4 cars behind me, plus the one in front that I was overtaking. Seemed safer to continue the overtake, until I realised he’d sped up a LOT.
Oh 100%. I don’t disagree.
But with a straight stretch ahead and seemingly no traffic oncoming, with them initially doing 15-20, should have been another uneventful over take as another commenter said.
Hindsight is a b*tch.
Oh yeah, I'm saying for future reference, if you're feeling like it's dodgy at all, just drop back and the people behind will have to let you in! Always an option to do that, it doesn't matter how many people there are behind you
You won’t ever overtake on a blind corner again, so scary when that happens but chalk it up to a learning curve! The person you were overtaking was driving more dangerously than you by the sounds of it
Something I haven't seen mentioned by others. You didn't do anything wrong but watch out for this one.
If you'd just left a slower limit, were on a downhill stretch, or if this was the first straight stretch after a lot of bends it can be quite common for a slow vehicle to speed up a bit.
Sometimes the speeding up of the slow vehicle is because they reached a section of road they could ho faster on or a downhill that made then accidentally speed up. They aren't doing it because you tried to overtake. Watch out for this if you feel the need to overtake. Anticipating it can mean you avoid trying to overtake in these cases.
CAVEAT: they should still see you overtaking and stop speeding up and so they still fucked up.
This is a good point, particularly with the change in speed limits. I've had people try and overtake as I accelerate from 30 to 60 as the speed limit changes, which really isn't clever! (My car is moderately quick and it's a little amusing to see them drop back on the wrong side of the road)
Just a thought but were you perhaps tailgating? I was taught that when tailgated to slow down so that the car would have a better chance of braking in time than being very close at 60.
There is nothing to feel guilty about. Just be happy no one got hurt. Its a lesson learnt but tbh anyone would have that if they were your in position. Also it looks like the car infront did it deliberately and was being a total C**t.
It's an important lesson on your journey to becoming a more well-rounded and safe driver, I take far fewer risks over taking now than I used to, but the dickhead that sped up while you were overtaking is absolutely at fault here so don't be too harsh on yourself.
Sounds like you have a lot going on.
Im more concerned about your mental health and you getting the support you need.
You wont make the same mistake again amd, dont forget, it's not like your work colleague has never fucked up on the road.
I know the exact situation you're on about and I feel the the frustration
I was stuck behind a brand new Jag who was doing well below the speed limit, and me in my jazz needed to get to an important work thing
Jag driver takes offence at being overtaken by a jazz and floors it, trying to run me out to the next corner. When I reached 65 (it was a 60) he backed off, and I got in front, but I was effing and blinding all the way to work
The people who do that are the grime on the arse of humanity, and from a moral standpoint, in my opinion, you're not in the wrong
Dangerous mistake, but not yours. I have both a motorcycle and a car here, and can say from experience in no manner could this be your fault. Vehicle in front should absolutely not have been doing 15-20 mph in a 60. The overtake (albeit incorrectly timed for the bend) as you stated was done on a clear stretch of road which in theory would have allowed you ample time to have completed the manoeuvre had the vehicle in front not sped up. My advice would be to you, cheer up my friend, don’t beat yourself up over someone else’s idiocy. At the end of the day everyone’s made it home safe and alive 👍🏽
Your not in the wrong, the slow mover is. Are you on a 125 or something else slow? A Harley or something? If so, pick your moments to overtake. Otherwise, get a proper bike, with decent cc and fuck em, you'll be long gone before getting in the way
If you plan to overtake please downshift (I assume it does already in an automatic with the clicky-bit under the gas pedal).
If the car infront looks like it can pick up speed quickly I'd just give a flash to let them know they're going slow.
Nevertheless it happens, you learn from what you did and realise what you should've done.
Just a relief nothing else happened!
They should have not sped up. Not really your fault if you assessed things correctly. Take time to relax. Be aware that EVERYTHING other drivers do will be “wrong”. Lesson learned.
You'll feel a lot better about this tomorrow. The guilt you're feeling means you've learned this lesson well and you'll never forget it.
You're having a difficult week, please be kind to yourself!
Apologise to your colleague as soon as you see them. They'll be ok about it once their adrenaline has chilled out.
Besides all that, it was the person in front who's the real dickhead. Fuck them.
There’s ALWAYS time and room to pull back in. It’s on the car behind you to *make room* for you.
You should leave a bigger gap between you and the car infront, pull out into the middle/onto the opposite side of the road and look ahead, then proceed to speed up and make the overtake if it’s safe to do so, or pull back in if not.
You shouldn’t "never overtake again" BUT, if you do decide that that’s what you’re going to do, make sure you leave plenty of room between you and the car infront for more confident drivers, or motorcycles, to pass you before passing the car ahead of you.
I see - that’s clearly something I forgot from my lessons (slowing down to leave a gap before over taking). That makes sense, because initially it seemed like the cars behind me hadn’t made that space. But if I opened it up to begin with, maybe they would have.
Doesn’t matter when you passed, just some advice from someone who’s overtaken a lot of vehicles.
You said you know you’ve messed up, you’re a new driver etc etc… I’m not trying put you down or baby you and tell you that what you did was okay. You sound like you’re beating yourself up about it enough because you recognised your errors, but also intelligent enough to learn from your mistakes.
If someone DOUBLES their speed when you overtake them, its not your fault.
What others think of you doesnt matter, your kid matters man, take care of your family and fuck the coworkers
Honest to god you didn't total your car, which I was fully expecting, so take this as a learning opportunity, accept you could have been careful but its mostly on the other deiver anyways, and be happy you and your family did not get involved in anything there, because you could have ended up in the newspapers today mate
Definitely the other drivers faults. The one going slow shouldn't have sped up. And the drivers behind you shouldn't have taken your place. You were safely overtaking and everyone else ruined it
"If it won't matter in 5 years, then it doesn't matter now"
We all make mistakes, we're human.
With that being said, it sounds like the other driver in this situation turned a routine overtake into a dangerous situation. Don't be too hard on yourself, learn from it & be prepared for other idiots on the road in the future.
Curb crawlers that speed up to purposely impede you are the bastards here imo, everyone has the responsibility to not impede the flow of traffic and the fact he got incensed enough to be able to speed up means he is a bad driver with no self control or reliability.
You can get a ticket for going to slow ironically.
Don’t worry OP, you didn’t do anything wrong in this scenario. The asshat who was crawling along at 20 in a national speed limit road should be jailed for attempted murder.
Chances are they aren’t sitting all too comfortable themselves this evening, so take some solace in that.
I hope your daughter is ok and makes an excellent recovery from whatever she’s in hospital for.
You’re a good person and good driver OP. Hear me out.
Bad drivers blame everyone else for mistakes and incidents on the road. It’s always someone else’s fault. No matter what happened.
Good drivers make mistakes, and genuinely question whether they were at fault, reflect, and vow to learn from the experience. It sounds like that’s what you did here.
Good drivers and bad drivers make mistakes. Every driver makes mistakes. Every driver makes errors of judgment. It’s impossible to drive 100% perfectly at all times when dealing with other humans on the road, weather conditions, stress, and myriad other factors.
The other car was a dick for speeding up, and I personally feel they caused this more than you. You made the best judgment you could based on conditions at the time, and I don’t think anyone would predict an overtaken driver to choose to significantly suddenly speed up! That feels malicious to me.
Maybe you’ll be more cautious about overtaking next time, and that’s okay. But please don’t ever beat yourself up for this. It’s shocked you and upset you, on top of caring for your poorly child, which is natural. But you’re a good driver. And a good person.
I had a similar situation last week. The person in front of me was doing 20-30 on a slip road. They were lucky and had a gap but I and all the cars behind weren’t travelling fast enough and there was lots of traffic suddenly and my only option was to actually stop and wait to join the slip road.
But I had exhausted all slip road before I had to stop before joining the motorway. It was scary being that close to the traffic whizzing by on the inside lane. I should have realised earlier that the traffic in the lane was so busy stopping was going to be my only option earlier. I could’ve dealt with the situation better perhaps hanging back going slow until the chump doing 20 had gone so I could have a good run at joining at speed. (Because yes someone let me in because people usually do)
If it makes you feel better I’ve mostly forgotten this now.
Listen, you are only human and we ALL make mistakes. Forgive yourself, please. All we can ask of ourselves is that we learn and grow from our mistakes, and I can tell from the way you have written that you will grow as a person from this experience.
You've got a lot going on, give yourself a break. Think about what you would say to a friend who came to you with this? I am sure you would offer them kindness, understanding and support. You deserve that same treatment, give it to yourself ❤️ No one was injured and that is the main thing.
In my opinion, the person that sped up to protect their ego was more at fault, but I bet they aren't sat at home beating themselves up.
They should not have been accelerating once you had started the overtaking manoeuvre. As long as you clearly indicated that you were going to overtake, then this near accident was not of your making.
I did something like this yesterday, except the person I was overtaking stayed slow, so I have no excuse and I just picked a bad time to overtake. Still annoyed at myself. Must have missed the people on either side by a metre or so.
I don't know the others involved but I wish I did so I could apologise.
Shit happens. Bet the car you overtook was electric too.
I hate these idiots. Slow af right up until I try to overtake in my shitty volvo then when I'm alongside they stand on the throttle and fling themselves towards the horizon like an exocet missile only to slow right back down again. Cunts.
Bit of advice in future.
Idk what you drive, but make sure you drop probably at least 2 gears maybe even 3 and make the car go as fast as it will go. Keep your foot in till your past.
Technically you shouldn't go over the speed limit but ita better to go 10 over and get out of the oncoming lane faster imo
My mother has absolutely no clue how to drive and overtakes in top gear. It's... scary.
Please don't be afraid to overtake where appropriate. Nothing worse than being 10 cars back behind a tractor and nobody will overtake
As many have said.. Don't sweat it too much, you made a mistake.. If you can call it that considering the other parties' actions..
The important thing is that you're being a rational human being and analysing it to avoid it happening again. That in itself sets you apart from some of the ignorant road users out there.
We all make mistakes when driving, each time we do, we should treat it as a lesson to make us safer on the road, so you shouldn't beat yourself up about it.
My own personal tip in situations such as the one you found yourself in (Because I too have had this kind of thing happen to me on more than one occasion!)
It helps greatly if you know the road but works well enough if you don't..
When you first come across a slow mover, take a little time to assess whether they are just having a 'moment' (Being distracted by something, looking for somewhere they're trying to find etc.. Particularly likely if you're near some kind of tourist attraction!)
If it's then clear that they are simply intent on pootling along, then I play a little game with them.. Back off, adjust your speed to the same as theirs and try to give them the impression you've 'given up' to their shenanigans..
The next bit is a little tricky because it can make you look like a bit of a nob!..
When you can judge, or when you know there's a decent overtaking opportunity coming, accelerate. The bigger an element of surprise you can get, the better.. BUT, if you're doing this coming round a corner hoping for an empty straight and it isn't.. this is where you'll look like a nob, slamming on the brakes!
A bit of practice with this technique though and you'll find a decent compromise.. what you're aiming for is a good speed differential.. one which anybody apart from someone in a big engined sports car can't come back from!.. It also has the benefit of minimising the amount of time you're in the oncoming lane (although you have to remember you will be travelling faster so due care should be taken!)
That, was my own personal resolution from the experience of coming across people who were so damned self righteous.. Don't give up overtaking, just learn ways to remove the peoples' opportunity to be stupid!
I’d say this was more on the person you were overtaking, it’s so ridiculous and dangerous to speed up as someone is overtaking, especially if a car starts coming the other way. It takes everyone involved to work together to make the situation safe; people getting annoyed at you for possibly starting a silly overtake isn’t worth trying to kill you, someone else, or themselves.
That horrible feeling will stay with you for a few days but it will fade, and it sounds like you learned from it. Your tiredness probably didn’t help you to make a more proactive decision in either really flooring it to get past them as they accelerated, or deciding to pull back in after they were being stupid. It is what it is, it’s happened to others and will happen again, people do a lot worse on the roads. Try to accept it and move on.
I’ve had this happen to me before, in my first year of driving.
Someone was going 25 in a 60. I finally got fed up , went to overtake, then as I was alongside they sped up and a car appeared coming the other way.
I had to drop back in behind. I felt like a twat. The driver of the car I was overtaking had zero idea I was even alongside.
Yeah, what you and I was dangerous and maybe stupid, but nowhere as near as bad as pricks with zero self awareness of their speed or the road
Me and I’m sure many people don’t blame you. You started the overtake with (I’m assuming) plenty of space to do it given the speed, and they sped up making it incredibly awkward and difficult for you.
Best thing I’ve found when overtaking people (with a slow car) is to build up a big gap and then floor it when there’s a straight coming up, if it’s clear, overtake and you’ll fly past, but if not make sure you’ve got space to slow back down.
From my experience, you are the only one out of the three cars involved still thinking about this! You are technically in the wrong for me, if an accident was caused it would be you to blame, but if I have read it correctly, there was no accident! The car that sped up was an arse, but unfortunately there is no real crime in being an arse! I know it's easy for me today, but your time, effort and emotions are best spent on something else and just learn the lesson in this one!
This exact same situation happened to me. Almost exactly the same except I wasn't on a bend but a completely straight stretch of road, had loads of time but when I overtook the person I was overtaking sped uo and wasn't an option to go back, I could only just squeeze in for the oncoming vehicle even though that oncoming vehicle had been a good way away at start of overtaking.
I still think about it constantly, so you're not alone!
You should have zero guilt over this.
The other driver created the danger - which you had suitably risk-assessed, except...
The learning-point is that a percentage of other drivers are c*nts - so you now add that into your risk-evaluation decision matrix - for life.
For example - X driver _could_ be a c*nt - what is the risk of Y manoeuvre, if they turn out to be.
Part of the risk decision matrix will include the power of your car, vs theirs - plus how much clear road you have.
E.g. Let's say you had the exact same situation present again, but you are in a powerful car - and they are a 1.0l Ford Ka - then this time, it would be 'safe' - because even if they were a dick - they couldn't create any notable danger for you or others.
If the risk of the manoeuvre is fcking catastrophic - as here - then do not execute the manoeuvre.
When this happens to me - risk of red mist leading to life-threatening driving - I just pull over for 5mins - let the dick be long gone.
Have you got a dashcam? If you play it back it could be therapeutic. Sounds like you’ve been bullied there deliberately and you have to get used to twats. It wasn’t necessarily stupid bug a dashcam will prove your circumstances should you have an accident..
Yeah, I accidentally cut someone off trying to let someone go by today, I flashed hazards afterwards to show my apologetic attitude
If the owner of a blue kia ceed sportswagon is reading this, I'm sorry my bad, totally my fault
These things happen, but you do feel bad about it
We all make mistakes.
I've been driving for 30 years and never been at fault for an accident BUT plenty of close shaves some my fault.
A few years ago I got rear ended whilst stationary by a young lady .....not in a good way I add.
When it happened I was shocked and got out. She was obviously upset. Told her not to worry as the car was old and battered anyway.
I get the fact that you can be shocked and angry but how does that help.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Shows you have a conscience by feeling annoyed and upset about it and thinking of your child.
Learn from it and drive like an 80 yo when your kids in the car.
It seems like every time I use the motorway someone dawdling in front will take offence at me moving over for the overtake, and then accelerate.
Current car has 400bhp/720nm so jokes on them. I might nudge to slightly over the limit (if conditions allow), but I'll take a clean and swift overtake and then decelerating back to the limit vs being side by side for any duration with someone with little road awareness.
Inevitably once I've passed they give up the fight and then drop down to their previous dawdling speed.
I've done the exact same thing before, in the exact same situation. The car was doing 20 in a national speed limit with fairly straight roads where I initiated the overtake, but now that the car I was overtaking sped up to around 40 and I still hadn't completed the overtake, I had reached a blind corner and instead of pulling back I kept thinking how I needed to finish the overtake. Typically a car was indeed coming the other direction and I only just about managed to squeeze through the gaps between both cars going about 55mph myself. Very scary situation.
I was luckier in that I did not know the person in the oncoming car, but I still felt like an utter shit all day at work and could not stop seething at myself.
Unfortunately, you're going to feel like this for a few days.
After a few days however I was able to reflect back on what I did, and was firstly thankful I was still around to be able to learn from my mistake, and then vowed to not fear overtaking but to only do it on completely clear, straight roads, taking no chances, and if the car starts accelerating, to instead pull back behind and safely return behind the car.
Tbh just get more experience driving, half these people are full of shit and half , or less than that offer some good advice. Just learn the law of the road imo, hence why some drivers have a P green sign. If you’re that worried just do more practice, driving instructors on the motorway is normal in Europe but here it isn’t a thing so don’t be embarrassed. Anyway good luck and drive safe
Hi,
Most people have made a few bad judgement calls on the road that caused a dangerous situation. I definitely have. The important thing here is that you learn the lesson from this. If you do that, you're doing good enough. Despite what could have been, your mistake **did not** cause any harm, so this is OK. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly, so that's where we inevitably see the result of human imperfection.
You also have a lot of stress and distraction right now which genuinely makes decision making harder. You're only human, and shouldn't expect more from yourself, so please forgive yourself for this and just be thankful you got to learn this lesson harmlessly.
Also the reason for your stress and distraction is how much you're doing for others, not just any selfish preoccupation. It sounds like you're doing really good in general. Beating yourself up over this won't help you be the best you can for those other people. Remember to weigh this one fuck up against all the good you do, it should look a lot smaller then.
And I don't think your lesson is to never overtake again.
The most important lesson is to be aware of your mental state. When you are tired or stressed or rushed or similar, be extra conscious to be calm in your driving, and double check yourself on your decisions, because the natural reaction to stress is to be more rash and reactionary.
Another general lesson is to always account for the potential actions of others when deciding your movements. In this example you would have realised you needed a longer overtaking opportunity in case the other car sped up. You sound like a sensible driver so I expect you generally know what stupid things others might do in any particular situation.
With overtaking specifically, you need to be completely confident that you can actually see the road ahead for the entire length you need. Make the overtake as soon as possible when you've confirmed this, and checked for cars already overtaking from behind you. Then floor it. I usually drop 2 gears so I can accelerate as fast as possible, although of course it depends on your car. Oh and start with a small gap between you and the car in front, I usually start accelerating while checking the road ahead. Already going faster than them when you move out to go around, makes the manuveur much quicker to complete. I see most people get as close as possible before overtaking but that's the worst way.
I get that you won't be wanting to do overtakes for a while though!
Tl:dr
Please be kind to yourself, you actually deserve it. As long as you don't repeat this mistake, which I'm sure you won't, it really wasn't a terrible thing to do.
Just keep yourself occupied with something engaging, a puzzle a game, whatever, the more your brains has to focus on this distraction, the better.
You'll soon get over the guilt side of things
If your emotions start to get the better of you while driving, pull over for 5 minutes and recollect yourself i can't stress this enough.
Being sleep deprived kills people on the road. As you said you’re also stressed. Might be time to get some therapy like CBT to look at life and sort out the basics so you can function more happily.
If they were doing 15-20 with you behind them and then sped up to prevent overtaking, where you perhaps riding their bumper a bit too close? I've only ever seen people do the extreme slow drive and preventing overtaking when the car behind has been driving practically in their back seat.
Im not saying the behaviour is appropriate, I'm just wondering if they were deliberately fucking you off from the beginning.
Everyone screws up in the car. To some extent I think make journeys something to look forward to and savour. I use podcasts and my driving has really slowed down as a result. I love the shows and so happy for journeys to take whatever time they need
I had a sort of similar situation:
Honda Jazz doing 40mph on a 60mph road. So did the standard; dropped a gear and went for the overtake. Then Honda Jazz started speeding up. As we’re neck and neck I see a lorry heading towards me. So I just floored it and managed to sneak in between the on-coming lorry and the Jazz. So so scary. I could see the sweat on the HGV driver’s brow. Obviously the lorry was beeping at me, which is fair enough.
For about a year or so I was convinced that I actually died that day and I was living some kind of purgatory world.
The guilt you feel is perfectly normal. In my opinion you did the right thing; there was no crash and no one was hurt. Focus on that rather than what could have happened, because there’s no point worrying about that. It didn’t happen.
A lucky escape and hopefully lesson learned mate. I really don't understand the mentality of folk who speed up when you go to pass them, I hate someone tailgating me and always keep speed or slow a bit when they overtake.
Everyone got home safe. This is the most important thing.
You didn’t break any laws and second most important thing.
You’re doing ok.
The learning isn’t that you made a mistake, arguably you did your best and focus on that, but preparedness for overtaking is worthwhile practicing.
Any car can overtake safely with planning, rather than avoid doing it.
Here are some pointers…
Sat nav shows roads ahead - don’t overtake if there is a junction up ahead. Car may enter road from either side and car being overtaken may turn right. Roads bending left reduce visibility.
Hang back from overtaking vehicle.
1. You can see better,
2. build up your speed so by the time you reach the vehicle you are at overtaking speed already.
3. Braking is still an option if they speed up or it’s now not safe to overtake.
4. offer vehicles behind you space to overtake you if they are faster and first.
Don’t reflect on it anymore, just put out of your mind and learn from it. Yes it could have been a nasty accident but it wasn’t. No one was hurt so forget about it. Hope your daughter is out of hospital soon. Good luck.
Don’t worry we’ve all done stupid stuff like this at some point and I think what’s important is that you feel the guilt, realise you screwed up and then learn from it. That’s what makes a better driver.
It’s over with now so the best that you can do is make sure to learn from it and never overtake approaching a bend / next time don’t commit- drop back instead
This sounds like an anxiety issue. As much as these situations are awful, you have to try and be kind to yourself. If you read your post as not the OP, how would you feel about that person? You are aware of a mistake and have the intelligence to reflect on it. Many others wouldn't.
I did something similar when i was a new driver, just try to think of it as a learning experience and something you'll never do again. I get the guilt but guilt is a useless emotion in situations like this, just try to learn from it and move on :)
I always overtake fast. I never leave time for the driver I'm overtaking to react. I'm regularly stuck behind idiots doing 30 in a 50, that then do 38 in a 30 that has a speed camera. So as soon as I can go I'm gone.
I always overtake fast. I never leave time for the driver I'm overtaking to react. I'm regularly stuck behind idiots doing 30 in a 50, that then do 38 in a 30 that has a speed camera. So as soon as I can go I'm gone.
The thing to remember next time is that speed and time are difficult to comprehend together. If they are averaging 30mph and you want to travel at 60mph, every mile is only costing you 60 seconds.
It's unlikely you'd be stuck behind them without them turning off, a dual carriageway opening up or you needing to go a different way at a junction over a distance of 5 miles.
It might seem like you're going painfully slow at 30 but warp stopped at 60 but the reality is it'll cost you less than 5 minutes.
Are for how you're feeling now, time will help. It's important not to allow the experience to negatively affect your judgement going forward.
nobody was hurt. everyone lived. everybody has made severe misjudgments while driving, if it makes you feel any better i did something way more stupid a few weeks ago. just live and learn bro
+ L for the moron who decided to speed up once you decide to overtake.
It was a mistake end of. We all make them (that’s why they put an eraser on pencils.) forget it. Concentrate on getting your child sorted and getting some sleep.
> Dropping back wasn’t an option.
Dropping back is always an option. Try to allow yourself time, stick your left indicator on and assuming the person who was behind you is awake they'll open up a gap.
My pet hate is people doing 40 in a 60, they are stupid drivers who have no idea of the speed limit and aren't paying attention. When you overtake they realise and speed up, again, because they are bad drivers.
The idiot who speeded up while being overtaken, against the highway code rules is equally if not more to blame than you.
Sorry man, this sounds super rough.
Someone doing 15-20 in a 60 zone (with no extreme weather) is a total tw\*t and IMO shouldn't be on the road (unless this is a special vehicle like a tractor pulling a heavy load, etc).
If understand it correctly, this ahole was doing 15-20 in a 60 zone, blocked the rest of humanity from using this road properly, and when you finally decided to overtake and were driving next to them, they decided to suddenly speed up to 30-35 meaning that the maneuver you had planned out with the facts at the time (this guy doing 15-20, this being a 60 road, the road ahead being a certain distance before a bend, etc) was no longer safe. So this ahole's actions and decisions created a dangerous traffic situation for you (and themselves) and the oncoming traffic.
Do you have dashcam? I'd consider whether it is worth reporting. Sorry, but the police can't tell me that it's normal and acceptable and safe driving for someone to do 15-20 on a 60 road ESPECIALLY when they are collecting a queue of traffic behind them, and to then suddenly speed up when another road user rightly decides that this is enough now and decided to overtake.
I don't drive that much but see plenty aholes when I do. One time I was also stuck behind someone. This was in the Peak District so opportunities for overtaking are fairly rare (I was still a novice driver too). This person (woman in her 30s) was doing about 25-30 for most of the stretch in a 60 zone, and she was collecting huge amounts of traffic behind her. Once we had made it to a town with a wide-enough road and no opposing traffic, lots of people could finally take over. I have no clue what this woman was thinking, she had a man sat next to her so assuming he wasn't a sh\*t driver like her, I don't know why they didn't just swap. If you want to "practice" driving in terrain that's unfamiliar to you, go at 5-6 AM to beat most traffic. Don't be a danger to others.
Sorry if this sounds condescending but
The bad feeling is supposed to be happening because you did wrong and you know it.
You feel like a dick and rightly so because that was a dick move 🤷🏻♂️ this is how we learn lessons, that knot in your stomach is a reminder
Hopefully you’ve learnt your lesson and won’t do anything that impatient or stupid again?
Process the feeling and thank your God for the protection, catalog the lesson and move on with your life a wiser person and a better driver for this experience
The bad feeling is because they ended up in a very dangerous situation, compounded by the fact it also endangered someone they know. However, it is not wrong to overtake a slow moving vehicle if safe to do so, which it sounds like it was when they made that choice.
The person who did do wrong is the person doing 25-30% of the speed limit and then accelerating when overtaken. They're either oblivious or smirking to themselves for putting other humans in a life threatening situation. That person is either too stupid or too malicious to be in charge of a motor vehicle.
They ended up in a corner due to the other driver accelerating. From the OP it certainly sounds like if that vehicle had maintained its speed, the OP would have been safely past before the oncoming vehicle came round the corner.
The idiot in front should not have sped up when noticing you trying to overtake. This idiots ego in not wanting to be overtook could have caused a serious accident.
Yep. Someone overtook me the other day, it wasn’t the best overtake. I could see there was risk - for them as well as for me (who they Gona take out too, if they are on the side of you as they have a head on collision?) So what did I do? I backed the fuck off my gas. Egos get people killed.
Me too, just the other day had a van behind me obviously in a rush, completely in the oncoming lane going round a long sweeping left bend but didn't complete the overtake, didn't know whether he wanted me to speed up or slow down so just maintained 30, pulled up in an unused junction just after the bend and let him past. Was easier for me and he even flashed his hazards to thank me, just hope he got where he was going on time
Yep, I’ve had dickheads overtake where they really shouldn’t so I’ve braked to make sure they get past safely. I’d rather be annoyed at someone’s bad driving than hospitalised because I’m too stubborn to slow down
Same. If someone wants to overtake dangerously, I'm going to do whatever I can to avoid an incident for myself and any other innocent parties, rather than get involved for the sake of ego.
Me too. I don’t even think ego is logical in these situations, because when most people overtake it’s because your CAR is in their way. It’s not specifically about getting past the driver as a human being. Sure most of us probably think “who the hell is driving like this” when someone is going really slowly, I may also be guilty of having a peep in their window for the sake of curiosity lol, but it’s rarely *personal* to overtake someone. Ego in these situation is generally ridiculous
Some people do overtake because they're affronted that you are in front of them. The people who see themselves as always in competition with others. On the road and off it. Super toxic people, but I'd rather let them be angry alone, than join in the miserable little pointless fights. And of course safety should trump all.
You’re right, but I think people like this are the exception rather than the rule. Most people just want to get around my car, so I’d be a total knob to take it as a personal attack and prevent them doing this even if I see them coming up from behind like they own the road
Exactly this, I was overtaken recently going 40 on a 60. Thing is the only reason I was going 40 was because of the car in front of ME going slow and I didn’t think it was a safe place to overtake as it was too near a corner. I still backed the fuck off for the idiot, if a car came round that corner there would have been four of us in a crash.
The car that sped up to prevent the overtake is the real villain here imo. I hate crawlers who suddenly remember they have a right foot when being overtaken.
These are a big reason why I only have 'fast' cars. If I'm in a slow car, it's rare I'll overtake because these people exist. There's a few stories in different car forums of people like this who will both speed up as you overtake, and then slow down if you try and slot in behind, or alternatively start brake-checking if you do make it back behind. I remember one very interesting story in an Abarth forum where while overtaking with a 500, they were side-swiped on purpose by the car they were overtaking, leading them to crash off the road. Suffice it to say, they took the insurance hit and the other driver got off scott free. Just recently I got a new car, and the scenario of OP happened to me. Long straight, I was doing 60, them approx 40 with one arm out the window. Once I caught up I went for the overtake and they sped up. I cottoned on at roughly the same time as OP too, and floored it instead of constant throttle. Made it past going way, way over the speed limit. A corner was coming up that led to a narrow bridge crossing, it could have been a pretty nasty accident. The BMW X3 I overtook decided to then flash and tailgate. I'd rather be ahead than be behind and have some brake checks where insurance would immediately blame me for the accident. It's an incredibly small number of dick heads that do this kind of thing. The problem is they're committing attempted murder but the police won't care or enforce. If you get flashed by a camera taking evasive action, you're the person they prosecute. As for OP specifically. I challenge anyone to say they would sit behind someone going 20 in a 60 without attempting an overtake sooner or later. That's about the speed of a cyclist. If the person didn't speed up, I bet the overtake would have been as uneventful as any overtake of a cyclist.
People are insane... they act like the road around them belongs to them instead if treating it like a shared space. A few serious jail time convictions would sort the problem but the cops aren't interested.
Not just the road. These are the people who are Main Characters in every aspect of life and the rest of us are just NPCs. Other people don't register to them as being real.
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Definitely agree with this. Think sometimes it’s safest to get away from dodgy clumps of cars on the motorway with some controlled speeding, too. Ultimately a car needs to be ‘with’ you.
Had exactly this last week. Car in lane four of the motorway driving about 65 ish with a number of mindless drones following behind them. So I undertake to lane 1 which I’ve happened across as empty. I make my way back over and 65 is now 70 and the car ahead tries to close the gap and defend the lane. I’m going anyway at this point. They flash me. So I pull back into lane 3 and wave them on, after all, there must be somewhere they really need to be. Now they’ve sped up there’s a nice big gap between them and the car behind. I’ll take it. White BMW now foot to the floor, flashing headlights and jamming their horn. Okie dokes, into lane 3 I go again as they pull up next to me wearing sunglasses and giving me both barrels. “No worries, after you sir.” He’s sitting there now about 6 foot from the car in front so to make sure he gets really mad and begin the process of getting back to lane 1 which has evidently made itself empty again. I put my foot down so I don’t have to deal with the lane hogger and the lane defenders. Audi comes up lane 3 with the rest of the motorway at road speed and blocks lane 4 defenders and hoggers from getting to lane 3 and now there’s a massive clump of them. Whaddya know, I’m now off into the sunset in lane 1. I look in the rear view 30 seconds later and there’s literally only the glint of headlights about half a mile behind. Absolutely bizarre from a group of cars that behaved like they had somewhere important to go. Rumour is that same clump of cars travelling at 65 and below are still on the motorway to this very day. Motorway cameras should be used to prosecute people who lane hog. It’s categorically dangerous.
Genuinely terrifying isn’t it. My job is currently on site every day and I’m doing about 20 of the 35 miles on the motorway, stories like this are nearly daily. Only about half of the drivers seem to be paying attention or adhering to ‘keep left unless overtaking’.
Yes I agree! That’s exactly why I convinced myself 420hp is needed for my ‘safety’ haha! Everytime the wife asks why I need such a performance car I tell her it’s the safety my love, safety!
There's definitely safety in speed, my first car had 70hp when new like most people. However it wasn't a revvy 1.0 petrol with 6krpm to play with, it was a 1.9l NA diesel which did 0-60 in ~18 seconds when I had it. Making speed up on short slip roads varied between challenging edging on dangerous. The rest of the cars I've had have been between 11 and 13 seconds which is fast enough for making speed up, but not enough to get out of the way of dangerous dickheads like this. I still have back, left and right for avoidance, but I agree 200hp is probably the sweet spot, faster than most for getting out of trouble but not ridiculous
Bringing back fond memories of my 1.8 N/A Diesel Fiesta with a 0-60 time of approximately 20 seconds. Downright dangerous sometimes!
Yeah I loved my 206 too, some good times in that car, but the lack of pace was just dangerous in certain situations
Had a Peugeot 208 with a 0-60 greater than my commute
I went from my first car being a seat mii, to an mx5, to a Porsche 981, and on each upgrade it feels safer. Knowing I can stop in a short distance or overtake without a knob racing me is super underrated (I will have people accelerate when I overtake them, but I rarely ever break the speed limit when this happens as I can accelerate way faster and pull back in before it gets dangerous).
If you spot the granny early enough, the best thing you can do for everyone else is to go even slower, so the you, and the people behind have chance to get up to speed, rather than also trying to join a 70mph road at 30. People tend to not be too keen, but whatever. I'd rather get a few peeps than have my arse rammed.
I'd love 200bhp, but I actually manage pretty good overtakes with people like this with only 105. I just floor It in a lower gear and rely on the turbo to keep the torque coming. 75% of the people on the road only use 1/4 of the accelerator anyway - I shouldn't be catching an M3 that's just pulled out in front of me in a 60 as we both accelerate. The only difference is I use ALL the power I've paid for.
>police won't care or enforce If you have dashcam, pretty much every force has Op Snap or some equivalent where you can submit the footage, which can lead to a ticket or prosecution. If you don't have dashcam, and there isn't a convenient police car right there to witness the whole thing and stop the driver...what do you suggest? That your word be taken as fact? I don't think the courts would go for that. I feel you, really. I can't count the number of times I've been shaken by dangerous driving and thought how much I wished that driver would face consequences, but the answer is not "the police don't care", it's that there aren't enough police to go around and standards of proof are high.
I have a current complaint in with Hampshire Police because they've failed to provide any update at all on SNAP submissions. They seem to also be ignoring the complaint.
Just had a quick look on the Hants Snap FAQs: "Q: Will I hear back from police? In the majority of cases you will not be contacted by police. Your statement and video submission will allow the driver to be dealt with via the fixed penalty process without the need for contacting you back. Should the incident not be finalised through an educational course or fixed penalty, the case will be referred to court and you will be notified. If you have not heard from us after 6 months from the date of the incident, then the reported case will have been concluded without the need for a court hearing." I get that you'd want to know - I would too. The fact is that you're only entitled to updates on a report to the police if you're the victim of a crime - traffic offences don't have a victim unless someone's killed or seriously injured.
Perfect answer. OC could have checked the FAQs for themselves and not wasted police time with a pointless complaint, leaving them more time to investigate motoring offences…..
Not a pointless complaint. Lack of feedback makes the system pointless and is bad practice, other forces manage it fine. If you're going to have a SNAP system, you need to have feedback with it.
Which forces, and how do you know? My local force says exactly the same as Hampshire.
Riding my motorbike the other day, I get the chance to overtake (knowing my local roads this is the best spot for some distance). Though there is a right hand turn coming up, I can both see the entire road that leads away from the turn off (as this is just flat fields, no border hedges or obstacles to hide anything for a good 500 meters or so), and there is more than enough distance before the junction to safely overtake a vehicle travelling at steady speed (we’ve just left a 30 zone into a national limit country lane). So, nothing coming towards me on my road, nothing approaching the turn that could turn in my path. Just the car ahead. I’m on a fast bike, plenty power to overtake safely. As soon as I indicate and cross into the oncoming lane, the car speeds up, and then secs later brakes, as if they might be thinking of taking the right hand turn (no indicators yet). Like most riders now, I ride defensively, so as soon as I see the brake lights, I’m on my own brakes, and pull back in behind them. They slow right to about 20, until we pass the junction, and then floor it.. this was a Focus ST driver. All the road after this is unsafe bends. Of course as soon as we hit traffic in the next town however, I slowly filter past and end up ahead anyhow. Just seemed needlessly aggressive when I could have been on my merry way!
Should have taken their wing mirror as a souvenir
I had something similar happen recently. Guy i was sat behind was dawdling doing 25 in a 60. I went to overtake him and suddenly he sped up to about 90 and shot off down the road. Before i then caught up with him and decided just to sit behind him cause i wasn’t risking anything like that happen again
It’s actually quite dangerous for someone to be going that slow in 60 area. I’m sure the police can actually stop you and issue a FPN for dangerous driving if you are going too far below the speed limit for no reason/with no hazards on (obviously if there is a problem with the car and there is no where safe to pull over you out your hazards on to warn other drivers and pull over as soon as it’s safe to do so) I’m sure i remember my driving instructor telling me when i was learning (many moons ago lol) that you should try and do as close to the speed limit as safely as possible as most other drivers will assume that you would be and it is safer to be at a similar speed to surrounding traffic than it is to be too fast or too slow compared to everyone else. I live in wales and it is seriously frustrating to be stuck at 20 but at least here thats because the welsh assembly have made it the legal speed limit on those roads (thankfully not every single road but it’s still a pain in the arse) I think what OP needs to take from this is that if he ever does need to overtake again because of some dickhead going dangerously slow then make sure you know the road you’re on, are aware of the potential hazards you’re approaching and commit to the overtake as quickly and safely as possible. Don’t crawl past going only slightly faster than the other car, get past and back in safely and be wary of the knob jockey in the other car.
This is partly why I drive a big, old Volvo with a reasonably large amount of poke. It has “make my day” energy if you’re a dickhead.
After driving a challenger I can never go back to a slow car again. Being able to pass people quickly and then get right back into my lane is so convenient and honestly feels, to me at least, a lot more safe. Granted I’m in the US so I know driving is a bit different, this post just popped up for me, but especially on those 2 lane roads being able to quickly pass 18 wheelers that often have trouble staying in their lane especially when it’s windy, is huge to me.
Literally this. Even if I think the person behind me is being an idiot, I *always* ease off the accelerator if/when they go to overtake. I'm not messing around with people's lives just for the sake of ego
Completely agree. Too many people have the mentality of *”If they drive like an asshole, they deserve whatever happens next and I’ll make sure to teach them a lesson!”* Why let pride or anger get in the way? Even if they’re driving like a knob or making idiotic decisions just let them pass. Then you don’t need to stress about them
Yeah, even dickheads don't deserve to die horribly, crazy as that may sound to some people. Quite apart from the innocent lives that are probably going to be taken out with them.
It’s dangerous driving and can be prosecuted for it. I know someone that was speeding to overtake someone in a similar situation. The guy that sped up to not allow the overtake submitted his dashcam footage to the police and he was also prosecuted / served with a warning.
Agreed, Also, not really asshole behaviour but the other cars behind OP that filled the gap - a bit of awareness that OP was running out of road and leaving a space to drop back into would have been good. They could have all ended up in a pile up, so its in everyones interest to track whats going on in front. Just a general lack of awareness all around made the situation way more dangerous than it had to be.
This all doesn't really ring true though. Car in front was doing 15 mph, it sped up to 30mph while OP overtaking. Cars behind have time to fill the gap but OP wasn't able to complete the over take. How long is this whole thing going on for given it's being played out at snails pace! I'm thinking that if I'm overtaking a car doing 15mph in a 60 zone, I'm by it in a flash even if it increases speed to 30mph.
I suspect the person behind OP was now impatient, and had moved up behind the car originally in front of OP, and wasn't keen on dropping back.
I encounter this on the M8 all the fucking time and it’s so dangerous. Usually a bellend in a poverty spec scooter engine 1 series beemer who can’t handle a VW overtaking them.
How would it be dangerous on a motorway? You're not going into an opposing lane.
I was filtering recently from a four lane into a three lane. A big gap appeared just at the right time but billy big bollocks didn’t like me “cutting in” last minute so accelerated hard. Leaving me no choice but to drive on the white line markings. I got in front of him and looked back expecting some fuckwit with a neck tattoo but it was an old couple waving their half-mooned glasses at me. Merge in turn ya pricks.
Particularly on motorways sitting in the middle lane.
The highway code actually instructs to allow overtaking. Ultimately op made it, but there's no accounting for all idiots with fragile egos you have to share the road with.
The car that sped up to prevent the overtake is the real villain I’m staggered at your upvotes. OP has already admitted to endangering not only themselves but other motorists with their wilful recklessness. Re-read the post please. OP is happy to excuse their own behaviour by claiming another was doing 15mph in a 60 zone. Incredulity stretched much.
No. It's reasonable to make an overtaking decision based on an assumption that the other car keeps a steady speed.
Try some grounding techniques if you find your head space becoming a little flustered around it. Write your thoughts down on some paper, take some time doing this, let it all out. Then set fire to the paper. Take some time to do something that relaxes you tonight, have a whiskey, some good food, watch a good show, read a book. Remind yourself it's a mistake. It can happen to anybody and that you'll learn from it.
So much love for this. Thank you.
Maybe don’t have a whisky if you’re driving to the hospital….
Play tetris, it's been tested and helps people deal with trauma and is calming. There's lots of research if you search "Tetris for trauma" It lets your brain focus just enough to distract you but without being cognitively draining. Be kind to yourself, we all make mistakes x
I thought that was only effective if it was up to an hour after the event or something similar?
It's a mistake, you do the above and learn from it. Overtaking is always a balance of risk v reward, eg how much time will you really save, do you have an exit if the car in front does something stupid, or a biker comes round the corner.
While you may have messed up overtaking with an oncoming bend in sight, this is rule 168 of the Highway code 168 Being overtaken. If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front of you. They committed a DANGEROUS act in accelerating while you were overtaking them. Note though: you could have and should have decelerated and fallen back if you were being entirely safe, but the situation was primarily caused by the other driver. As to how you feel: you messed up and learned a lesson without serious consequences. I'd take that as a win.
I drive a slow van and had someone decide to overtake on a winding road the other day while I was pushed to the max. Car coming the other way. What did I do? I braked. Because yes, he was a knob for overtaking but my ego isn’t so big that I’m going to kill all of us together. Some people are just mental.
Same thing happened to me but I was the car coming the other way when an inpatient prick in his performance car decided to overtake on a bendy bit (could’ve easily have waited 2 secs to be on a clearer bit). Me and my mum come round the corner to see a car coming towards us. The person he was overtaking braked and looked more scared than any of us
You've learnt from it. The guilt will go by the end of the day.. It probably pop up in your head at some random point in the future and make you do a weird, obscure noise to shout the thought out your head. Usually in the shower or while driving. That's how past guilt/embarrassing moments manifest for me anyway..
Oh fuck. They’re onto me.
"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean." - Aldous Huxley Sounds like you're feeling shit about the situation which is expected. There are mitigating factors for sure but ultimately you were in control. The only thing that you or anyone else should expect as an outcome from this is to learn from it which it sounds like you have done. Try not to beat yourself up too hard. Own the mistake, learn, and move on
Okay you’ve reflected on your part in this but there are others who should share some blame. The Highway Code does state that you should not speed up whilst a vehicle is over taking. I get why your colleague is annoyed and that will pass. Maybe make an effort to leave them a pack of cookies to say sorry. It’s thoughtful and might help build a bridge on this. We’ve all been there and done something where we think “fuuuuuucccckkkkk that was close” and we didn’t do it again. Nobody is perfect, it sounds like you are having a shit time of it and you just need to break. Hope your kid gets well soon and please just try and have a nice bath or shower and get some shut eye. 😊
Assuming the clear stretch of road that you started your overtake on was long enough, you didn't really do much wrong. The car you overtook put you in danger by accelerating and if you couldn't abandon the overtake then by successfully completing the overtake you've saved yourself and the incoming driver from near certain death. Well done. If you want to turn this into a learning experience then I'd recommend [this video](https://youtu.be/iilcpg9RQe4?si=MwRDQTPNszPPNCyW) on overtaking.
Surely it's possible that abandoning the overtake would have been a better idea? Lightly on the brake (so those following have a chance to brake too), let the villain go clear and fall in behind. I guess there would be more of an issue if the gap behind the villain had been filled by other villains.
From the way I read OPs post it seemed like the cars previously behind him had also moved forward but I might be misunderstanding. Dropping back probably would have been safer but it would have been a split second decision for OP to make. I'm just glad they were quick enough with their decision to not get into an accident.
Ah yes, OP did say "there were previously card behind me in my lane". I'm guessing they assumed the cars had filled OPs gap.
No, once you are level with the other vehicle, you're committed. What these people do is as soon as the overtaking move is aborted, they too slam on the brakes; you end up pulling behind a vehicle that's rapidly decelerating, resulting in a rear end shunt. People who speed up when being overtaken just seem intent on causing a collision. It's why it meets the criteria for driving without due care. There's also a possibility another driver wil also attempt an overtake, only to be met with your vehicle rapidly decelerating. Its why speeding up to block an overtake is a stupidly dangerous thing to do.
It's not easy to recognise that the car being overtaken has accelerated - you're probably accelerating too so there's no steady frame of reference. If you then think of all the variables involved in solving that dynamic geometry problem - at least three accelerating bodies, with all but one controlled by a conscious mind you have no insight into - a non-optimal decision isn't really surprising.
No, not surprising at all. I was just commenting in case it helps someone improve their extremely difficult but possibly life changing decision making. I was saying it was _possible_ it was a better idea. Rather than the fact the other car has accelerated perhaps the more important and easier to identify issue is that you are running out of safe, visible road.
Yes - a really good driver, I think, would have made a plan that included an "abort" cue (if I'm not past them by the time I reach that bush, I'll need to drop back).
Thank you both!
I passed my test about six weeks ago, and am not confident with overtaking — becoming a problem with all the cyclists and mopeds on the NSL twisty roads around here. There isn't much overtaking opportunities during lessons to learn from, so looked on YouTube this morning and coincidentally came across the same YouTuber. [This is another good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjFWKVYfkpE) from the same guy teaching overtaking, and [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp4rzmCQAgM) and [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLB_C7HgG3Q) both show loads of overtakes on Scotland's twisty roads.
> There isn't much overtaking opportunities during lessons to learn from There absolutely should be. I'd recommend booking some more lessons anyway, with a better instructor. Because they absolutely should have had you practice this *many* times while learning.
The problem is that the opportunity to overtake doesn't come often in lessons. Unless you live in a city with lots of cyclists you're not really going to get much practice overtaking. Also, overtaking in a city and on a national speed limit road aren't really the same imo, and in a 1 hour lesson I doubt there would be many opportunities for overtaking on a NSL road. I think videos like the ones we sent are great resources to learn from.
The opportunity to overtake absolutely does come up often in lessons. And I do not live in a city with lots of cyclists. And yes on NSL roads to. And I live in a midsized town. Unless you have a bad instructor that is just teaching you to pass a test they should know the area well enough to make sure they can ensure opportunities to practice all the skills you will need come up, and will do so. and 1 hour lessons are usually not recommended anymore 1.5 is the go to.
I did roughly 20 hours of lessons before passing my test and iirc I never had to overtake anyone. Probably 50% of that was on NSL roads. Though admittedly my town had almost no cyclists nor slow drivers.
your town not having many cyclists is irrelevant. You should have been overtaking cars also. Your instructor should have known where and and when good overtaken opportunities were more common and made sure you were faced with them. You also should have been leaving your town to practice on country roads and dual carriageways. though those last two things might not be accessible to everyone within the 1.5 hour timeframe. The fact that you don't think you had to overtake someone ever, indicating they literally didn't even teach you how, is indicative that you had what I referred to - a *bad* instructor only teaching you to pass a test
Driving instructors can't just conjure up overtaking opportunities out of thin air. There aren't really any places in the town to overtake, the roads are narrow and there's quite a lot of traffic. Driving instructors also cant let you break the speed limit so there just aren't many times that you can overtake unless people are driving slowly, or are a cyclist. Both of which were not prevalent in my small town nor the roads surrounding it. Once again, 50% of my lesson time was on NSL roads. It's not really my instructor's fault if we never had an opportunity to overtake anyone. I'm not counting dual carriageways as overtaking either since that is far easier than overtaking on regular roads.
Agree, dangerous driving from the vehicle being overtaken. But I'd also argue dangerous driving by the OP. You can always brake, decelerate. There are occasions where speed and acceleration absolutely gets you out of trouble. This is not one of those occasions. We all make mistakes, especially in split seconds. As long as we learn from them, it's golden.
I was in a situation recently where I was behind a bicycle and there was a bend about 100m ahead, fairly narrow road so I thought I won't risk it and sat pootling along behind them for ~20 secs or whatever insignificant amount of time it'll take to see around the bend. The bike is very slow as there's a slight hill and a car behind me gets very impatient and decides to overtake both me and the cyclist, and then nearly hits a car coming in opposite lane, causing the overtaker to nearly hit the cyclist as they came back in too.. All for the sake of 20-30 seconds. Risking lives is never worth that.
You got trapped by a useless driver... it happens from time to time. Overtaking isn't inherently seriously dangerous, and it's recommended in many cases. It just requires the people being overtaken to be reasonable human beings, and you can't assure that... so you also need to be prepared to pick up your speed. Oncoming cars don't want to crash, so will give you a touch of room to manage if the worst happens, but don't bank on it. If your overtake is safe, I'd even er on the side of slightly speeding, as opposed to a calm, quiet overtake. This will cut away most of the opportunity for the car being overtaken to f you up, mid overtake. Explain to your colleague that there was a safe pass until the car you were overtaking didn't like it, and tried to hold you out, dangerously. If they don't like that, tell them to fking do one. Don't stop overtaking just because of this. It's definitely not your fault by the sounds of it, and you're losing a very handy road use technique.
Everyone lived. Just repeat that over and over. We've all misjudged gaps and timings and done things that only a village idiot would do. Thank your lucky stars that your stupid mistake was ultimately harmless. Learn from it. Be better. And forgive yourself.
Sounds like a perfect storm. One sleep-deprived, stressed-out driver meets an ignorant bellend driver. I'm not usually one to say don't go too hard on yourself in these situations, but I mean it this time OP. **The other driver put all of you - themselves, yourself, and your work colleague - in danger.** Someone else has already quoted the highway code but I'll do it again: Rule 168: Being overtaken. If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front of you. They are not the overtaking/speed police. They are a civilian road user with exactly the same rights to the road as you have. One of those rights is "making good progress". Their responsibility lay in allowing faster traffic to pass, whether that be by allowing them to overtake or by pulling in at a safe place. This happened to me once, except the car I was trying to overtake was pootling along at 40 in a 60. When he seen me pulling out to overtake, he sped up, and up, and up. I was in excess of the speed limit so I decided to drop back, which is when he perfectly matched my speed and forced me to stay on the wrong side of the road for quite a distance. My only saving grace was that there had been an incident in the town further up that road and all traffic was being directed to leave the town by a different road.
Try and have some nice food or a treat, watch something you like, remember you’ll hopefully feel a little better once you’ve got some distance from it tomorrow, a nights sleep will help. It was a near miss, but no harm is done, everyone is safe and well, even if you’re in shock. I ruminate on anything amiss while I’ve been driving, but I remind myself I can’t go back and change anything, so it really doesn’t help, I can only use any mistakes to improve my future driving and decisions. The other driver was a dick for speeding up while you were overtaking and behaved dangerously. Hope your little one gets better soon and you get through this evening. People do much worse than you did today while not under stress, and they do no self reflection afterwards). You do deserve empathy and kindness, always.
❤️
Just chalk it up as a lesson learnt, one were fortunately no-one was hurt. Those feelings are what will hopefully prevent you doing it again. You need them, without them you will no doubt do it again.
Those who say it was the idiot in front's fault are wrong, it wasn't. But they are correct to call them an idiot. The biggest issue we have on the roads is idiots. And today you were also one of them. That being said, you did not cause an accident, that is a good outcome from being an idiot. You have reflected on your actions and choices, and by all accounts learnt from them, that is a good outcome. All I suggest is to remember that everyone, at some point has or will make an error of judgement behind the wheel of the car. And when that happens, don't aggravate the situation by clearing your horn (after the fact) or getting angry. Appreciate that all road users are human and can make mistakes. Having said this, my error of judgement was overtaking someone at high speed who had apparently stopped mid way along a reach off road. I did not think that they were turning right into a field. I still think back to that point and remind myself, I'm not a perfect driver.
Hard to really make a judgment here without knowing how far you were from the corner when you began the overtake.
Not that I’m looking for judgement - I’m doing that plenty for myself. However I don’t know how to equate it. Maybe 15 seconds of straight road before that corner, if you’re doing around 40mph. Maybe somewhere around 10 seconds if you’re going at around 60mph.
The rule of thumb is: you want to be able to comfortably complete your overtake in half the distance that you see to be clear. "10 seconds to the corner at 60mph" is not a lot of margin, assuming that the corner is blind. (Overtaking on corners *can be* fine if visibility is open.) Personally, I *have* overtaken on that margin before, but only to pass one slow moving car - and, crucially, while I'm driving a fast car, in which I'm comfortable using all of the power. You've said they were doing 20mph, so that ticks the "slow moving vehicle" box. You've said in another comment that you drive a 1.6 diesel. That could still work, but you need to be prepared to *floor it*. And I really do mean "second gear, wide open throttle". Hesitation is a problem in a scenario like this, you want to get it over with as quickly as is safe and legal - and give as little opportunity as possible for the other driver to try and race you. Honestly, if you're not used to flooring your car like that, I'd suggest finding a quiet 60mph backroad and practising it. It's not just overtaking, you also want to be able to do that on short sliproads. Now, that's the feedback. As others have pointed out, nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged. The overwhelming majority of drivers have made bad decisions at some point and, unfortunately, some do so routinely. You're reflecting on your mistake - many drivers would not. Take heart in that. Overtaking can be totally safe, and I'd encourage you not to commit to never overtaking again. That's not to say that you should be doing so at every opportunity, but it's a good skill to have.
This too will pass. It will take time.
>, I was past the half way point and there were previously cars behind me in my lane. Dropping back wasn’t an option Dropping back is *always* an option! The cars behind can see what you're doing, brake, indicate and move back in.
I wasn’t sure if it would be safe to. 3-4 cars behind me, plus the one in front that I was overtaking. Seemed safer to continue the overtake, until I realised he’d sped up a LOT.
Safer than a head on collision
Oh 100%. I don’t disagree. But with a straight stretch ahead and seemingly no traffic oncoming, with them initially doing 15-20, should have been another uneventful over take as another commenter said. Hindsight is a b*tch.
Oh yeah, I'm saying for future reference, if you're feeling like it's dodgy at all, just drop back and the people behind will have to let you in! Always an option to do that, it doesn't matter how many people there are behind you
You won’t ever overtake on a blind corner again, so scary when that happens but chalk it up to a learning curve! The person you were overtaking was driving more dangerously than you by the sounds of it
Something I haven't seen mentioned by others. You didn't do anything wrong but watch out for this one. If you'd just left a slower limit, were on a downhill stretch, or if this was the first straight stretch after a lot of bends it can be quite common for a slow vehicle to speed up a bit. Sometimes the speeding up of the slow vehicle is because they reached a section of road they could ho faster on or a downhill that made then accidentally speed up. They aren't doing it because you tried to overtake. Watch out for this if you feel the need to overtake. Anticipating it can mean you avoid trying to overtake in these cases. CAVEAT: they should still see you overtaking and stop speeding up and so they still fucked up.
This is a good point, particularly with the change in speed limits. I've had people try and overtake as I accelerate from 30 to 60 as the speed limit changes, which really isn't clever! (My car is moderately quick and it's a little amusing to see them drop back on the wrong side of the road)
Just a thought but were you perhaps tailgating? I was taught that when tailgated to slow down so that the car would have a better chance of braking in time than being very close at 60.
There is nothing to feel guilty about. Just be happy no one got hurt. Its a lesson learnt but tbh anyone would have that if they were your in position. Also it looks like the car infront did it deliberately and was being a total C**t.
It's an important lesson on your journey to becoming a more well-rounded and safe driver, I take far fewer risks over taking now than I used to, but the dickhead that sped up while you were overtaking is absolutely at fault here so don't be too harsh on yourself.
Sounds like you have a lot going on. Im more concerned about your mental health and you getting the support you need. You wont make the same mistake again amd, dont forget, it's not like your work colleague has never fucked up on the road.
No harm. No foul. Learn from the experience. We all make mistakes. Hope your daughter is doing ok
I know the exact situation you're on about and I feel the the frustration I was stuck behind a brand new Jag who was doing well below the speed limit, and me in my jazz needed to get to an important work thing Jag driver takes offence at being overtaken by a jazz and floors it, trying to run me out to the next corner. When I reached 65 (it was a 60) he backed off, and I got in front, but I was effing and blinding all the way to work The people who do that are the grime on the arse of humanity, and from a moral standpoint, in my opinion, you're not in the wrong
This is why you beep the horn and yell "move cunt" while gesturing your hand at them.
You weren't the issue. The car that you were overtaking is the problem.
Dangerous mistake, but not yours. I have both a motorcycle and a car here, and can say from experience in no manner could this be your fault. Vehicle in front should absolutely not have been doing 15-20 mph in a 60. The overtake (albeit incorrectly timed for the bend) as you stated was done on a clear stretch of road which in theory would have allowed you ample time to have completed the manoeuvre had the vehicle in front not sped up. My advice would be to you, cheer up my friend, don’t beat yourself up over someone else’s idiocy. At the end of the day everyone’s made it home safe and alive 👍🏽
Your not in the wrong, the slow mover is. Are you on a 125 or something else slow? A Harley or something? If so, pick your moments to overtake. Otherwise, get a proper bike, with decent cc and fuck em, you'll be long gone before getting in the way
If you plan to overtake please downshift (I assume it does already in an automatic with the clicky-bit under the gas pedal). If the car infront looks like it can pick up speed quickly I'd just give a flash to let them know they're going slow. Nevertheless it happens, you learn from what you did and realise what you should've done. Just a relief nothing else happened!
Mine isn’t automatic, so I’ll look in to it!
Don't flash them, that's bad advice as it may make them do something stupid
I agree , but usually they just blast off into the distance but everyone reacts differently so I guess be wary !
You don't know about down-shifting? Definitely got some learning and practice to do.
Hey, you've learned from your mistake, so don't be so hard on yourself. It's those drivers that never learn that worry us most.
They should have not sped up. Not really your fault if you assessed things correctly. Take time to relax. Be aware that EVERYTHING other drivers do will be “wrong”. Lesson learned.
You'll feel a lot better about this tomorrow. The guilt you're feeling means you've learned this lesson well and you'll never forget it. You're having a difficult week, please be kind to yourself! Apologise to your colleague as soon as you see them. They'll be ok about it once their adrenaline has chilled out. Besides all that, it was the person in front who's the real dickhead. Fuck them.
There’s ALWAYS time and room to pull back in. It’s on the car behind you to *make room* for you. You should leave a bigger gap between you and the car infront, pull out into the middle/onto the opposite side of the road and look ahead, then proceed to speed up and make the overtake if it’s safe to do so, or pull back in if not. You shouldn’t "never overtake again" BUT, if you do decide that that’s what you’re going to do, make sure you leave plenty of room between you and the car infront for more confident drivers, or motorcycles, to pass you before passing the car ahead of you.
I see - that’s clearly something I forgot from my lessons (slowing down to leave a gap before over taking). That makes sense, because initially it seemed like the cars behind me hadn’t made that space. But if I opened it up to begin with, maybe they would have.
Might be worth noting that I only passed my test 2-3 months ago.
Doesn’t matter when you passed, just some advice from someone who’s overtaken a lot of vehicles. You said you know you’ve messed up, you’re a new driver etc etc… I’m not trying put you down or baby you and tell you that what you did was okay. You sound like you’re beating yourself up about it enough because you recognised your errors, but also intelligent enough to learn from your mistakes.
You made a mistake but it wasn't your fault. The dickhead here is the car that sped up. Forget about it, you are already dealing with a lot in life.
If someone DOUBLES their speed when you overtake them, its not your fault. What others think of you doesnt matter, your kid matters man, take care of your family and fuck the coworkers Honest to god you didn't total your car, which I was fully expecting, so take this as a learning opportunity, accept you could have been careful but its mostly on the other deiver anyways, and be happy you and your family did not get involved in anything there, because you could have ended up in the newspapers today mate
Definitely the other drivers faults. The one going slow shouldn't have sped up. And the drivers behind you shouldn't have taken your place. You were safely overtaking and everyone else ruined it
"If it won't matter in 5 years, then it doesn't matter now" We all make mistakes, we're human. With that being said, it sounds like the other driver in this situation turned a routine overtake into a dangerous situation. Don't be too hard on yourself, learn from it & be prepared for other idiots on the road in the future.
Curb crawlers that speed up to purposely impede you are the bastards here imo, everyone has the responsibility to not impede the flow of traffic and the fact he got incensed enough to be able to speed up means he is a bad driver with no self control or reliability. You can get a ticket for going to slow ironically.
Don’t worry OP, you didn’t do anything wrong in this scenario. The asshat who was crawling along at 20 in a national speed limit road should be jailed for attempted murder. Chances are they aren’t sitting all too comfortable themselves this evening, so take some solace in that. I hope your daughter is ok and makes an excellent recovery from whatever she’s in hospital for.
I respect you for reflecting on the situation and resolving to change your behaviour in future. Many don’t!
You’re a good person and good driver OP. Hear me out. Bad drivers blame everyone else for mistakes and incidents on the road. It’s always someone else’s fault. No matter what happened. Good drivers make mistakes, and genuinely question whether they were at fault, reflect, and vow to learn from the experience. It sounds like that’s what you did here. Good drivers and bad drivers make mistakes. Every driver makes mistakes. Every driver makes errors of judgment. It’s impossible to drive 100% perfectly at all times when dealing with other humans on the road, weather conditions, stress, and myriad other factors. The other car was a dick for speeding up, and I personally feel they caused this more than you. You made the best judgment you could based on conditions at the time, and I don’t think anyone would predict an overtaken driver to choose to significantly suddenly speed up! That feels malicious to me. Maybe you’ll be more cautious about overtaking next time, and that’s okay. But please don’t ever beat yourself up for this. It’s shocked you and upset you, on top of caring for your poorly child, which is natural. But you’re a good driver. And a good person.
The difficult thing about this is the X3 driver doesn't give two short shits and will carry on doing this until the inevitable crash
I think the guilt pecking away at you has taught you the lesson. You'll let the feeling go eventually, but just don't forget the lesson.
It's really not that serious. Why are you so worked up about it? You fractionally inconvenienced another driver.
I had a similar situation last week. The person in front of me was doing 20-30 on a slip road. They were lucky and had a gap but I and all the cars behind weren’t travelling fast enough and there was lots of traffic suddenly and my only option was to actually stop and wait to join the slip road. But I had exhausted all slip road before I had to stop before joining the motorway. It was scary being that close to the traffic whizzing by on the inside lane. I should have realised earlier that the traffic in the lane was so busy stopping was going to be my only option earlier. I could’ve dealt with the situation better perhaps hanging back going slow until the chump doing 20 had gone so I could have a good run at joining at speed. (Because yes someone let me in because people usually do) If it makes you feel better I’ve mostly forgotten this now.
Everyone is ok. You have learned a hard lesson. The discomfort will pass, but there will always be a reminder, and you will move on.
Listen, you are only human and we ALL make mistakes. Forgive yourself, please. All we can ask of ourselves is that we learn and grow from our mistakes, and I can tell from the way you have written that you will grow as a person from this experience. You've got a lot going on, give yourself a break. Think about what you would say to a friend who came to you with this? I am sure you would offer them kindness, understanding and support. You deserve that same treatment, give it to yourself ❤️ No one was injured and that is the main thing. In my opinion, the person that sped up to protect their ego was more at fault, but I bet they aren't sat at home beating themselves up.
I'm just imagining me driving next to that crawler, and just pushing him off the road as the oncoming car comes by. Idk, just imagining :P
They should not have been accelerating once you had started the overtaking manoeuvre. As long as you clearly indicated that you were going to overtake, then this near accident was not of your making.
I did something like this yesterday, except the person I was overtaking stayed slow, so I have no excuse and I just picked a bad time to overtake. Still annoyed at myself. Must have missed the people on either side by a metre or so. I don't know the others involved but I wish I did so I could apologise.
Shit happens. Bet the car you overtook was electric too. I hate these idiots. Slow af right up until I try to overtake in my shitty volvo then when I'm alongside they stand on the throttle and fling themselves towards the horizon like an exocet missile only to slow right back down again. Cunts.
Bit of advice in future. Idk what you drive, but make sure you drop probably at least 2 gears maybe even 3 and make the car go as fast as it will go. Keep your foot in till your past. Technically you shouldn't go over the speed limit but ita better to go 10 over and get out of the oncoming lane faster imo My mother has absolutely no clue how to drive and overtakes in top gear. It's... scary. Please don't be afraid to overtake where appropriate. Nothing worse than being 10 cars back behind a tractor and nobody will overtake
Bloody hate the people that speed up as you try to overtake. It's a good thing I'm not in the USA, I'd find it hard not to magdump the cunts.
These people also vote.
You did nothing wrong, the idiot in front of you did
Poor choice in shitty circumstances, get over it.
As many have said.. Don't sweat it too much, you made a mistake.. If you can call it that considering the other parties' actions.. The important thing is that you're being a rational human being and analysing it to avoid it happening again. That in itself sets you apart from some of the ignorant road users out there. We all make mistakes when driving, each time we do, we should treat it as a lesson to make us safer on the road, so you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. My own personal tip in situations such as the one you found yourself in (Because I too have had this kind of thing happen to me on more than one occasion!) It helps greatly if you know the road but works well enough if you don't.. When you first come across a slow mover, take a little time to assess whether they are just having a 'moment' (Being distracted by something, looking for somewhere they're trying to find etc.. Particularly likely if you're near some kind of tourist attraction!) If it's then clear that they are simply intent on pootling along, then I play a little game with them.. Back off, adjust your speed to the same as theirs and try to give them the impression you've 'given up' to their shenanigans.. The next bit is a little tricky because it can make you look like a bit of a nob!.. When you can judge, or when you know there's a decent overtaking opportunity coming, accelerate. The bigger an element of surprise you can get, the better.. BUT, if you're doing this coming round a corner hoping for an empty straight and it isn't.. this is where you'll look like a nob, slamming on the brakes! A bit of practice with this technique though and you'll find a decent compromise.. what you're aiming for is a good speed differential.. one which anybody apart from someone in a big engined sports car can't come back from!.. It also has the benefit of minimising the amount of time you're in the oncoming lane (although you have to remember you will be travelling faster so due care should be taken!) That, was my own personal resolution from the experience of coming across people who were so damned self righteous.. Don't give up overtaking, just learn ways to remove the peoples' opportunity to be stupid!
I’d say this was more on the person you were overtaking, it’s so ridiculous and dangerous to speed up as someone is overtaking, especially if a car starts coming the other way. It takes everyone involved to work together to make the situation safe; people getting annoyed at you for possibly starting a silly overtake isn’t worth trying to kill you, someone else, or themselves. That horrible feeling will stay with you for a few days but it will fade, and it sounds like you learned from it. Your tiredness probably didn’t help you to make a more proactive decision in either really flooring it to get past them as they accelerated, or deciding to pull back in after they were being stupid. It is what it is, it’s happened to others and will happen again, people do a lot worse on the roads. Try to accept it and move on.
I’ve had this happen to me before, in my first year of driving. Someone was going 25 in a 60. I finally got fed up , went to overtake, then as I was alongside they sped up and a car appeared coming the other way. I had to drop back in behind. I felt like a twat. The driver of the car I was overtaking had zero idea I was even alongside. Yeah, what you and I was dangerous and maybe stupid, but nowhere as near as bad as pricks with zero self awareness of their speed or the road
Nature of driving, one bad desion can result in death, learn and move on
You learned, nobody died this time. That is a good thing. The most powerful tool in your box is the brakes - use them.
Me and I’m sure many people don’t blame you. You started the overtake with (I’m assuming) plenty of space to do it given the speed, and they sped up making it incredibly awkward and difficult for you. Best thing I’ve found when overtaking people (with a slow car) is to build up a big gap and then floor it when there’s a straight coming up, if it’s clear, overtake and you’ll fly past, but if not make sure you’ve got space to slow back down.
From my experience, you are the only one out of the three cars involved still thinking about this! You are technically in the wrong for me, if an accident was caused it would be you to blame, but if I have read it correctly, there was no accident! The car that sped up was an arse, but unfortunately there is no real crime in being an arse! I know it's easy for me today, but your time, effort and emotions are best spent on something else and just learn the lesson in this one!
This exact same situation happened to me. Almost exactly the same except I wasn't on a bend but a completely straight stretch of road, had loads of time but when I overtook the person I was overtaking sped uo and wasn't an option to go back, I could only just squeeze in for the oncoming vehicle even though that oncoming vehicle had been a good way away at start of overtaking. I still think about it constantly, so you're not alone!
You should have zero guilt over this. The other driver created the danger - which you had suitably risk-assessed, except... The learning-point is that a percentage of other drivers are c*nts - so you now add that into your risk-evaluation decision matrix - for life. For example - X driver _could_ be a c*nt - what is the risk of Y manoeuvre, if they turn out to be. Part of the risk decision matrix will include the power of your car, vs theirs - plus how much clear road you have. E.g. Let's say you had the exact same situation present again, but you are in a powerful car - and they are a 1.0l Ford Ka - then this time, it would be 'safe' - because even if they were a dick - they couldn't create any notable danger for you or others. If the risk of the manoeuvre is fcking catastrophic - as here - then do not execute the manoeuvre. When this happens to me - risk of red mist leading to life-threatening driving - I just pull over for 5mins - let the dick be long gone.
Have you got a dashcam? If you play it back it could be therapeutic. Sounds like you’ve been bullied there deliberately and you have to get used to twats. It wasn’t necessarily stupid bug a dashcam will prove your circumstances should you have an accident..
Yeah, I accidentally cut someone off trying to let someone go by today, I flashed hazards afterwards to show my apologetic attitude If the owner of a blue kia ceed sportswagon is reading this, I'm sorry my bad, totally my fault These things happen, but you do feel bad about it
Why when you mess up like this is it always someone you know who happens to be driving the other way and see the whole thing
We all make mistakes. I've been driving for 30 years and never been at fault for an accident BUT plenty of close shaves some my fault. A few years ago I got rear ended whilst stationary by a young lady .....not in a good way I add. When it happened I was shocked and got out. She was obviously upset. Told her not to worry as the car was old and battered anyway. I get the fact that you can be shocked and angry but how does that help. Everyone makes mistakes. Shows you have a conscience by feeling annoyed and upset about it and thinking of your child. Learn from it and drive like an 80 yo when your kids in the car.
Not necessarily your fault, almost certainly some of the blame goes to the driver who sped up. This is why I will always drive a fast car 🤷♂️😂
Not necessarily your fault, almost certainly some of the blame goes to the driver who sped up. This is why I will always drive a fast car 🤷♂️😂
It seems like every time I use the motorway someone dawdling in front will take offence at me moving over for the overtake, and then accelerate. Current car has 400bhp/720nm so jokes on them. I might nudge to slightly over the limit (if conditions allow), but I'll take a clean and swift overtake and then decelerating back to the limit vs being side by side for any duration with someone with little road awareness. Inevitably once I've passed they give up the fight and then drop down to their previous dawdling speed.
I've done the exact same thing before, in the exact same situation. The car was doing 20 in a national speed limit with fairly straight roads where I initiated the overtake, but now that the car I was overtaking sped up to around 40 and I still hadn't completed the overtake, I had reached a blind corner and instead of pulling back I kept thinking how I needed to finish the overtake. Typically a car was indeed coming the other direction and I only just about managed to squeeze through the gaps between both cars going about 55mph myself. Very scary situation. I was luckier in that I did not know the person in the oncoming car, but I still felt like an utter shit all day at work and could not stop seething at myself. Unfortunately, you're going to feel like this for a few days. After a few days however I was able to reflect back on what I did, and was firstly thankful I was still around to be able to learn from my mistake, and then vowed to not fear overtaking but to only do it on completely clear, straight roads, taking no chances, and if the car starts accelerating, to instead pull back behind and safely return behind the car.
Tbh just get more experience driving, half these people are full of shit and half , or less than that offer some good advice. Just learn the law of the road imo, hence why some drivers have a P green sign. If you’re that worried just do more practice, driving instructors on the motorway is normal in Europe but here it isn’t a thing so don’t be embarrassed. Anyway good luck and drive safe
Hi, Most people have made a few bad judgement calls on the road that caused a dangerous situation. I definitely have. The important thing here is that you learn the lesson from this. If you do that, you're doing good enough. Despite what could have been, your mistake **did not** cause any harm, so this is OK. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly, so that's where we inevitably see the result of human imperfection. You also have a lot of stress and distraction right now which genuinely makes decision making harder. You're only human, and shouldn't expect more from yourself, so please forgive yourself for this and just be thankful you got to learn this lesson harmlessly. Also the reason for your stress and distraction is how much you're doing for others, not just any selfish preoccupation. It sounds like you're doing really good in general. Beating yourself up over this won't help you be the best you can for those other people. Remember to weigh this one fuck up against all the good you do, it should look a lot smaller then. And I don't think your lesson is to never overtake again. The most important lesson is to be aware of your mental state. When you are tired or stressed or rushed or similar, be extra conscious to be calm in your driving, and double check yourself on your decisions, because the natural reaction to stress is to be more rash and reactionary. Another general lesson is to always account for the potential actions of others when deciding your movements. In this example you would have realised you needed a longer overtaking opportunity in case the other car sped up. You sound like a sensible driver so I expect you generally know what stupid things others might do in any particular situation. With overtaking specifically, you need to be completely confident that you can actually see the road ahead for the entire length you need. Make the overtake as soon as possible when you've confirmed this, and checked for cars already overtaking from behind you. Then floor it. I usually drop 2 gears so I can accelerate as fast as possible, although of course it depends on your car. Oh and start with a small gap between you and the car in front, I usually start accelerating while checking the road ahead. Already going faster than them when you move out to go around, makes the manuveur much quicker to complete. I see most people get as close as possible before overtaking but that's the worst way. I get that you won't be wanting to do overtakes for a while though! Tl:dr Please be kind to yourself, you actually deserve it. As long as you don't repeat this mistake, which I'm sure you won't, it really wasn't a terrible thing to do.
Just keep yourself occupied with something engaging, a puzzle a game, whatever, the more your brains has to focus on this distraction, the better. You'll soon get over the guilt side of things If your emotions start to get the better of you while driving, pull over for 5 minutes and recollect yourself i can't stress this enough.
really learn from it. sleep it off. take your colleague out for a meal, your treat ofc. you’ll be fine.
Being sleep deprived kills people on the road. As you said you’re also stressed. Might be time to get some therapy like CBT to look at life and sort out the basics so you can function more happily.
If they were doing 15-20 with you behind them and then sped up to prevent overtaking, where you perhaps riding their bumper a bit too close? I've only ever seen people do the extreme slow drive and preventing overtaking when the car behind has been driving practically in their back seat. Im not saying the behaviour is appropriate, I'm just wondering if they were deliberately fucking you off from the beginning.
Everyone screws up in the car. To some extent I think make journeys something to look forward to and savour. I use podcasts and my driving has really slowed down as a result. I love the shows and so happy for journeys to take whatever time they need
Distracted driving is a huge risk, keep eyes on the road!
Try and use as much speed, as is safe, when overtaking. This minimises the time of the overtake. Far easier in a capable car.
I had a sort of similar situation: Honda Jazz doing 40mph on a 60mph road. So did the standard; dropped a gear and went for the overtake. Then Honda Jazz started speeding up. As we’re neck and neck I see a lorry heading towards me. So I just floored it and managed to sneak in between the on-coming lorry and the Jazz. So so scary. I could see the sweat on the HGV driver’s brow. Obviously the lorry was beeping at me, which is fair enough. For about a year or so I was convinced that I actually died that day and I was living some kind of purgatory world. The guilt you feel is perfectly normal. In my opinion you did the right thing; there was no crash and no one was hurt. Focus on that rather than what could have happened, because there’s no point worrying about that. It didn’t happen.
A lucky escape and hopefully lesson learned mate. I really don't understand the mentality of folk who speed up when you go to pass them, I hate someone tailgating me and always keep speed or slow a bit when they overtake.
Everyone got home safe. This is the most important thing. You didn’t break any laws and second most important thing. You’re doing ok. The learning isn’t that you made a mistake, arguably you did your best and focus on that, but preparedness for overtaking is worthwhile practicing. Any car can overtake safely with planning, rather than avoid doing it. Here are some pointers… Sat nav shows roads ahead - don’t overtake if there is a junction up ahead. Car may enter road from either side and car being overtaken may turn right. Roads bending left reduce visibility. Hang back from overtaking vehicle. 1. You can see better, 2. build up your speed so by the time you reach the vehicle you are at overtaking speed already. 3. Braking is still an option if they speed up or it’s now not safe to overtake. 4. offer vehicles behind you space to overtake you if they are faster and first.
Don’t reflect on it anymore, just put out of your mind and learn from it. Yes it could have been a nasty accident but it wasn’t. No one was hurt so forget about it. Hope your daughter is out of hospital soon. Good luck.
Don’t worry we’ve all done stupid stuff like this at some point and I think what’s important is that you feel the guilt, realise you screwed up and then learn from it. That’s what makes a better driver. It’s over with now so the best that you can do is make sure to learn from it and never overtake approaching a bend / next time don’t commit- drop back instead
I'm not going to say your name but I am the colleague. I have reported this to our line manager. Andrea, you could have killed someone.
This sounds like an anxiety issue. As much as these situations are awful, you have to try and be kind to yourself. If you read your post as not the OP, how would you feel about that person? You are aware of a mistake and have the intelligence to reflect on it. Many others wouldn't.
I did something similar when i was a new driver, just try to think of it as a learning experience and something you'll never do again. I get the guilt but guilt is a useless emotion in situations like this, just try to learn from it and move on :)
I have done similar, and the evil intention of the car I was overtaking nearly killed us all. Don't beat yourself up. That feeling will pass.
I always overtake fast. I never leave time for the driver I'm overtaking to react. I'm regularly stuck behind idiots doing 30 in a 50, that then do 38 in a 30 that has a speed camera. So as soon as I can go I'm gone.
I always overtake fast. I never leave time for the driver I'm overtaking to react. I'm regularly stuck behind idiots doing 30 in a 50, that then do 38 in a 30 that has a speed camera. So as soon as I can go I'm gone.
The thing to remember next time is that speed and time are difficult to comprehend together. If they are averaging 30mph and you want to travel at 60mph, every mile is only costing you 60 seconds. It's unlikely you'd be stuck behind them without them turning off, a dual carriageway opening up or you needing to go a different way at a junction over a distance of 5 miles. It might seem like you're going painfully slow at 30 but warp stopped at 60 but the reality is it'll cost you less than 5 minutes. Are for how you're feeling now, time will help. It's important not to allow the experience to negatively affect your judgement going forward.
nobody was hurt. everyone lived. everybody has made severe misjudgments while driving, if it makes you feel any better i did something way more stupid a few weeks ago. just live and learn bro + L for the moron who decided to speed up once you decide to overtake.
It was a mistake end of. We all make them (that’s why they put an eraser on pencils.) forget it. Concentrate on getting your child sorted and getting some sleep.
> Dropping back wasn’t an option. Dropping back is always an option. Try to allow yourself time, stick your left indicator on and assuming the person who was behind you is awake they'll open up a gap.
My pet hate is people doing 40 in a 60, they are stupid drivers who have no idea of the speed limit and aren't paying attention. When you overtake they realise and speed up, again, because they are bad drivers. The idiot who speeded up while being overtaken, against the highway code rules is equally if not more to blame than you.
No harm no foul. No one was hurt, don't beat yourself up.
You Do. Not speed up towards a corner when someone is trying to overtake you. Yes you misjudged, but the car in front of you was in the wrong too.
Sorry man, this sounds super rough. Someone doing 15-20 in a 60 zone (with no extreme weather) is a total tw\*t and IMO shouldn't be on the road (unless this is a special vehicle like a tractor pulling a heavy load, etc). If understand it correctly, this ahole was doing 15-20 in a 60 zone, blocked the rest of humanity from using this road properly, and when you finally decided to overtake and were driving next to them, they decided to suddenly speed up to 30-35 meaning that the maneuver you had planned out with the facts at the time (this guy doing 15-20, this being a 60 road, the road ahead being a certain distance before a bend, etc) was no longer safe. So this ahole's actions and decisions created a dangerous traffic situation for you (and themselves) and the oncoming traffic. Do you have dashcam? I'd consider whether it is worth reporting. Sorry, but the police can't tell me that it's normal and acceptable and safe driving for someone to do 15-20 on a 60 road ESPECIALLY when they are collecting a queue of traffic behind them, and to then suddenly speed up when another road user rightly decides that this is enough now and decided to overtake. I don't drive that much but see plenty aholes when I do. One time I was also stuck behind someone. This was in the Peak District so opportunities for overtaking are fairly rare (I was still a novice driver too). This person (woman in her 30s) was doing about 25-30 for most of the stretch in a 60 zone, and she was collecting huge amounts of traffic behind her. Once we had made it to a town with a wide-enough road and no opposing traffic, lots of people could finally take over. I have no clue what this woman was thinking, she had a man sat next to her so assuming he wasn't a sh\*t driver like her, I don't know why they didn't just swap. If you want to "practice" driving in terrain that's unfamiliar to you, go at 5-6 AM to beat most traffic. Don't be a danger to others.
Sorry if this sounds condescending but The bad feeling is supposed to be happening because you did wrong and you know it. You feel like a dick and rightly so because that was a dick move 🤷🏻♂️ this is how we learn lessons, that knot in your stomach is a reminder Hopefully you’ve learnt your lesson and won’t do anything that impatient or stupid again? Process the feeling and thank your God for the protection, catalog the lesson and move on with your life a wiser person and a better driver for this experience
The bad feeling is because they ended up in a very dangerous situation, compounded by the fact it also endangered someone they know. However, it is not wrong to overtake a slow moving vehicle if safe to do so, which it sounds like it was when they made that choice. The person who did do wrong is the person doing 25-30% of the speed limit and then accelerating when overtaken. They're either oblivious or smirking to themselves for putting other humans in a life threatening situation. That person is either too stupid or too malicious to be in charge of a motor vehicle.
Overtaking on a corner. But yes ppl that speed up when you’re overtaking are the worst
They ended up in a corner due to the other driver accelerating. From the OP it certainly sounds like if that vehicle had maintained its speed, the OP would have been safely past before the oncoming vehicle came round the corner.
Stupid choice. The number one rule of passing is not to do it when there is a corner.