Some drivers are just plain stupid.

Peter,

I think the Ferrari contributed to it, but some guys are very macho about being passed. Even in the Merc, you might have prompted his idiotic action. I've had far too many dicey situations with idiots in SUV's who think they can outrun a sports car. On public roads, they end up doing things that threaten other people's lives (I don't care if they kill themselves, as long as they don't take anyone with them).

My "revenge" often comes on one of my favorite exit ramps from a local interstate highway. On a long straight stretch of road leading up to it, I often find some SUV guy chasing me down and tailgating me approaching that ramp. It makes a slight bend to the right, goes straight, then makes a fairly sharp bend to the left up over 8 lanes of highway and back around. Kind of a reverse "Big Bend" at Lime Rock. In the XKE or Ferrari, I'll go up the ramp around 80 to 90 mph, with idiot SUV close behind. A quick tap on the brakes, a downshift and double apex the turn. As I turn in, I love to look in the rear view mirror and see the panic on the SUV driver's face. More than once, I've seen these Darwin Award candidates slam on brakes, spin, hit the curbing, and in one case, slam into the guard rail. I always wonder if they learned anything from the experience.

Stay safe, my friend. There are a lot of crazies out there.

Regards,
Steve W.

 

There is a fair amount of technique involved in passing cars on two lane roads. Some people don't begin their acceleration soon enough. People who learned to pass on two lane roads with low powered cars are better at it because they learned to compensate for lack of acceleration.

I would not knock turbos. I've instructed some students in Audi S Sedans (turbos). They are plenty fast.

If a 348 has torque in abundance, then I'm going to be nominated for Pope. No non-turbo V-8 Ferrari has torque in abundance.

 

A few years ago, my friend and I were driving my 355 out in west Texas between Marathon and Ft Stockton. This is the middle of the desert and you can go hundreds of miles and see only a few cars. I passed a Hyundai Sonata, and I will never forget it as long as I live, I was going about 115mph. This guy in the Sonata caught up to us and proceed to tail gate us for about five miles. I sped up to try and get rid of the guy, he kept up to about 130. As we went through the low spots in the road, his car would get so light coming out he would swerve all over the place and finally we slowed down and let him follow so he sould not kill himself.

 

348 have enaugh torque to pass everycar on the road...at least in europe

for sur, they don't have the same low end torque than a 550...but 323 Nm are enaugh ...

oooh by the way ..just trow one gear down...and use the engine between 4500 and 7000 rpm...it's just sooooo fun

 

I doubt it's just here in NJ, but what I've seen as of late

1) Downright arrogance of SUV drivers. Particularly women.
2) More cars have tail lights out, head lights out, broken lenses, and general vehicle disrepair since NJ has gone away from the yearly inspections
3) Few people signal for lane changes or turns
4) Few people look before changing lanes and once they commit, they don't stop until they change lanes. Even if somebody is physically occupying the ajoining space.
5) Few people come to a complete stop at signs or red signals. In fact, somebody is always slamming on the brakes when the car in front obeys the law and stops at red lights before turning.
6) In NJ, it's stay right except to pass. It's my experience there are far fewer cars in the right lane because the SUVs are too busy occupying the left lane in bumper-to-bumper fashion.
7) I've seen less & less makeup, shavers, hair combing while driving. I've seen a logarithmic use of cell phone while driving
8) if a car needs to cross 3 lanes of traffic to exit in 50 feet, they do.
9) the residential 25mph limit is out the window for 45mph. And then the SUV owner is enraged the neighbor's dog is engrained in their grill.
10) No respect for anybody else. If you scratch/bump a car in a parking lot, Fess up.

And yes, I can go on. (deep breath)

 

Are you sure you don't live in Toronto?

 

I remember driving accross Arizona from California...running about 90-95 when I passed 2 girls in a Toyota Corolla. I noticed that they picked up the pace to keep up with me. They were following way to close in a car with no handling ability or brakes.

I came up on another car that was of course blocking the left lane. Just as I was about to go around him...when he moved over. When he moved over it revealed the carcass of a tractor trailer truck in the middle of my lane!! I mearly downshifted...accellerated past the car that moved over....slolmed around the tire and kept going. However, my 2 tailgaiting chicks in the Corolla had a much more dramatic adventure that ended up with a spin, a slide and a trip through the center area. Fortunately it was just alot of dust for them and probably a trip to the laundry for the girls!

Dumb, dumb, dumb!

 

What?? Why did the state do this??

 

I thought he was describing Chicago....

 

I disagree. I don't think some drivers are stupid. I think most are stupid.

 

No no no, I think clyde is talking about Los Angeles.

 

must be airborne, its here in SE Pennsylvania. I agree i see more and more women driving these huge Escalades and Suburbans round here not knowing how much power they really have under their hood and how much damage they can do if they make a mistake, my mother inculded

 

While I hate to generalize, I really do have to agree with you there Brandon.

Just yesterday, going through back roads, heading up to Ft. Worth, a new BMW 330 was following me. He kept up and wanted to stay with me, IN MY REAR QUARTER PANEL. Dammit, do not do that. He thought we'd be trucking along at 90-95, then I upped the ante to 110. When he figured out that this wasn't a sprint and that I'd be travelling that fast for quite some time, he backed off.

(yes, sorry, I was speeding - but a family emergency arose and I had to make good time)

 

I got into a good conversation with two friends last night about people driving and how there are performance driving schools. One friend talked of how he went to the Z8 training course and he learned more in those 2 days than in all the years he's been driving. People in general don't know the limits of their cars, and when they get into certain situations freeze up and don't think. I hate how easy it is to get a license. The thing people are most afraid of is parallel parking, not too many people have been killed in that (to my knowledge) only received minor scratches and the occasional dent to their fenders. What they should be worried about is an accident avoidance test and high speed driving (65 mph) not 35 where I took my test. I think if the test was much stricter it would be a pain in the ass b/c lots of people would fail, but it may save many lives and take unworthy drivers off the road.

 

He could be describing Phoenix (the worst in my experience), LA, SF, Houston, nearly all of Texas

 

Paul, I had a similar experience two years back when I was returning back to the Bay Area from Reno. I was cruising along at 90- 95 mph or so in my Audi S4 enjoying the curvy highway when along came a Honda Civic with 4 teenagers onboard. The car had the usual "fart-can" exhaust and was chasing me for a couple miles. The road was quite hilly at stages and the Honda would drop back on the uphill sections , to make up for this, the driver was a maniac on the downhill section cutting up cars and using the side of the road to pass. He was making a nuisance of himself and looked like an accident waiting to happen. I also slowed down and let him go by to prevent anything. Fortunately he exited soon and I could resume my previous cruise speed...

 

I thought of this post while transiting the NJTpke this morning. I thought it was only MA where the SUVs would intentionally block other traffic from changing lanes to pass slower traffic.

People must think that SUVs are the "Temple of Doom", because they're always "Indie way". (More like the "Temple of Dumb", methinks.)

But you hardly ever see an SUV in Mass that doesn't have a crumpled right rear corner. (It's seven o'clock. Do you know where your corners are?)

 

I have to say, Highway driving in the ferrari is sometimes a bloody nightmare. EVERYONE thinks you are in race to get to an imaginary finnish line. I see guys flying from cars away just to speed up next to me, next thing I know I've got a digital camcorder on me and them trying to get me to accel. I normally dont mind, but sometimes it just gets frustrating.

 

I was eating lunch on Friday, having a business meeting.

I saw a lady do a parallel parking job where she hit both cars.. the one in front and the one behind.. (she actually pushed the one behind her to squeez into the space).

She jumped out and bolted across the street to do her shopping.

I took a look, and since it was all bumper to bumper contact, I didn't see any damage... but we wrote notes and left them on the windows of both cars with the ladies plate number, just so the other drivers would know what happened.

 

I was sitting IN MY CAR (the 380SL) with the top down in a parallel parking space behind Trader Joe's, and a woman parked in the adjacent space and managed to bang in to my car. She then had the audacity to get out, look at my car and declare, "Oh, it didn't do anything...", and then got huffy with ME when I used some choice language to ask her a series of rhetorical questions regarding her vision, driving ability, and place in the chain of human evolution.

Let me repeat, I was sitting in an open car, in plain view, and she just used my car as a "Distronic" device, and then gave ME attitude regarding my reaction.

Unbelievable. Fortunately, my commute in LA is about 8 blocks and I don't have to get on the freeway, but when I have to go out of downtown for a meeting I try to take surface streets whenever possible. People here are nuts, pure and simple.

Cheers
Kevin

 

I was sitting in a coffee shop across the street from my Dino 246. Apparently some Los Gatos moron mom backs into my front bumber, bends it out of shape a bit. WItnesses say she wasn't about to leave any note after a cursory inspection, but some good Samaritan came out while she was looking, took her plate down on a business card and slid it thru my open window.

Seeing that, now she felt compelled to not look like a total evader and left a note saying she bumped me, but no damage. Call this number if I want.

Turned out to be trivial to repair, but still... you think she'd be a little careful backing her 740BMW up seeing a classic behind her. Nope.

 

This weekend on my way from Seattle to Portland a couple guys in a newer Mustang came flying up behind me, got about 5 car lengths from me and then noticed that I and all trafic was slowing rapidly. The Mustang must have panicked and locked 'em up. Car was dumping smoke from the tires and started sliding sideways into a semi. Once the drive got control he dropped back about a quarter mile and then exited. Some drivers scare me.