It's no exaggeration to say the boss and I had a fright today, at this junction
goo.gl/maps/e0Dan
on the A5, at the Long Buckby turn.
Travelling south as I approached at maybe 50, I recollect three cars - one waiting to turn right out of the road on my left, one ahead of me on the A5 turning into the same road, and the third facing me, waiting in the centre of the road to turn into it.
I didn't like the look of it, so covered the brake, took a good two handed quarter to three grip on the tiller, and put a thumb on the horn pad.
The one ahead turned, and the others seemed to be staying put, then at the last moment the one in the middle of the road turned across me.
What a difference a bit of observation and anticipation made. Simultaneous heavy braking, steering round the back of it and a redundant blast on the horn. We missed it by inches I'm certain. Had I just braked I would have hit it amidships; had I not been ready to brake I would surely have hit it anyway. I really wouldn't have fancied that in a 14 year old MX5.
The boss has a bruised left arm from the braking and the swerve. For a moment I thought about turning round and giving chase, but decided dragging somebody out of a car and banging their head against it would probably turn a drama into a crisis.
I'm actually quite pleased that my instincts seem still to be in order, after turning 60 a couple of weeks ago.
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Good to hear that you are OK.
I had to make quite a swerve the other day. I was in the right hand lane of a two lane dual carriageway (albeit with a 40 mph limit). A transit van had pulled into a turning point in a gap between the barriers, so that it could u-turn onto the other carriageway, as indicating right to do so.
For whatever reason, it suddenly decided to instead turn left back onto the original carriageway, when I was only a few metres away. Luckily I had been slowing down, in anticipation of some lights further on being red (which they always are at that point in my journey).
I managed to swerve around the front of the van, which had almost totally blocked my lane, and luckily the car on my left was also slowing and was just far back enough that I could get in front of it and past the van.
Looking back in my rear view mirror the van had moved back into the turning area, and seemed to be proceeding off that way. I've no idea why they pulled out in front of me. Perhaps they were trying to get a better angle to turn, and forgot to check the lane was clear.
No injuries, but the missus went quiet for a couple of minutes...so not a couple disaster :)
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Wed 5 Jun 13 at 18:40
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Just as well the road condition was good and dry, for a change, what colour is your MX5 effendi?
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>> Just as well the road condition was good and dry, for a change, what colour
>> is your MX5 effendi?
Red. Now with headlights on when mobile!
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Hardly a colour of car that can be missed then, I find that the brainless don't tend to pull out on my red Forester, like they often did on the grey Lancer.
I think my recently acquired Subaru baseball cap may have something to do with it though :)
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-SUBARU-BASEBALL-CAP-SDM2023-FREE-P-P-/171052331054?pt=UK_SportingGoods_Baseball_SM&hash=item27d383702e
I paid £7.50 for it - at the pain dealer!
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My John Deere is long gone but I still wear the cap like Seasick Steve.
www.efestivals.co.uk/photos/titp/2009photo/seasicksteve-tinthepark2009-SNP8.jpg
Quite distinctive worn in combo with driving the 156 so you'll know if you pass me on the Cambs A1(M).
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hehe! - he's good is SsSteve, and dig that guitar, if it is a guitar.
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>> My John Deere is long gone but I still wear the cap like Seasick Steve.
>>
>> www.efestivals.co.uk/photos/titp/2009photo/seasicksteve-tinthepark2009-SNP8.jpg
>>
>> Quite distinctive worn in combo with driving the 156 so you'll know if you pass
>> me on the Cambs A1(M).
Quite right, its not like al the people on the edge of the fens wear John Deer caps is it....
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I don't.
Of course, I suppose we've not had a "how many hats do you own" thread recently. About the only thing we haven't.
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As it happens they're quite popular up here - I have one for when I use my lawn tractor. We like Seasick Dave as well.
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I bet that fired the adrenalin up MT, well done for seeing it developing and being prepared, Baden Powell would have been proud.
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>> I bet that fired the adrenalin up MT, well done for seeing it developing and
>> being prepared, Baden Powell would have been proud.
Funnily enough, although it got me a bit cross, it didn't really shock me - probably the anticipation that did it. Normally you'd be right, with the ones that come out of the blue.
I'm careful not to encourage people if I can help it - sometimes if you hesitate, you can tip people into taking a chance. I must have slowed a bit to cover the brake, but I can't think it was a factor - it was only a second or two and I was right on top of it when it turned, the driver just couldn't have been scanning properly. Maybe he/she had been watching the left turner ahead of me and not looking beyond it.
It also felt like a fairly deliberate controlled manoeuvre on my part, but it was obviously pretty violent to knock the boss about - her arm hit something and she's wrenched her shoulder a bit.
Still well enough to make the tea, fortunately.
The most frightening thought is I couldn't tell you now how far, if at all, I went on to the other side of the road, so I might not have felt so smart had you been there with your wagon load of graded grains...
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>> The most frightening thought is I couldn't tell you now how far, if at all,
>> I went on to the other side of the road, so I might not have
>> felt so smart had you been there with your wagon load of graded grains...
Wouldn't have happened like that MT, if the beasty had been there you would already have factored for it when calculating your escape/avoidance route.
Fantastic thing the brain really, just how many calculations the experienced driver can juggle and instantly update them as the expected sequence changes.
Its situations like you avoided today makes me think that driverless vehicles will never become normal, just too many variables.
Cliffs post rang bells with me, i've taken more braking and evasive action in town and local driving in the last few years than in a lifetime previously, reflects the uncaring selfish me only attitude of the times as well as the infuriating incompetence of the lemmings at the wheel.
It does happen now and again with the lorry but not to the same extent, (except for other lorry drivers where there is a growing minority of chimps at the wheel), jusy as well really there's little in the way of evasive action to be taken especially loaded, its going in a straight line if it doesn't stop, tough.
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>> Its situations like you avoided today makes me think that driverless vehicles will never become normal, just too many variables.
What is it about you gb that makes me feel we are really soulmates? Anyway in the area of cars if not perhaps all areas.
I am struggling right now with a commission to write something on those things. Your view of their ultimate viability is similar or analogous to mine. But I am going to have to give chapter and verse, as well as trying to make the finished product tasty enough to paper over what may well be many cracks.
I was thinking of consulting N_C but quailed at the thought. He could be really helpful but there would be endless argument first I fear. And I've been a bit rude to him once or twice so he owes me one (in the eye I mean).
And the damn deadline is only five days off. I'm trying not to think about it. I hope that will help although I know from experience that it never does. .
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>> I am struggling right now with a commission to write something on those things. Your
>> view of their ultimate viability is similar or analogous to mine.
For what its worth AC i reckon they have limited possibilities in an unmanned tram way, guided on routes that can be scanned electronically for problems, and like train tracks if someone wanders on inadvertantly then all bets are off.
Soulmates (apart from politics and we can't all be right) in the respect we trust big brother as far as we can throw him, and fed up to the back molars of experts telling us how all should be and all we've done before was wrong?..;)
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Wed 5 Jun 13 at 21:24
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Actually, it's in situations like that where a decent autonomous vehicle should do rather well.
Electronic reaction times make ours look pathetic. Also their realtime 360 degree perception is infinitely superior to our "world view held statically in memory with an astonishingly minute part of it refreshed occasionally and apparent movement of objects produced by inference from the very limited data set".
When you find out how human vision works, it's incredible that there are as few accidents as we actually have. Put it this way: I'm sure that if you attempted to get a realtime, safety-critical system dependant on video input with that visual apparatus approved for use, you'd fail dismally.
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>> Actually, it's in situations like that where a decent autonomous vehicle should do rather well.
Maybe you have a point. Perhaps a driverless vehicle would have spotted Manatee's MX5 and not pulled out on him in the first place.
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>> Actually, it's in situations like that where a decent autonomous vehicle should do rather well.
That's true TC, an autonomous vehicle will react instantly by human standards and slow or stop in time. Not that that would usually make a crucial difference. Another thing it wouldn't do, although humans do it, is forget to look in the nearside mirror for a kamikaze gutter cyclist before making that left turn out of slow traffic into a side street.
The problem really is with the autonomy. It has to know where to go. It will be essentially reactive on the road, without any aesthetic feeling of flow and predictive, interpretative plotting of curves through complex situations. Perhaps its reactions will be so fast and its measurement of everything all around so frequent that none of that will matter. But if present in large numbers it is sure to make a difference to the rhythms and patterns of urban traffic. Naturally it will be programmed not to do anything illegal. That alone will cause problems.
Perhaps on the other hand it will waste a lot of time and energy avoiding potential crashes with bumbling human pilots in old-tech cars... whipping away like a trout as furious, sceptical humans drive angrily at it to test its reactions...
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Interesting discussion on driverless cars on recent edition of World Service's program "Click"
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p018d8kf/Click_A_Route_66_of_the_Future_Driverless_Cars/
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I'm increasingly encountering people who deliberately pull out in front, chancing that someone else will manage to take the avoiding action.
It's one thing to simply misjudge a closing speed, or through a lapse of concentration or a blink of an eye miss seeing the other car, but I have recently encountered several people who look me straight in the eye, wait until the last moment, and then pull out as if deliberately playing chicken.
What's happening? It means one has to slow right down at all junctions just in case there is a lunatic lurking.
Glad you came off so lightly by the way. Near misses are a shock I know, but not I suspect to the guilty.
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>> one has to slow right down at all junctions just in case there is a lunatic lurking.
You may not remember this, but it was what one had to do to pass the driving test in my day.
May well still be like that. And your true cretin, instead of seeing the way things actually are, may just assume all drivers do it. And that if they don't, the crash will be their fault, so never mind about being dead. At least you were right, you think as your liver ruptures and so on.
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Leave 'em laughing, eh AC?
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>> Leave 'em laughing, eh
We aim to please RR, but also to instruct. A liberal mode of pedagogy my dear fellow... But wasted breath no doubt, wasted breath.
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>> >> one has to slow right down at all junctions just in case there is
>> a lunatic lurking.
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>> You may not remember this, but it was what one had to do to pass
>> the driving test in my day.
I recall you had to at least do enough to imply that you were aware, a bit like the exaggerated looks in the mirror.
When I took my test in Huddersfield about 40 years ago, there were lots of unmarked crossroads in the back streets, and the test route always had one or two. You just had to slow to a crawl and have a look.
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In my day it was down to second gear passing side turnings with full stop or give way markings. And all in a Hillman Imp which made it worse. Outside the North Circular, the test. I had real difficulty understanding why such rubbish driving was required. Doubtless that obtuseness was one reason why I failed the test twice although I was a keen car person then as now.
Later I realised it was to check whether drivers could manage competently, be completely on top of it all, at very low speeds. Sensible really because when I first started to drive I couldn't. I was heavy-footed all the time. But traffic needs gentleness and subtlety as well as firmness and decision.
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Try riding a motorbike for a bit.
You very rapidly learn that everything waiting to pull out of a side turning is a nailed-on threat.
Worst I had was coming down a hill one morning to see a BMW 3 series waiting to pull out. I backed off the throttle and covered the brakes. He looked straight at me, to the extent that I swear that we made eye contact, so I went back on the throttle.
He pulled out.
I took the liberty of putting a motorcycle boot through his grille on the way past...
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>> >> Just as well the road condition was good and dry, for a change, what
>> colour
>> >> is your MX5 effendi?
>>
>> Red. Now with headlights on when mobile!
>>
what colour are the seats ?
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>> what colour are the seats ?
>>
>>
Still black
I was too preoccupied to worry, and the boss is a Stoic from Halifax.
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Well done Manatee.
That road's a pretty regular drive for me as I usualy bail off the M1 at 18 going south. The junctions for Long Buckby and Watford Gap renowned for this sort of thing. The latter to the point of the limit through it being dropped to 50.
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The Lad passed his test last October.
Generally he drives well but he still struggles to muster any sort of real preparedness for the unexpected, never mind the level shown here by Manatee. Brakes late for the local narrow bridges over the Nene, insufficent 'what if' thought around the pinch chicanes in ours and next village.
I try and point stuff out but unlike his sister, who treats driving like her degree studies as a task to be improved and refined, he doesn't want to know. It won't hapen to him.....
Next time we pass Long Buckby I'll remind him of M's scenario as he sails through the crossing. Might just make him think.
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>>hat road's a pretty regular drive for me as I usualy bail off the M1 at 18 going south
Ditto. In fact on this occasion I had bailed earlier at 23a onto the A42, then via A444 on to the A5. The MX5 isn't a great motorway car.
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Narrow escape - SteelSpark
