Car drivers on country roads.

Intrepid Wheelwoman

Intrepid Wheelwoman

New Member
No this isn't me moaning about a near miss or anything. I live in a small rural town in the heart of dairy farming country, it's a pretty landscape around here and many of the roads are narrow two lane affairs with a lot of dips and twists and turns. Throw in a few narrow bridges approached from blind angles as well as farm machinery and stock movements on the roads and it's a case of knowing the road as well as keep your speed down that gets you home safe and sound.
There is also a road that runs through a long winding narrow gorge beside a river that can get pretty darn deep and wild in wet weather. It's breathtakingly beautiful through the gorge, but it's a road that need to be respected as it's narrow with a lot of tight turns and blind corners and the road surface is often wet due to the presence of water seepage from tiny springs high above the road. The gorge road in particular has a good many warning signs about the road conditions and there is a special speed restriction on the gorge road as well.

Last Sunday I was working around the garage and carport at home, it was a fine day and there was a fair bit of out of town daytripper traffic going past on the road outside my front gate. The St. John Ambulance depot and the Fire Station are both reasonably close to where I live and I'll tell you I lost count of how many times the ambulance and the fire service guys went past my gate with their lights and sirens going while heading for the gorge road. I heard them go out a couple of time in the other direction as well, but most of the action was on the gorge road this time around.
The simple fact is people driving cars don't pay any attention to any of the warning signs and drive much too fast. The open road speed limit here in New Zealand is 100kph, and as most drivers in their hi-tech tin-tops with ABS and computer controlled anti-roll systems and goodness knows what else think that they can add around another 15-20kph onto the speed limit it makes for a disaster waiting to happen. I drive a 1977 Datsun that's in nice original condition and when I'm driving on the roads around here I keep my speed down and my eyes open because I know the roads. I know I'm fast moving into old lady territory and that when out of towners see me driving my older model motorcar at sensible speeds they more than likely grit their teeth and itch to pass me as soon as they possibly can. But what for? Perhaps it is because I'm 58 that I've learned to enjoy the journey and not be in a mad rush to get to a destination all the time.

When i was younger I did my time with tuned up cars and sidecar outfits & etc, but seems that even the most hopped up Austin I ever tuned and modded would be considered an absolute slow poke compared with the factory standard state of tune the latest offerings from the showroom floor. Compared with the type of second hand cars my friends and i could buy when we first started driving the kids these days are getting their hands on vehicles that can go waaay faster than anything we used to have. We might not have had any more commonsense than kids today, but at least we couldn't buy anything fast enough to kill ourselves with.

Do you want a laugh? I found a 12 year old photo of myself at a friend's place back when my doctor would still permit me to ride a motorcycle. It was a 500 twin Suzuki and it was such a sweet ride .......... (sniff)

annie3pt8.jpg
 
You're not alone dealing with the youngsters and speeders. The speed limit in my neighborhood is 25MPH. I'll guess that well over 80% of drivers do 30, 40, even 50 MPH and totally ignore stop signs. When I ride my bikes I'm ever on the watch for thse yo-yos and I'm just waiting for the day there's a fatal accident where someone blew through a stop sign and another one was speeding and couldn't stop.

I don't know what's responsible for the bad drivers today but I suspect it has something to do with TV commercials showing these cars doing amazing things and the buyers thinking they can do what the professional drivers who make those ads can do. 4 wheel drifts on narrow mountain roads and blasting along at speed on snow pack. I see those commercials and just shake my head.

Great photo by the way. Thanks for sharing.

Tom
 
Nice story, and I say great photo too.
Thank you for sharing, and I hope that the younger generation that frequents this forum takes heed to the message within it.

I live right past the bend of a blind corner on my street with a rise ending at the apex of the bend. This is in a residential neighborhood with plenty of children around. Speed limit is 25mph (40kph).
I very frequently hear tires howling outside as vehicles fly around the bend and I wait for the day when it ends with a bang. It has happened plenty of times before.
The last time some fool overshot it on a motorcycle. He slid along the sides of a few parked cars until he fell over, damm lucky he didn't end up a trunk ornament on one of them.
 
I was a volunteer fire fighter at one time. Drunk drivers and chronic speeders should have been sent out with us on accident calls. Then they could have had a better understanding of the problems they may cause and the aftermath.

Nice photo indeed.

Steve.
 
While I'll agree and empathize with the observations above I must point out there's very little difference between the "bad drivers today" & "the younger generation" of any preceding generation save at most, the technology of their vehicles. While it's true they may be able to go somewhat faster, they've also seatbelts, airbags, antilock brakes, crumple zones - a plethora of safety equipment heretofore unknown.

Does this actually give them any additional sense of security? Do "TV commercials" imbue them with the skills of "professional drivers"? Is the difference is speed of today's vehicles enough to explain the seeming urge to "kill themselves" or even make it any more likely?

No. It's the same naive, hormone addled conviction of immortality all younger people have had since the dawn of time itself, none of us an exception, the difference being merely the wisdom that comes with being the lucky survivors of our own youth, that wisdom not even gained by all as driving like a fool isn't the sole domain of the young, though perhaps predominately populated by such.

We've a long standing tradition of drunk drivers, chronic speeders, those that would push themselves farther than their skill or equipment could possibly handle, no doubt complaints of "the reckless younger generation" endangering themselves & others in this fashion began as soon as we figured out how to ride horses.

How conveniently we forget the rigors of our own youth...



I would suggest the only factors differentiating "the youth of today" and those of yesterday would be mere numbers, there's more of them and far more have access to vehicles than ever before - but this doesn't change the psychology, the perception of immortality, the wisdom of this statement shared by every older generation, no matter the generation;

"Perhaps it is because I'm 58 that I've learned to enjoy the journey and not be in a mad rush to get to a destination all the time."

...rare indeed the exception to the rule, those that would gain wisdom without the experience of time.
 
Just the other day I was talking with my 20 something year old daughter and I started making some, 'When I was a girl....' and, 'Young people today......' type statements. Once I realised what I was doing I burst out laughing saying, 'Listen to me I'm turning old, I sound like my grandmother!'
My daughter and I had a good laugh about it, but it was certainly weird realising that the devil may care young woman inside me who used drive sidecar outfits surprisingly fast had somehow faded away for those few moments and become an old lady.

Yes we all believe we're immortal when we're young. I have one nose to tail car crash, a roll over and a motorcycle crash on a Suzuki triple that busted open my left knee in my past so my own halo isn't as pristine as i would like to believe it to be.

Those old accident photos were interesting to see and as you say nothing is new under the sun. That Ford on its side has to have been a moonshine runner though; - the drinking and driving message comes through loud and clear.
 
I used to be an urban speeder on motorcycles and in my little blue Plastic Pig. I took my car test quite late in life, at 42. To pass the test I had to learn there was life below 30mph, and having acquired the ability to do legal/Slow, I find it's rather relaxing. It's also definitely saved the lives of 2 people in separate incidents when they crossed the road without looking.

When I go out into the rural roads at the edge of the city, I'm always aware there are brain deads liable to appear round blind bends with inadequate room to brake or manoeuvre. The problem is worse on the A roads as the retards on sports bikes treat them as a private Isle Of Man circuit, to the point that on weekends in summer, some parking areas are colonised as de facto emergency depots by police and ambulance services.

I think the reason I made it this far is that I never thought "it won't happen to me", and despite the now embarrassing speeds I travelled at, I did make strenuous attempts to avoid errors.

And now I'm collecting bits for a superslow moped. How long before I ride a bike that only goes in reverse?
 
I believe it was Richard Petty that was asked when auto racing started.

His reply was "When they built the second car".

Steve.
 
Ludwig II, I had a very similar youth compared to yours.
I am grateful to have survived it.

Reading your post made me realize a very ironic situation in my life.
When I was young I rode fast bikes way too fast and slow cars and trucks (the only ones I could afford) to the near brink of self destruction going as fast as I could make them go.
Now that I am older I have afforded a fast truck, but I drive it slow, less than 1/2 it's potential.
The fast motorcycles have been replaced by motorized bicycles for me too.

Ain't life strange?
 
Last edited:
And Petty was right. Aldo Canavesio, an Italian writer described 2 Englishmen on motorcycles as being a race. I don't think it needs to be just Englishmen.
 
Due to the dry weather conditions we haven't had much snow or ice this winter. Everybody on their morning commute are driving their regular 20mph over the speed limit one Monday morning here lately we had an inch of freezing rain and about 1 1/2 inch of snow on top of of it You would think these drivers would slow down expecially the ones that insist being first at the stop light. Every main artery in town looks like a demolition derby. I beleive some of the drivers never the opportunity to drive in ice and snow mornings like this I don't even want to leave the front porcn. Seems like everybody has to get there fast come **** or high water. I guess its just human nature.
Speed never killed anybody its that fast stop that will tear you up.
I had a friend a little older thtn me that had to renew his drivers licene the DMV took his license away from him he couldn't pass the eye test, he told me they said he was old enough he didn't need a drivers license any more, but it doesn't seem to slow him down much.
buzzard
 
Ludwig II said:
Too many people think that glass thing in front of them is television. We know it isn't.
Click to expand...

This statement is soo true and sad as well.
Alot of the high school kids around here drive like there is a reset button somewhere on the dash board. If they crash they just push the reset button and nobody is hurt and the vehicles involved are not damaged anymore.

I got a good laugh out of one the other day. He was sitting at a stop sign (in a residential area) in a little Honda CRX revving the engine so fast it was bouncing off of the rev limiter and dropping the clutch multiple times, smoking the tires each time, trying to get his buddy next to him in a Mitsubishi 3000GT to race him.
His buddy was just laughing at him. This went on for about 3 minutes.
Finally the little Honda had enough and the left side outer CV joint snapped. Dayum what a horrible racket that made as the axleshaft was flipping and thrashing around inside the wheel well. His buddy in the Mistu. nearly fell out of his car laughing so hard.
The poor little Honda needed a tow truck to get home.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top