DRIVING

LibstheHobbit said:

If you are autistic and can drive could you tell me about your experiences?

The chief problem with autistic people driving, in my experience, is other drivers. But this is true of everyone except the (deleted by mod) who refuse to obey the moving-vehicle laws. Almost all drivers are careful, observant, and courteous; it is the tiny minority that terrifies me. I see no benefit from racing around and among other cars on the highway; no profit in "tail-gating" mere inches behind other vehicles.

LibstheHobbit said:

If you are autistic and can drive could you tell me about your experiences?

The chief problem with autistic people driving, in my experience, is other drivers. But this is true of everyone except the (deleted by mod) who refuse to obey the moving-vehicle laws. Almost all drivers are careful, observant, and courteous; it is the tiny minority that terrifies me. I see no benefit from racing around and among other cars on the highway; no profit in "tail-gating" mere inches behind other vehicles.

Just realised your name is Shy David and mine is Different Mark

Shy David, Speaking as one of those (deleted by mod) you refer to, since I take great pride in managing to do my hattery without causing myself or anyone else to be endangered, to have to brake, sound their horn or take avoiding action, might I politely ask that you "law abiding types" do the following?

1.PLEASE keep to the left when the road conditions are appropriate and don't cruise down the centre lane blithely making a three lane motorway into a dual carriage way for all, except the "undertakers"!

I go up the M40 somedays and there is a mile of empty uphill carriage way on the left with one lorry at the end of it and the two right hand lanes full to bursting. Learn how to use that left hand lane, and how to safely pull back out when you actually get close to the lorry.. Yes that strategy does carry a small risk of getting stuck behind the lorry if people won't let you out again, but an a55hole like me always respects someone who's been indicating to pull out from the left lane for a while, because we know there's almost 100% .chance that when we let you out you'll get back into the left again when it's appropriate.    

2.Please don't cruise down the overtaking lane enforcing the speed limit like a little unpaid policeman, at spot on what your (slightly overreading because they make them that way) speedo tells you is the exact speed limit.

It's just being needlessly annoying. It causes some people to want to tail gate you. I wouldn't do that of course, it's way too dangerous for my taste and I actually do prioritise safety over speed every time. If you try to deliberately prevent ME from using the overtaking lane when I need to, and I am sure you are doing it deliberately, (it's pretty obvious when it happens) I'll get straight into the left lane, and find your blind spot and slowly creep in and out of it until the growing uncertainly of your situation makes you do the RIGHT THING. And I'll keep it up for bloody miles if neccesary! It's no skin off my nose, you are making me drive slower than my comfort speed anyway so I have oodles of spare capacity to waste giving you something else to think about rather than how entitled you are to play "policeman" with me.  I'm not going to endanger myself "undertaking" or "tailgating" I'm just going to do my thing until you break psychologically, and LET ME PAST!! 

3. When two lanes are merging into one, please do not sail down middle of the two lanes thus blocking people from merging correctly in a zipper like fashion at the end, as the manual says we should do, it just makes the tail back longer, which makes things more hazardous in some cases for the poor sods way back. 

The moral of this story, is let the police do their job and concentrate on your OWN driving skills, performance and attitude, NOT MINE. Driving is hard enough, without taking up arms against and winding up the other motorists who choose to do it a little differently. You can't stop the reckless speeders anyway, (that's what we pay the police for! and the reckless and stupid ones will just blast past on the inside, of get up on your rear bumper)

You can make everyone's journey a bit less stressful by focussing on your own task, And if you are a speed demon like myself, you can make life a hell of a lot more pleasant and safe, by being a bit more patient with the slowcoaches and at least give them a fair chance to notice you and get out of the way. ALWAYS remember if you are speeding YOU have a much greater responsibility for any accident or incident, and thus you simply need to drive MUCH better than they do otherwise, you justify being called an (deleted by mod) by the less competent. Speed does not kill, that's just silly propaganda, it's the rapid decelleration that occurs if you drive faster than your competence and the road conditions allow. 

It's all about judgement and competence for some people, not slavish adherence to arbitrary rules. Whilst they might have put speed cameras in the spots where they rake in the money a decade ago by way of a stealth tax, they always put those little illuminated speed indicating signs there for safety reasons. (Which is why speed cameras tend to "spontaneously combust" whereas those little signs never do)   

 In the UK there are also so many badly-designed, junctions. I understand traffic-light controlled junctions, and I understand roundabouts, but traffic-light controlled roundabouts, what?! We have one where I live that also has a tramway running through it - on road level. cutting across traffic lanes. Just madness.