Author Topic: Driving on the left pisses people off (Read 2101 times)

lazs2 · « **Reply #45 on:** August 31, 2003, 09:07:18 AM »

In my modified Healey club there a lot of aussies... those guys love their hot rods. They have some great ocean view twisty turny roads that I envy too. never have any limeyu guys on the group. never seen a hot rod the whole time I was in england. never seen anything that seemed particulary "skilled" about their driving either. In fact... they just seemed rude... they would park in front of a shop or resteraunt turning the allready way too narrow road into a traffic jam.

So beetle... is there an important country that drives on the left?
lazs

Curval · « **Reply #46 on:** August 31, 2003, 09:11:29 AM »

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Originally posted by lazs2
So beetle... is there an important country that drives on the left?
lazs

Yes...Bermuda.

FUNKED1 · « **Reply #47 on:** August 31, 2003, 02:14:09 PM »

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Originally posted by Mini D
NSX? Don't know if that's really the car you want to be touting for 140mph performance. An M3 will tear it apart. Hell... most high HP cars will eat it up. It has a very nice suspension and is mid engine... but Acura never could figure out how to give it a little more punch.

If you talk bang for the buck... virtually every other car manufacturer offers something faster for less than the cost of an NSX.

MiniD

I agree, that it is not very fast considering the high price, but it is a 175 mph car, and is very reliable and has great handling and very good aerodynamics for high speed driving. One of the few road cars that actually generates significant downforce at high speeds. It certainly fits Saur's description of a "sports car that can run all day at 140 MPH with complete confidence or without a mechanical failure." For that matter the S2000 would qualify as well.

PS The reason Honda hasn't given it more punch is Japanese regulations which restrict cars to about 280 hp. So they've gone for improving the suspension and aerodynamics and reducing weight. The NSX-R is about 600 lbs less than an M3.

(Edit, my figures were wrong.)

SOB · « **Reply #48 on:** August 31, 2003, 02:32:42 PM »

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Originally posted by Hooligan
I advise you guys who are not amused by drivers going slow in the left lane to stay the hell out of Washington state.

Hooligan

No kidding...I'm not sure what the problem is, but if the car has a WA plate, chances are it's got an idiot behind the wheel. Yeah, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

SOB

Dago · « **Reply #49 on:** August 31, 2003, 03:18:23 PM »

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You ignorant a-hole. This is exactly the kind of country bashing that slips through, and nothing is done about it. I do not accept this as a joke. I

ROFLMAO. I posted my insult as "beetle bait" and danged if I didnt reel one it.

I have to apologize, as you have not posted your typical nonsense about the USA lately, and I am sure we all appreciate it. I shouldn't have started it either. Maybe you finally took my advice and got into therapy, I don't know but it has been helping. Keep up the good work.

dago

beet1e · « **Reply #50 on:** August 31, 2003, 03:24:04 PM »

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Originally posted by ra
Then remember that the definition of alcohol-related does not mean alcohol-caused. For their own reasons, NHTSA has chosen to define an alcohol related crash as an accident in which a driver, passenger, bicyclist or pedestrian had any measurable alcohol in their system. Furthermore, cause, fault or circumstance are not considered. For example, a winter chain reaction crash on black ice on I91 involving 10 cars and three deaths would be considered alcohol related if one of the drivers had taken some cough syrup medication that morning. If you feel that I am engaging in hyperbole, refer back to the May 5 OLR study that uses the same example.

Doesn't cut any ice.

You could say that an "alcohol related" fatality, in which the rear seat passenger of one of the vehicles involved in a fatal collision had consumed excess alcohol, was not an "alcohol caused" fatality, if the driver of that car was sober. But by the same token, consider the situation in which a drunk driver kills another motorist as a result of alcohol impairment. That would be an alcohol caused fatality, even if the driver who died had been stone cold sober. The two scenarios cancel eachother out. The fact remains that the 17,000+ alcohol related fatalities on American roads each year are considered preventable. The MADD report quotes this stat: "The bad news, however, is that 17,419 people died in preventable tragedies accounting for 41 percent of total traffic fatalities." I underlined the important word. Now for the life of me, I can't see that offloading tipsy rear seat passengers is going to make much of a dent in that 17,000+ death toll stemming from alcohol abuse on America's roads. The important thing to bear in mind is that the cause of these fatalities comes under the heading of "Impaired Driving". I don't see that carrying an intoxicated passenger in the rear seat contributes to "impaired driving", otherwise the accident rate amongst taxi companies would be off the scale. Clearly, driving impairment arises from the driver having consumed excess alcohol - nothing to do with any passengers.

The fact remains that the number of alcohol related road deaths in the US is about 30 times higher than in Britain.

Clearly, Americans can't hold their drink, but at the sime time it's very surprising considering that all American beer is piss.

FUNKED1 · « **Reply #51 on:** August 31, 2003, 03:50:22 PM »

Beetle the MADD people are biased and they are the ones who encourage the local agencies to "cook the books". The alcohol related stats are BS.

NUKE · « **Reply #52 on:** August 31, 2003, 04:08:30 PM »

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Clearly, Americans can't hold their drink, but at the sime time it's very surprising considering that all American beer is piss.

What an ignorant thing to say, but then it is Beetle after all. Why does he insist of getting into US vs UK pissing matches anyway?

The guy can not let up on his American gun comments and loves to stoke those flames. Then he makes blanket statements about Americans. Can't we get a break from this guy?

beet1e · « **Reply #53 on:** August 31, 2003, 04:10:27 PM »

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Originally posted by FUNKED1
Beetle the MADD people are biased and they are the ones who encourage the local agencies to "cook the books". The alcohol related stats are BS.

Forgot to mention: 1.5m DUI arrests in the US in 2000.

Dago · « **Reply #54 on:** August 31, 2003, 04:21:51 PM »

We have been down this road with Beetle before.

He fails to mention, or take into account, that a lot of the British drunks walk to the Pub (nightly) and stagger home, not driving so there is naturally going to a smaller incident of alcohol related driving statistics.

The USA might possibly have a higher percentage of vehicle owners, and we tend to be a highly mobile society.

No matter what country, drunking driving is a terrible thing, it causes many deaths of innocent people.

dago

ra · « **Reply #55 on:** August 31, 2003, 06:01:06 PM »

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The fact remains that the 17,000+ alcohol related fatalities on American roads each year are considered preventable.

Considered preventable by who? MADD is a political group that wants to push the legal blood alcohol content for drivers down to 0%. I've already shown that there is no meaning to the term "alcohol related" in US accident statistics. So dig up something else and try again.

Devourer · « **Reply #56 on:** September 01, 2003, 12:54:17 AM »

If i find a slow driver in the left lane, i can usually revert to using the shoulder

Vulcan · « **Reply #57 on:** September 01, 2003, 01:49:57 AM »

OK back to tourists:

English: their driving is shocking, the pack campervan mentality is very trying. Glow in the dark skin often ruins a summers day.

Americans: their clothes. Gawdy, bright coloured, like tartan shorts with hawaiin shirts. Excessive use of hats and dark sunglasses. Try to tip and buy everbody off.

Germans: always travel in couples, totally in love, usually nature lovers. Excessively happy for a country that lost the war.

Japanese: pack hordes. Often overwhelm locations by combined tourist bus assaults and sticking together in large undividable groups. Further complicate matters by trying to communicate by nodding their head a lot and taking photos with excessively complicated cameras.

French: The guys are often arrogant, the women always mobbed by lustful Kiwi guys. Critical of everything (apparently France does everything better). Like the Americans they try to buy everything, unlike the Americans they try to buy it for nothing.

Australians: Once they open their mouth it all goes downhill from there.

Scots: Excessively drunk, never see a sober one.

There are some good tourists:
Swedes: often travel in pairs of hitchhiking chicks looking for summer jobs while wearing tight white halter tops and blue jean shorts.

Dutch: often travel in pairs of hitchhiking chicks looking for summer jobs while wearing tight white halter tops and blue jean shorts.

Canadians: Always happy and nice to everyone. Potential excessive use of drugs.

NUKE · « **Reply #58 on:** September 01, 2003, 02:11:25 AM »

Lots of tourists come to Arizona, I never thought much about them.... they are just tourists, nothing wrong with being a tourist.

beet1e · « **Reply #59 on:** September 01, 2003, 02:59:28 AM »

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Originally posted by ra
Considered preventable by who? MADD is a political group that wants to push the legal blood alcohol content for drivers down to 0%. I've already shown that there is no meaning to the term "alcohol related" in US accident statistics. So dig up something else and try again.

I think it's fatuous to denounce MADD as your defence against the stats I have provided. MADD may be a political organisation within your parlance, but it should be obvious to any old pinhead that they are quoting stats derived from data collated by a government agency, in this case the Center for Disease Control. (I guess alcoholism is a disease).

Report from CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm

In the above report, you will see that the figures for alcohol related deaths are pretty much as MADD quoted. Notice that the bold heading to the CDC document is "Impaired Driving". (Having a tipsy rear seat passenger is not a driving "impairment") Note also that the prevention strategies do not include offloading tipsy rear seat passengers in an attempt to massage the "alcohol related" figures. Indeed, there is no mention of passengers having any bearing on the statistics.

Cirrhosis of the Liver in America

You might want to check the above link: Over 26,000 people in the US die annually because of liver cirrhosis, and 80% of those deaths would be prevented if alcohol abuse was eliminated. In Britain, the figure is about 4,000. Source: Daily Telegraph

Even scaling up the figures to reflect the disparity between the sizes of the US and UK populations, it is clear that America has a much worse alcohol problem than we do.

Lazs! I almost missed your troll. Well, we are communicating via computers, and indeed much of modern life is dependent on computers and microchips/integrated circuitry etc. I think you'll find that Japan was a world leader in this field of technology, and they drive on the left.

Here is a list of countries which says which side they drive on, and the history behind the reasons - for those wishing to stay on topic.

Oh, and Dago - you don't know crap about Britain, even if you have been here. I walk or use public transport if visiting a drinking establishment. If you're suggesting that Americans drive there because of being "a more mobile society" then they (and you) are even more stupid than I thought. I've backed up what I said with government stats. What backing do you have to support your slagging off of Britain?