• Went out for my first 'real' drive. Other drivers are cunts.
    121 replies, posted
Here in Victoria, Australia in order to get your P plates you must complete 120 hours of driving while on your L plates. Despite having had my L plates for almost a year now I hadn't really driven at all. So today, after a bit of debate with my father; he insisted I drive the automatic car for the first few hours just to get the hang of things, then I can do the majority of my driving in the manual (I wanted to drive manual from the very beginning); I hopped into the car (he won: I drove the auto today), and he drove me just outside our suburb to the back, country roads. So we switched places, I hopped into the driver seat, and we set off on our way for what would be 1 hour and 20 minutes towards my 120 hours (yay!). There were a few hiccups along the way (it's my first time 'really' driving (I'd driven up and down a small road before, but that was it until this point), but I got progressively better. We ended up driving down some long, straight, empty, country-road with the coast visible 3 or 4 kilometres down the road from us. The speed limit was 80km/h, but I was sitting at 60 because I felt more comfy there for the time being. We passed a small side road with a car waiting to turn out, and he proceeded out just as we passed him. I checked the rear-view mirror after a few seconds and noticed that he seemed a little close, but it wasn't too bad, so I proceeded onwards at my speed of 60km/h figuring he'd pass me in a few seconds. As I've said, the road was completely straight, and devoid of any traffic but he and I. He had no reason not to. I looked up at my rear-view mirror again and was a bit shocked to find out he was only about 3 metres from he rear of my car. Dad told me just to concentrate on the road ahead of me and ignore him as he'd no doubt pass in a few seconds. About 10 or 20 seconds later though he was STILL there. I was getting a little nervous now and kept checking behind me, and then suddenly there was a loud splashing noise and the car was pulling to the left. I tugged on the wheel and braked bringing the car back straight and coming to a stop by the side of the road and looked in my rear-view mirror again. The guy behind me had skidded and spun his car 90 degrees to avoid hitting the back of our car (how he DIDN'T hit us when he was that close I have no fucking clue. Maybe he saw me beginning to veer off centre a split second before I hit the puddle). Turns out I'd veered slightly off centre and hit a big puddle just off the side of the road because I hadn't been focussing ahead of me and had been looking in my rear view mirror. But to be fair, the cunt in the car behind me shouldn't have been bloody [b]THREE METRES[/b] from the back of our car. That's WAY too close on a road that's TOTALLY empty. We could have avoided the entire situation if he'd just backed the fuck off, or overtaken me. I sat at the side of the road deciding just to take a breather and the guy in the car behind me set off down the road again giving me an evil fucking stare on the way by. Should you be reading this: you sir, are a motherfucking cunt. Later on, about an hour after this, we were heading home and drove back into our suburb. Up until now I had only encountered 3 or 4 vehicles at a time as we had been driving on country roads. Here, however, there were a fair bit of cars driving about, so I was a little bit nervous. I was driving down the long road towards the traffic lights (again, SLIGHTLY below the speed limit (nothing too major though. Only about 10km/h); the lane I was in merged into the lane to my right about 100 or so metres down from our current position. I was about to turn into the right lane when a big 4x4 came up next to me in the right hand lane (it was travelling [b]AT[/b] the speed limit when it approached) and then immediately SLOWED to meet my speed when it got next to me (preventing me from merging). I managed to slow down and find a way into the right hand lane, however there was no fucking need for the other guy to do what he did. He almost caused a crash. I'm not gonna pretend that I'm a good driver, far from it. It's my first time driving. I [b]SUCK[/b] at driving at the moment. But these guys, these people with FULL LICENSES don't seem to have ANY FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY'RE DOING EITHER. I, or another L plater MIGHT have an excuse for making mistakes, but not these people who have a license. Are they all incompetent? Do they all have road-rage? Are they trying to scare L-platers? Or is it a combination thereof? Any fellow Australian Facepunchers feel free to answer those questions if you wish.
Don't worry, once you have your P plates you'll be cursing at the shithead L platers who can't drive.
As a fellow australian, I can assure you everyone is a dickhead on the road but you. My advice, kill them before they kill you :australia:.
[QUOTE=Wipmuck;23075713]As a fellow australian, I can assure you everyone is a dickhead on the road but you. My advice, kill them before they kill you :australia:.[/QUOTE] I'm not actually Australian, I'm Scottish. But I agree. People here really can't drive well. Even my mum and dad comment on how shittily the people here drive compared to back in the UK (and even back in the UK there's a LOT of dickheads on the road).
Even though I'm an American, I can tell you, the experience is no different here. While going down a three-lane highway in the middle lane, this guy came up behind me and began honking me for all his car's horn is worth. The road was [I]completely fucking empty except for us two.[/I] So he goes around me, gets in front of me, slams his brakes, flips me off, and speeds off. He did all this at 65mph, until he sped off at 85 or so. I saw him a few minutes later getting pulled over by a patrol car. :v:
[QUOTE=the_KMM;23075754]Even though I'm an American, I can tell you, the experience is no different here. While going down a three-lane highway in the middle lane, this guy came up behind me and began honking me for all his car's horn is worth. The road was [I]completely fucking empty except for us two.[/I] So he goes around me, gets in front of me, slams his brakes, flips me off, and speeds off. He did all this at 65mph, until he sped off at 85 or so. I saw him a few minutes later getting pulled over by a patrol car. :v:[/QUOTE] Serves him right. Guy sounds like a cunt. Fucking road rage is ridiculous.
Once you get comfortable behind the wheel of a car, you're more likely to perform manoeuvres which can seem crazy (and are probably illegal); chances are, you just ran into a couple of drivers who were either expecting you to be up to a decent level of skill, or who were just absolute morons anyway. You'll find that truck drivers tend to be the biggest idiots on the road. They probably weren't singling you out to harass you on purpose.
[QUOTE=Ixius;23075841]Once you get comfortable behind the wheel of a car, you're more likely to perform manoeuvres which can seem crazy (and are probably illegal); chances are, you just ran into a couple of drivers who were either expecting you to be up to a decent level of skill, or who were just absolute morons anyway. You'll find that truck drivers tend to be the biggest idiots on the road. They probably weren't singling you out to harass you on purpose.[/QUOTE] Let's hope not. I thought they might be giving me some sort of fucked up, sadistic 'initiation' into driving. I mean my L plates were visible enough, and I was obviously new at it (hence me staying a good 10km/h below the speed limit) after all.
[QUOTE=Ixius;23075841]You'll find that truck drivers tend to be the biggest idiots on the road.[/QUOTE] Not true, some of them are the nicest drivers I've met, and they know the rules of the road better than anyone else.
[QUOTE=sltungle;23075867]Let's hope not. I thought they might be giving me some sort of fucked up, sadistic 'initiation' into driving. I mean my L plates were visible enough, and I was obviously new at it (hence me staying a good 10km/h below the speed limit) after all.[/QUOTE] Yeah it's stupid, some instructors learner cars here in the UK have on the back "Please be patient, you were a learner once" People are assholes.
I'm on my Green P's. Sucks that you've gotta do 120 hours, I just made it before they changed it from 50 to 120.
[QUOTE=BlazeFresh;23075906]Yeah it's stupid, some instructors learner cars here in the UK have on the back "Please be patient, you were a learner once" People are assholes.[/QUOTE] Our instructors in Australia can be either an actual driving instructor, or just anyone (a parent, a friends parent, whatever) with a full license. And you drive whatever car you want (with some exceptions. No V8s for example). But the L plates were on their anyway, and they should REMEMBER that they were once in the same position anyway.
[QUOTE=sltungle;23075933]Our instructors in Australia can be either an actual driving instructor, or just anyone (a parent, a friends parent, whatever) with a full license. And you drive whatever car you want (with some exceptions. No V8s for example). But the L plates were on their anyway, and they should REMEMBER that they were once in the same position anyway.[/QUOTE] Yeah it's the same over in the UK, however only the instructors cars have that on. And yeah i totally agree. What i hate most is people slamming their brakes on when they overtake you, that's probably the worst for me.
[QUOTE=sltungle;23075804]Serves him right. Guy sounds like a cunt. Fucking road rage is ridiculous.[/QUOTE] Best part is, my mom (who happened to be in the passenger seat at the time) told me 'He was flipping us the bird and screaming at us as we passed him by. I guess he thinks we're the jerks for getting him caught.'. Really, it's stupid. My dad has a truck, and over here, [I]nobody[/I] feels like getting behind a truck. I guess it's because you can't see around them too well. Allow me to give you a diagram of what I'm about to describe. [IMG]http://filesmelt.com/dl/stupidcompact.png[/IMG] The blue object is the truck, the little red thing is a compact car with some lardass in it. We're driving along, and there's this little exit from a parking lot going onto a two-lane road. There is NOBODY behind us. Then this guy in a compact that's literally a third the size of our vehicle just cuts us off and fucking STOPS in the middle of the road. My dad motions to the guy (who can see us clearly in his rearview mirror) 'What the hell, man?'. He laughs, and goes at a normal speed to the intersection, slams his brakes, flips us off (seeing a pattern?), and turns. He couldn't have waited 2 more seconds, could he? THAT WOULD RUIN HIS FUCKING SCHEDULE. People who drive compacts in the US are notoriously awful drivers.
[QUOTE=Ixius;23075841]You'll find that truck drivers tend to be the biggest idiots on the road.[/QUOTE] I ride a motorbike and personally I find that trucks in Victoria, Australia are usually the safest types of drivers to hang around. They generally just stick to the one lane unless they have to turn/stop and they make sure they look around when they do ANYTHING. Everyone else just dives in and out like complete idiots so they can reach the next set of lights half a second earlier and sit at them half a second longer.
Australian drivers are crap, after getting my L's a couple of months ago I can relate to OP.
[QUOTE=Ixius;23075841]You'll find that truck drivers tend to be the biggest idiots on the road.[/QUOTE] Compact drivers. Not truck drivers. Do you know how ridiculously difficult it is to keep a truck centered in the lane while dodging EVERY SINGLE MORON who tries to cut you off?
OP, as a P plater I can tell you that the speed limit is a piece of shit and that 10% over is completely legal. Have fun. :australia:
[QUOTE=Superwafflez;23075981]OP, as a P plater I can tell you that the speed limit is a piece of shit and that 10% over is completely legal. Have fun. :australia:[/QUOTE] You do it by percent? In the US, we have pre-set numbers. I.E. 50MPH speed limit: Go up to 5 over, and the police probably won't care. Go more than 10 over, and cameras will start to get you.
Nobody in the UK seems to indicate anymore, I almost got run over by someone who turned into a road I was crossing because I saw they weren't indicating. Pisses me off. Also I was behind a guy on a roundabout, and he indicated after he turned off, made me laugh.
[QUOTE=the_KMM;23076005]You do it by percent? In the US, we have pre-set numbers. I.E. 50MPH speed limit: Go up to 5 over, and the police probably won't care. Go more than 10 over, and cameras will start to get you.[/QUOTE] 10% for police radars and crap, and 2-3km/h for fixed digital speed cameras (mostly on high traffic freeways - like three places in the entire state). Those suck.
oh man victorian fper here. manual driving in general just sucks, and so does the 120 hours. FUCK VICROADS
Going by % makes more sense than going by mph. 10 mph over 60 is not as bad as 10 mph over 30.
Driving on these roads normally isn't too bad, but once rush hour kicks in, (not pictured), everything goes to hell. [IMG]http://www.aaroads.com/mid-atlantic/maryland001/us-029_nb_exit_021a_04.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.aaroads.com/mid-atlantic/maryland001/md-003_nb_at_md-032_wb.jpg[/IMG] ^that turn right there is a bitch to get right
I was taught 2 things by my mum about driving. 1, You don't actually start learning until you pass your tests. 2, You have to pretend that you are the only person on the road who can drive.
[QUOTE=purpleeggguy;23076086]Going by % makes more sense than going by mph. 10 mph over 60 is not as bad as 10 mph over 30.[/QUOTE] I'm not contesting that. I'm just stating the difference.
[b][u]Note for all Australian L platers[/u][/b] Do not even bother doing your whole 100 - 120 hours (depending on state) Instead, exaggerate the time you actually do. For example, if you drive for 10 minutes, say you drove for 15. If you drive for an hour, mark it down as an hour and a half. If you park in a lot and go do some shopping, mark those as driving hours, for all they know you practiced parking. Just keep it looking as legit as possible whilst bullshitting your way through, and you can get away with about half the required time.
[QUOTE=Darkhorse01;23076092]1, You don't actually start learning until you pass your tests.[/QUOTE] What the fuck? [quote] You have to pretend that you are the only person on the road who can drive.[/quote] Yes.[B] Very[/B] yes.
[QUOTE=Darkhorse01;23076092]You have to pretend that you are the only person on the road who can drive.[/QUOTE] This is the only thing you need to know about driving to succeed.
[QUOTE=Superwafflez;23076100][b][u]Note for all Australian L platers[/u][/b] Do not even bother doing your whole 100 - 120 hours (depending on state) Instead, exaggerate the time you actually do. For example, if you drive for 10 minutes, say you drove for 15. If you drive for an hour, mark it down as an hour and a half. If you park in a lot and go do some shopping, mark those as driving hours, for all they know you practiced parking. Just keep it looking as legit as possible whilst bullshitting your way through, and you can get away with about half the required time.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't bullshit 60 hours, but I'm gonna round up to the nearest 5 minutes just so it's much easier to tally-up at the end. What'll happen if one or two of your times don't have an odometre reading for them? I forgot to mark them down this time around, but I'll make sure to next time.
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