Being a passenger.

[conny]

Can't find the other thread about bad drivers so starting an off-shoot one.

How are you as a passenger when someone else is driving?
I'm very confident when my wife does the driving, but with others that I don't 'normally' go with, I can get a bit tense.
This morning, I was out with a mate, (mid- 50's), who has driven for years and never had an accident. Thought it should be a nice, relaxed drive in to town to pick something up.
How wrong can you be?????
On the A14, absolutely lashing it down, cars in the outside lane flashing past at what seemed 70+, (mate driving around 60mph mark, which I considered a bit too fast for the conditions), lorries overtaking and spraying so much water up as they passed, at times the windscreen was totally obscured as though we were driving underwater!
And while this was happening, he was trying to adjust the heating/aircon in a car, (some model of Renault), that had touch screen controls.
FFS!!! Look down to find the right icon to select, this throws up a sub-menu for various things, look down to select from the sub menu. This throws up a group of icons to select what you want to do, (heat/cool drivers side, heat/cool passenger side and same for rear etc, etc).
So, whilst trying to drive in torrential wind and rain with everything going on outside, he's trying to clear his windscreen and get warmer by having to take his eyes off the road!
I was almost a gibbering wreck by the time we got into the town. Thankfully by the time we set back the weather had calmed down and there was less traffic about.
Do other drivers scare you when they drive?

 

[noseall]

Can't find the other thread about bad drivers so starting an off-shoot one.

How are you as a passenger when someone else is driving?
I'm very confident when my wife does the driving, but with others that I don't 'normally' go with, I can get a bit tense.
This morning, I was out with a mate, (mid- 50's), who has driven for years and never had an accident. Thought it should be a nice, relaxed drive in to town to pick something up.
How wrong can you be?????
On the A14, absolutely lashing it down, cars in the outside lane flashing past at what seemed 70+, (mate driving around 60mph mark, which I considered a bit too fast for the conditions), lorries overtaking and spraying so much water up as they passed, at times the windscreen was totally obscured as though we were driving underwater!
And while this was happening, he was trying to adjust the heating/aircon in a car, (some model of Renault), that had touch screen controls.
FFS!!! Look down to find the right icon to select, this throws up a sub-menu for various things, look down to select from the sub menu. This throws up a group of icons to select what you want to do, (heat/cool drivers side, heat/cool passenger side and same for rear etc, etc).
So, whilst trying to drive in torrential wind and rain with everything going on outside, he's trying to clear his windscreen and get warmer by having to take his eyes off the road!
I was almost a gibbering wreck by the time we got into the town. Thankfully by the time we set back the weather had calmed down and there was less traffic about.
Do other drivers scare you when they drive?

Can’t stand fussy heating controls. Hated my old Audis’ controls. The more recent one is a boon.

These controls should be simple and ergonomic.

 

[johnny2007]

I rarely let my wife drive when I'm there because I don't like the jerk clutch action and the high revving when starting to move.
Don't know how her clutch lasted 20 years...
Apart from that and my brother (in Italy) always driving at double or triple the speed limit, I'm ok as a passenger.

 

[crystal ball]

Had a lift to a work do with a colleague of Mrs CB, it was snowy and slippy underfoot, she tailgated every car in front of her, a friend of ours treats parking as a contact sport, kerb scraping and nudging the cars front and rear

 

[ajstoneservices]

I am not a good passenger.

On my way home from work one day I saw a young man climbing out of a dyke near my house. (Dyke's are deep ditch's) I stopped and saw 3 series BMW wedged in the bottom of the dyke. He told me had been trying to tune his radio and he looked up to see was heading for a tree. He then found himself in the dyke.

I got it lifted out by a friend and said he could leave it on my drive to arrange his own collection. He left it there sso long I had to tell him I was getting it picked by the scrap man unless he collected it. Never got a thank you either.

 

[Odds]

Put on a good tune an' i'm like...

 

[Mottie]

I have to bite my tongue when Mrs Mottie is at the wheel. She gets the right 'ump when I tell how she should be driving.

 

[fillyboy]

Put on a good tune an' i'm like...

The lyrics are inspired by a poem by James Douglas Morrison.

Modern life is a journey by car. The Passengers
change terribly in their reeking seats, or roam
from car to car, subject to unceasing transformation.
Inevitable progress is made toward the beginning
(there is no difference in terminals), as we
slice through cities, whose ripped backsides present
a moving picture of windows, signs, streets,
buildings. Sometimes other vessels, closed
worlds, vacuums, travel along beside to move
ahead or fall utterly behind.

 

[fillyboy]

I have to bite my tongue when Mrs Mottie is at the wheel. She gets the right 'ump when I tell how she should be driving.

Same. TBF she's improved since we got rid of all those complicated gears and switched to automatic. When she parks kerbside I normally say 'that's fine I don't mind walking to the pavement'.

 

[Diver Fred]

2 Mates and their wives scare me willies out of me - all of them have their adjustable headlights set so low at all times and I've never seen them use main beam! They will drive 70MPH on country roads at night like that. The front fog lights on my car project further than their dipped beam headlights do.
One of the wives cars has auto dipping feature - she's even managed to switch it off 'cause she was frightened the car might not dip in time.