Terrible Driving

[SpokesT]

Not really Lexus specific, but you guys will all have stories of nightmare driving.

Here's mine to start the ball rolling:

I went to India in 2006 on an exchange trip, staying with host families. It was acknowledged as the most tribal and under developed area in the country, Chhatisgarh and Orissa.

In the first 3 weeks of the 4wk long trip I was involved in 4 crashes. Two were possibly fatal, but the drivers refused to hang about to find out in spite of my protestations.

One was a copper on a bicycle, both he and the bike went up in the air after we hit them, the bike may well still be travelling cos I never ever saw it again, but the cop came back down and landed on the bonnet. No mean feat cos at that stage we were standing on our nose. Then his swede came through the windscreen before he was catapulted off onto the road. Round him we went, luckily, then off up the road.

The other bad one was a bloke and his missus on a moped, she sitting sidesaddle, no helmets. Rather than hit us head on (we were in a 4x4 on the wrong side of the road in 5th gear doing 51mph overtaking an artic doing 50mph) the rider went off into the bundu. It was like a tom n jerry movie, a big snowball of dust, scooter headlamps, and brief glimpses of limbs and flashy coloured silk.

Again, no hanging about, just fukofski....

A fekkin nightmare it was.

Your turn....

[Scorps01]

You win....mental note to self "dont go to India on hols"

[shake]

india is one of the most dangerous countries to drive in. my cousin had a crash there thankfully everyone was ok. the car would of been written off in the UK but they fixed it there. it was squashed by two 18tonne trucks on both sides.

to be honest i think its because your a tourist. i would never be able to drive there, most dont even fold out the mirrors.

maybe you were the terrible driver. (think of it as their driving standards are totally different, where you moved forward, a home grown indian lad might of given way or the other way round)dont take this the wrong way! :P

be thankful your not a statistic

[Geoffers]

I hired a motorbike when I was there..

NEVER EVER again.

[SpokesT]

india is one of the most dangerous countries to drive in. my cousin had a crash there thankfully everyone was ok. the car would of been written off in the UK but they fixed it there. it was squashed by two 18tonne trucks on both sides.

to be honest i think its because your a tourist. i would never be able to drive there, most dont even fold out the mirrors.

maybe you were the terrible driver. (think of it as their driving standards are totally different, where you moved forward, a home grown indian lad might of given way or the other way round)dont take this the wrong way! :P

be thankful your not a statistic

I wasn't driving mate, I was just a passenger in every crash I had. It was locals doing the driving. Worst I have ever seen anywhere and I have been to a few places.

So maybe I was just a bad passenger heheheheh!

[Geoffers]

Ha yeah - a bad backseat driver!

I know what you mean. Being there for a few months, I got to know this guy (Depak) quite well and we were out one day going down this lane at about 50mph (probably wouldn't do 10mph in this country). In the distance, I could see this guy with one leg and a home made crutch staggering towards us.

I look at Depak, then this guy, then back at Depak. He didn't so much as slow down, let alone serve a little.

I remember shouting as this poor guy had to launch himself into the air and to the side with his one good leg. He was still in the air as the car shot past him, sort of side on. It looked like superman flying past. Looking behind I could just see this poor guy trying to drag himself up out of the bushes...

This sort of thing just happens all the time.

I won't even mention discipline at islands!

[Anees]

Honestly, whats all the fuss about?? In India/Pakistan/Bangladesh pedestrians are dispensable (I some times think its a way of population control ;)) - how dare they get in the way of these cars that usually seem to be made out of tin...

[Noel]

i remember a program on telly hosted by Clarkson, Basically he said it's size that counts when overtaking not speed ... so trucks rule he said because they believe in reincarnation that getting killed isn't a big deal, there was one scene when there was 20 cars following a car WITH LIGHTS down a dangerous mountain road....

twas mayhem... anybody else remember watching it... few years ago now though

[Anees]

Just had a look and found a few pics from a recent visit to Pakistan in December:

Clamping is not used in Pakistan - if you are badly parked they will just lift your car using a forklift and take it away without prior warning! Nearly saw two guys come to blows at Lahore Airport after the parking attendent lifted his car up and took it away WHILE the drivers child was in the car :o

In Lahore I met a really nice Traffic Cop (never met a nice one in this country that doesn't want to do me for something :shutit: ) and he posed for pics and I asked him about the standard for driving - all he said was that however mad it may seem to an outsider the system just seems to work.

He let me have a ride on his bike but did mention that his POLICE ISSUSED bike had BALD TYRES, a VIBRATION from the seat and DODGY BRAKES but he said thats just the way it is here. The fastest bikes in Pakistan seem to be a 125cc, so his bike was very slow by UK standards. Can you imagine the UK traffic police having a similar standard of equipment?

I have a few videos of how terrible the driving is (including one of a near accident), but I can't remember my Youtube account password to post them

A screen capture however:

Hope that was useful :D

[Anees]

i remember a program on telly hosted by Clarkson, Basically he said it's size that counts when overtaking not speed ... so trucks rule he said because they believe in reincarnation that getting killed isn't a big deal, there was one scene when there was 20 cars following a car WITH LIGHTS down a dangerous mountain road....

twas mayhem... anybody else remember watching it... few years ago now though

That was Clarksons Motorworld - India. Gosh he had long hair then! They don't use headlights unless absoluteley necesary because you only have to replace the bulb when they run out, so why "waste" them?

[maneesh]

Life is "cheap" as Anees points out, a lack of respect for the law, little fear of prosecution for bad driving due to high levels of corruption, and a strong belief in fatalism i.e. it's all destiny

Quite scary the first time you witness it. Believe it or not, there is a system in the chaos. Yes, I've driven there, and would drive again!

Terrible driving..Well, I stopped counting the number of times a potential head-on crash was about to occur when travelling on my daily commute.

Locals in Italy, especially Sicily and Sardinia drive like loons, particularly when overtaking and playing chicken at the same time!

[SpokesT]

I have a good pair of pics taken of a near miss head on, when I get home I will post them.

Er, how do I post pics on here?

[SpokesT]

Also - to keep this thread on track AND Lexus related, I just saw an old tw@t driving a 56 plate IS250 almost wipe out the oldest pedestrian in the world who was shuffling across the road.

Confession - I am John Law ..... although not a black rat, so still have an entirely whole brain

So Old Duffer 1 is cruising down the hill in front of my Merc Sprinter (which tends not to blend in with much as it is so huge, rusty and festooned with jam sarnie stripes and a big barbecue above the windscreen etc) when he comes up behind a little Fiat which is slowing down for Old Duffer 2 to get across the main road.

Rather than wait, OD1 floors it and does an Elk Test round the Fiat, missing OD2 by a fag paper, and zooms off down the road.

Minutes before I had been enthusing about the IS250 and how I aspire to such luxury and performance, and defending us Lexy drivers as efficient and skilful to a fault, so I was a tad peeved by this blatant up-ending of my argument.

So I pulled the :tsktsk: and ripped him a new :tsktsk: hole.

He denied that there was ever a chance of hitting OD2, but then admitted that he presumed the Fiat was turning right as people don't use indicators these days, and the fact that the Fiat wasn't indicating proved that it was about to turn right (which it actually never did, but why let the facts cloud his judgement). He then admitted that he had not a scooby that OD2 was even in the road.

I had to shut him up at that point cos not being a black rat I didn't really want to start a traffic file off, as I'd rather be out catching burglars and thieves, so I gave him a producer to inconvenience him and told him to start driving his Lexy properly else I would, er, confiscate it.

No doubt he will make a complaint about my criticism of his driving skills, honed over 70 years ever since he bought his license from the GPO etc etc

[Y2Kanjar]

i Love driving out in indian, but you have to be aware 24/7

you always get car,s trucks, tractors, bikes and people walking pulling out in front of you.

the think is if you crash, you don't hang around!

*Try driving at night*