I am a careful driver. I took a road safety campaign that was shown in England in the 1980's very much to heart and I drive by that standard all the time. The campaign went "Only a fool breaks the two second rule" and showed that a two second gap between two vehicles was a good margin for safety.
Being used to French drivers I find myself constantly in the situation of either being hugely annoyed or feeling totally assaulted by drivers that insist that they have to get past, even though one is driving at the speed-limit, or have to drive a couple of feet from ones rear bumper. In the latter case I have the habit of turning on the hazard flashers for a few seconds and if they don't back off I brake HARD.
On a recent trip to Ireland I was wondering why the car in front was driving along on the road margin. I was a good two seconds behing the car and certainly at a safe distance but after a few minutes of this I realized that the driver was inviting me to pass. Even my very safe two-seconds isn't enough for most Irish drivers!
Day after day in France I am almost violently assaulted by dangerous drivers either from behind or who think that the way to overtake a large lorry is to cram as close up behind as possible and then dodge out quickly to see if it's safe to pass. The number of times I almost get smashed by an oncoming car is incredible!
In Ireland I drove around for five days and only had a single driver who drove too close while using his cellphone and picking at his spots in the rearview. Vive les irish,
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