Attitude

[apache]

Here's the problem...bought Griff 500hc in october and share the driving with my wife who mainly drives up the M11, A14 to work every day. Nearly everytime she comes back with reports of (forgive the stereotyping here) middle aged men tailgating, cutting her up, preventing her overtaking, shaking fists and rude gestures etc etc. Some of the incidents have been very dangerous. I know she is a safe, confident but brisk driver so it has to be the car...right. It never happens when I am with her, only when she is on her own. Has any other female TVR had any similar problems like this. Edited by apache on Friday 11th May 23:18

[Marshy]

The tailgating on the A14 is normal. Grim bit of road, and I have to use it to get virtually anywhere... The rest is plain unacceptable though

[manek]

Yes, road behaviour is getting worse. Last night as I was coming home on the M23 from a fab weekend in France courtesy of Pistonheads (track day, beer, karting...), I was cruising past a couple of middle lane cars in the outside overtaking lane when a Bentley hoves into view in my mirror. Now these things are tall. The headlights are about on the level with the roof -- as I could tell when, a nanosecond or two after gluing himself to my rear bumper, he starts with the flashing and the general 'get the f*** out of my way, I'm in a Bentley' attitude. Sad, but I responded as I shouldn't and dropped it into 4th (we were doing around 80-85mph) and made him get smaller in the mirror very quickly. That was it really -- he caught me up after I slowed to a more reasonable speed on a medium-full motorway and blatted past doing around a ton. I was disappointed though that someone in a Bentley has to behave in this manner (he was alone in the car). Tosser.

[davidd]

I spend a horrid amount of time on the M11/A14 and don't get a huge amount of grief. I suspect it's cos she's a woman (I hope)and they are sad, narrow minded tossers. Tell her to drive faster but watch those ruts on the inside lane they send me all over the shop!

[PetrolTed]

I've never had an adverse reaction to the Tiv until Saturday morning. We were tootling down the M20 at about 80 when a bloke goes past in a little Fiat van. His passenger looked over and gave us the w******'s fist. Numskull. I hadn't cut him up or anything. I felt obliged to blat past him at about 110 for some reason...

[Dr chuff]

Unfortunately this sort of behaviour sometimes goes with the car. I am frequently tailgated by Escort Turbos, Unos, Novas, BMWs etc in 30/40 mph zones. Some people seem to think that having a fast car means you should drive like a w@n&er, and they get confused and abusive when you don't. I've been overtaken on the road outside my house. 30 mph limit, 7ft wide between parked cars (mostly) with speedbumps. Best thing to do is chill and let them disappear. Dr C

[MikeE]

yep, I too saw some appallingly irresponsible driving on the way back to Calais (particularly the lack of 'lane discipline' exhibited by one, ahem, TVR driver )

[PetrolTed]

I have to say Mike, that's the most suicidal manouvre I've seen in a long time! Given that the hard shoulder is usually full of crap and was quite narrow, whoever was driving that Tuscan was taking a monumental risk. I'm sure hanging back for a couple of minutes could have resulted in a more amicable passing! Mind you, it was good to see a Tuscan being hammered all weekend instead of just being polished

[caroj]

apache, tell your wife she is not the only one - women driving TVRs do seem to get some of this empty-headed, empty-trousered behaviour, sadly (mine's a Chimaera 450). Although, as others have said, road behaviour is getting worse all round. Whenever possible, I like to use manek's solution (drop a gear, floor it and grin), but when this wouldn't be safe I let them go, chill and hope they hit a tree/brick wall sooner rather than later. I always try to remind myself that when (if) they get home, they'll still be in whatever crappy vehicle, but I...etc Having said that, as well as the tailgating/cutting up/preventing overtaking, I have had good experiences - a Golf full of lads thrashing up just to look and wave, white van man (yes really!) moving over to let me past on an A road. Little story - she'll like this one - travelling down the M6 one night with my sis in her Chimaera, tailgated (superglue optional)by a white Merc despite a full outside lane. She did the floor it and leave him bit when it was safe - he eventually caught up so we let him go and were then tailgated again, went past some middle lane traffic and moved over. Tailgater 2 was a police car: we thought we were in trouble because of the speed we were doing before we let him past, but he followed the merc for about 5 mins. Merc refused to move over (typical, it was ok for him to tailgate but he wasn't letting anyone else past), and so they stopped him. RESULT!!! Our comments and gestures as we drove by not printable, but very satisfying. And another thing, when you're driving in convoy with other TVR(s) why do people always insist on getting between you? I hope your wife gets to drive the Griff at weekends on different roads, too - this helps in chilling out on the big stress days!!

[apache]

she does caroj, thanks for the input all