Green, is it justified?
Discussion
Never had this problem. I've been driving Elises for 6 years, the first one was a silver S1, then an S2 Type 25 (Green with yellow stripes, so fairly obvious) now a Chrome Orange Supercharged with very distinctive stripes.
Because the car is so easily identified, I have been ultra careful to be courteous and friendly to the local residents, not just the well=off ones in my estate, but the ones who could kick off. Actually, I've had some really productive conversations from parking up in less salubrious areas, and just chatting to the local lads who are interested in the car.
Looking back to your post, I've also never been hassled by people crowding me in carparks, and parking intentionally too close. Possibly I am much too laid back, so feel free to ignore me.
Because the car is so easily identified, I have been ultra careful to be courteous and friendly to the local residents, not just the well=off ones in my estate, but the ones who could kick off. Actually, I've had some really productive conversations from parking up in less salubrious areas, and just chatting to the local lads who are interested in the car.
Looking back to your post, I've also never been hassled by people crowding me in carparks, and parking intentionally too close. Possibly I am much too laid back, so feel free to ignore me.
Edited by wendyg on Thursday 6th August 22:34
I think we've all had that at sometime or other - goes with the territory.
What I get more than anything is the expectation from 'captain fast' in his rep mobile / hot hatch / whatever, that because I drive a Lotus that I therefore want to engage him in racing activities. The other day, driving through town this black Vectra diesel who had been following me for a while decided he was going to overtake me in a 30mph zone (he was accelerating hard judging by the puffs of black smoke coming from the exhaust). It must have p*ssed him off more when I didn't bother engaging - just trundled on. Why give them the satisfaction of thinking that I actually give a toss.
What I get more than anything is the expectation from 'captain fast' in his rep mobile / hot hatch / whatever, that because I drive a Lotus that I therefore want to engage him in racing activities. The other day, driving through town this black Vectra diesel who had been following me for a while decided he was going to overtake me in a 30mph zone (he was accelerating hard judging by the puffs of black smoke coming from the exhaust). It must have p*ssed him off more when I didn't bother engaging - just trundled on. Why give them the satisfaction of thinking that I actually give a toss.
I've found my S1 attracts more positive than negative attention. I do get a bit of tailgating but I've come to the conclusion its not really much worse than in any other car - just tend to notice it more in the Elise because of its diddy size.
There's always the odd prick but I ignore them.
There's always the odd prick but I ignore them.
In the six years that I have owned my S2 Elise I have lost count of the times, from all manner of differing folk, offering me a swap when I am parking up, sadly never a Lambo or Ferrari driver!
More often than not I get very appreciative comments from most and that is all part of the ownership. Sadly, twice I have had two very disturbing moments. Once when driving down a narrow lane, a chav coming towards me from the opposite direction with what can only be described as a face contorted with rage and with no hands on the wheel as he was flagging me off with both, swerved at me at the very last minute - how I never had an accident I will never know.The second occasion a bloke also coming towards me with headlight flashing, him shaking his fist, while his female passenger was saluting me with both single digits WTF?
I've lost count of the amount of times you get the tell - tale black smoke belching from an unexpecting catalytic converter of a delivery van with a 'wannabe' Button at the wheel.
Oh! and another regular occurance, many times I come up behind a car on a nice day with my roof off and the car in front in some desperate attemt to kill my fun starts squirting his screen washers in a somewhat misguided attemt to soak me- FFS get a grip.
More often than not I get very appreciative comments from most and that is all part of the ownership. Sadly, twice I have had two very disturbing moments. Once when driving down a narrow lane, a chav coming towards me from the opposite direction with what can only be described as a face contorted with rage and with no hands on the wheel as he was flagging me off with both, swerved at me at the very last minute - how I never had an accident I will never know.The second occasion a bloke also coming towards me with headlight flashing, him shaking his fist, while his female passenger was saluting me with both single digits WTF?
I've lost count of the amount of times you get the tell - tale black smoke belching from an unexpecting catalytic converter of a delivery van with a 'wannabe' Button at the wheel.
Oh! and another regular occurance, many times I come up behind a car on a nice day with my roof off and the car in front in some desperate attemt to kill my fun starts squirting his screen washers in a somewhat misguided attemt to soak me- FFS get a grip.
bebee said:
Does anyone else driving a Lotus come across green people?
I'm not referring to the ‘save our planet’ green folk, great though they are! or the little green men from the planet Zoreg, I'm referring to the ‘green with envy jealous type’ who would rather cut you up or not let you out at junctions or not move over to the far lane for you when entering a motorway or drive with inches to spare behind you or literally drive at you when passing in the opposite direction, this happened to me yesterday, the guy in an old Renno van gave me, again, inches to spare, I thought he was going hit me and my ten year old son as passenger and there was plenty of space on his side, what point is he making? it's not the first time this has happened, also (while I'm in Victor Meldrew mode) I might mention those drivers on the multi storey who park next to it leaving the need for a f
kin can opener to get in, I always check my doors for damage. The thing is, these things hardly happen when I'm driving my van, and interestingly, happened less so when I drove my old Griff. Lotus, more desirable?
How do you cope with it? How do you avoid it? without leaving your car at home or resorting to a violent road rage!
IN the UK: 24 hours after picking my car up some white van man threatened to throw a screwdriver at my car, so I engaged second cam and stuck my fingers up. I'm not referring to the ‘save our planet’ green folk, great though they are! or the little green men from the planet Zoreg, I'm referring to the ‘green with envy jealous type’ who would rather cut you up or not let you out at junctions or not move over to the far lane for you when entering a motorway or drive with inches to spare behind you or literally drive at you when passing in the opposite direction, this happened to me yesterday, the guy in an old Renno van gave me, again, inches to spare, I thought he was going hit me and my ten year old son as passenger and there was plenty of space on his side, what point is he making? it's not the first time this has happened, also (while I'm in Victor Meldrew mode) I might mention those drivers on the multi storey who park next to it leaving the need for a f
kin can opener to get in, I always check my doors for damage. The thing is, these things hardly happen when I'm driving my van, and interestingly, happened less so when I drove my old Griff. Lotus, more desirable? How do you cope with it? How do you avoid it? without leaving your car at home or resorting to a violent road rage!
IN Europe: Thumbs up all time including a old 70+ year old in a clio on the motorway when I blasted past with Larini sound! - Sums it up for me, so I moved to Europe, I am coming home soon, but the car is staying out here, only place to drive the Elise in my opinion is Europe. UK is just full of people that dont mind slamming there car doors into your pride and joy! (All IMO!!)
In France, people drive very differently to the English.
They drive too close to the car in front, they turn off at the last moment without indicating, never let you in on a slip road, regardless of what car you are in.
However, I had a nice experience in Bordeaux with two boy racers: I was driving back from Pau Arnos (great track for the Elise), and on two separate occasions they wanted to race me but alsolook at the car whilst running longside me; you could see how much they like the car!
I would dream of parking in La Rochelle with my pride and joy unless I can be sure no one can park too close.
The old Civic coming in handly for town trips!
In any country, it is hard to ignore the downsides, the only thing I do is, think they are going to work and I am touring and enjoying evey mile!
They drive too close to the car in front, they turn off at the last moment without indicating, never let you in on a slip road, regardless of what car you are in.
However, I had a nice experience in Bordeaux with two boy racers: I was driving back from Pau Arnos (great track for the Elise), and on two separate occasions they wanted to race me but alsolook at the car whilst running longside me; you could see how much they like the car!
I would dream of parking in La Rochelle with my pride and joy unless I can be sure no one can park too close.
The old Civic coming in handly for town trips!
In any country, it is hard to ignore the downsides, the only thing I do is, think they are going to work and I am touring and enjoying evey mile!
I've experienced only one incident from an idiot truck driver who muscled his way in front of me in a slow moving queue just last week. There was no room for him, but he was coming in whether I liked it or not. I was pretty off so blasted him and flashed him. Unfortunately then came to a set of red lights and I was prepared for the worst! But he just gave me a barage of abuse saying he "hated people like me". Obvious jealously. So I told him to come over and suck my knob and he shut up!!
off so blasted him and flashed him. Unfortunately then came to a set of red lights and I was prepared for the worst! But he just gave me a barage of abuse saying he "hated people like me". Obvious jealously. So I told him to come over and suck my knob and he shut up!!I've been thinking about this recently, and i reckon it has a lot to do with where you live.
I dont drive a Lotus, but another performance type car that most folks would assume was expensive/rare etc even tho its not really.
I recently moved up to warwickshire from the south coast- where i never had any problems, just slow sunday drivers every day of the week.. now i've had 2 near misses in as many weeks.
Drivers in this area seem a lot less tolerant of other motorists, not letting people out, cutting other drivers up, frequent displays of aggression to disguise what i can only imagine is a lack of driver ability!!
Recently i had a near miss where this monkey in a white van was driving far too fast in a narrow built up area, not looking where he's going. I stop as the road is wide enough for 1 car only. He's skidding down the road towards me (When he finally woke up and saw me) He then had the audacity to scream and shout his head off.
Driving past the spot the next day, his skid marks were at least 20 foot long... this is in a 20mph limit!
I dont drive a Lotus, but another performance type car that most folks would assume was expensive/rare etc even tho its not really.
I recently moved up to warwickshire from the south coast- where i never had any problems, just slow sunday drivers every day of the week.. now i've had 2 near misses in as many weeks.
Drivers in this area seem a lot less tolerant of other motorists, not letting people out, cutting other drivers up, frequent displays of aggression to disguise what i can only imagine is a lack of driver ability!!
Recently i had a near miss where this monkey in a white van was driving far too fast in a narrow built up area, not looking where he's going. I stop as the road is wide enough for 1 car only. He's skidding down the road towards me (When he finally woke up and saw me) He then had the audacity to scream and shout his head off.
Driving past the spot the next day, his skid marks were at least 20 foot long... this is in a 20mph limit!
I think its sign of the times. Recession and lack of credit means there are a lot of jealous idiots out there. In fairness the Lotus is well received and touch wood I have not had any problems compared to other vehicles I drive. It has to be jealousy because the types of people that give me issues change depending on what I am driving.
Bourj said:
I think its sign of the times. Recession and lack of credit means there are a lot of jealous idiots out there. In fairness the Lotus is well received and touch wood I have not had any problems compared to other vehicles I drive. It has to be jealousy because the types of people that give me issues change depending on what I am driving.
Agreed! Some people are just looking for trouble whatever the carI've not had many problems so far (in Warwickshire too), in fact people seem to make an effort to let me out of junctions. I'm sure I'd be there a lot longer in a cockster.
As far as bad driving goes I think it would happen to you whatever car you were in, people would still cut in or pull out on you - just bad driving.
Likewise with car parks, some people just don't care.
I've had a few tail-gaters mainly middle aged men (whoops I guess I'm one of those too) in Toyota rep-mobiles but the chav racer type seem to ignore it, most probably don't know what an Elise is or if they do perhaps admire them. Again I guess the reaction would be different if I was in a Subaru/Evo type of car.
As far as bad driving goes I think it would happen to you whatever car you were in, people would still cut in or pull out on you - just bad driving.
Likewise with car parks, some people just don't care.
I've had a few tail-gaters mainly middle aged men (whoops I guess I'm one of those too) in Toyota rep-mobiles but the chav racer type seem to ignore it, most probably don't know what an Elise is or if they do perhaps admire them. Again I guess the reaction would be different if I was in a Subaru/Evo type of car.
I haven't experienced anything unually bad in the Lotus yet, but perhaps it is an advantage of living in London - there are so many posh cars about that a Lotus doesn't get people's backs up, or maybe it's that I have just become so used to the bad/aggressive driving in London that I don't notice it as much as before!
I've never really subscribed to the jealousy theory. After all, plenty of boy racers in plastic-crusted hatchbacks get lots of negative comments. While they may fondly imagine these can be attributed to envy, the rest of us know better...
Cars like the Elise attract comment - just because some of the comments don't accord with the owner's view doesn't mean the person passing comment is jealous.
I can see why a passer by might see someone driving an impractical, flash-looking, loud and brightly-coloured car and make the assumption that the driver chose it in order to draw attention to themselves. In the case of 95% of Elise drivers, they'd be wrong - but they don't know that. They're just expressing an opinion; like the people who shout 'nice car' without having a clue what sort of car it is.
In the same way that nice comments come from people who want to tell you they think your car is cool; the negative comments come from people who think your car makes you look like a tosser. They're both simply personal opinions - either take equal note of both or ignore both - it seems a bit contrary to welcome positive comments but ignore negative comments.
Cars like the Elise attract comment - just because some of the comments don't accord with the owner's view doesn't mean the person passing comment is jealous.
I can see why a passer by might see someone driving an impractical, flash-looking, loud and brightly-coloured car and make the assumption that the driver chose it in order to draw attention to themselves. In the case of 95% of Elise drivers, they'd be wrong - but they don't know that. They're just expressing an opinion; like the people who shout 'nice car' without having a clue what sort of car it is.
In the same way that nice comments come from people who want to tell you they think your car is cool; the negative comments come from people who think your car makes you look like a tosser. They're both simply personal opinions - either take equal note of both or ignore both - it seems a bit contrary to welcome positive comments but ignore negative comments.
Edited by Risotto on Friday 7th August 23:16
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