Drivers, what is going on?

[Ian H]

Riding my 600 over Wednesday and Thursday (organiser's check ride for this weekend's event), I encountered weekday and rush hour traffic at times.

There were a few close passes (either elderly creep past or personalised reg arrogant). Nothing more than irritating.

One driver tried to overtake towards a pinch point, but had to give up when it was clear I wasn't giving way.

One youngish driver kept coming out on a roundabout, while looking straight at me, until he realised that I wasn't going to stop, whereupon he relunctantly stopped to let me exit.

I find a certain degree of assertiveness helps enormously; and also cycling defensively. But obviously you will never make cycling risk-free.

 

[Drago]

I have a personalised reg!

 

[jefmcg]

I have a personalised reg!

 

[Drago]

Thankyou. It's actually Mrs D's. I bought it for her 30th Birthday, but now she has a motability car ots an utter ballache to get it on the vehicle. Therefore, I was stuck with the choice of placing it on retention for £80 a year, or stick it on my car for as long as I wanted for free. Twas a £2k plate, probably worth more now, so I'm not letting it go.

Having said that, since it went on I ha e felt the urge to close pass and generally cut up cyclists.

 

[cosmicbike]

I have a personalised reg!

I do hope you have the characters spaced incorrectly too, so it looks like it says something, at least to the owner. Most I see are meaningless.

Latest thing locally seems to be front reg plates in the windscreen, typically on Audi's with massive front grills.

 

[Ian H]

I have a personalised reg!

I notice personalised registrations when they do something stupid, which doesn't make for a scientific study of the proclivities of all of them. Certainly an old (and regrettably late) friend of mine had a very distinctive number plate and, indicative of how he drove, a brass tortoise mascot on the bonnet.

 

[Brandane]

Latest thing locally seems to be front reg plates in the windscreen, typically on Audi's with massive front grills.

Noticed a lot of that up here recently too, and was wondering what it's all about (and why the few remaining Police haven't jumped on the offenders). Is it code for something, or just another supposedly "cool" fad?

 

[Drago]

I do hope you have the characters spaced incorrectly too, so it looks like it says something, at least to the owner. Most I see are meaningless.

Latest thing locally seems to be front reg plates in the windscreen, typically on Audi's with massive front grills.

Fortunately it's spells K155 and Mrs D's first name without any spacing silliness. I'd be a hopeless Audi owner.

 

[I like Skol]

I have done the private (mis-spaced ) reg thing in the past but feel it was a justified excursion for one of my competition toys and not just a personal ego trip.....

J33P DP which should have read J 33 PDP

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[jefmcg]

Most I see are meaningless.

Aside: why are they so inscrutable? They used to be in Australia too, but they changed the law to allow any non-obscene combination of 6 letters and numbers 30 years ago, which lead to delightful examples like FIZZIO and a lawyer friend of my mum: LITIG8. Then there was the persistent rumour that 6UL DV8 had been nearly approved before they realised But my personal favourite was the self aware, red, mid-market Japanese sports car that I often parked beside, FACILE. I later sadly found out that the owners were not self aware, but Italian. In Italian, facile (fa-chilly) means smoothly done, with ease. They weren't self aware at all, but they made a great toasted foccacia, so I was ok with that.

@I like Skol, I hope you forgive the brief divergence.

 

[Drago]

I think in future I'll simply change my name by deed poll to match any future car I might buy. Much cheaper.

 

[jefmcg]

I think in future I'll simply change my name by deed poll to match any future car I might buy. Much cheaper.

So let us get this right: in this case you would change your name to kiss + your wife's first name?

You should totally do that. It wouldn't be weird at all.

 

[toffee]

Must be the World Cup.
Had a few close passes in the last few days. Had my first SMIDSY from a driver in a local council van as he came up to a mini roundabout. Except he missed the Sorry bit off the exchange of words.

 

[NorthernDave]

Noticed a lot of that up here recently too, and was wondering what it's all about (and why the few remaining Police haven't jumped on the offenders). Is it code for something, or just another supposedly "cool" fad?

Quite possibly an attempt to mask at least part of the plate from the static ANPR and speed cameras that are meant to have replaced the roads police..?

Although the car drivers may well claim that the sticky pads holding the plate on have just come unstuck in the hot weather and they're on the way to Halfords to buy some more right now, officer...

 

[jarlrmai]

I have done the private (mis-spaced ) reg thing in the past but feel it was a justified excursion for one of my competition toys and not just a personal ego trip.....

J33P DP which should have read J 33 PDP

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