Foglights are for FOG

We live in a country of illiterates, I think. "Foglights", think about the name... FOGlights. For fog, perhaps? So why does everyone have them on all the time? They are the same wattage as headlight bulbs, are just as bright, and do not have a beam cut-off like dipped beams do, so TURN THEM OFF. Also, if you have after-market HID bulbs in your halogen reflectors, they don't work. The light source in an arc discharge bulb is in the wrong place, and the beam pattern is illegal, blinding everyone else. You may think your HIDs are lovely and bright, but that's mainly because they are no longer acting as dipped beams. Park up against a white wall and have a look sometime. It is also a legal requirement that you have headlight washers and auto-leveling lights if you have HIDs. Check out the official manufacturer option versions.

Some more random examples

Some more from the archives...



Whoa.....



This one is great. No disabled sticker in the windscreen. Fully able-bodied driver. Takes up not one, but two wheelchair spaces in Killaloe. No-one respects these spaces though. During the following 10 minutes 2 more cars arrived (Toyota Auris and Honda Civic, if it makes you feel even slightly shameful...), took up the remaining disabled spaces, and the drivers jumped out and walked effortlessly inside.

Taxi - Toyota Avensis

Category:
Bizzare and inexplicable driving.



Thoughts:

You really have to wonder what's going through some people's heads when they drive. Nothing at all, by the looks of this one. Somehow managed to drive through a number of junctions without indicating once, all this time also keeping the right-hand wheels completely on the wrong side of the median line on the road, and managing to speed up and slow down erratically causing a domino effect of panic braking in the line of traffic behind. Then just decided to stop dead for no reason at all with no warning indication whatsoever. Mind you, the Taxi plate should have prepared the other road users for this kind of behaviour.


Location:

Rhebogue, Limerick.

07 - WW - 38?? White van

Category:

Unbelieveably nasty driving.



Thoughts:

So, you're driving along, and you see 2 pedestrians walking on the pavement. In by the curb is a large puddle. What do you do? You deliberately swerve in close to the curb, and completely soak the poor sods. There is no oncoming traffic, so it must have been deliberate. Something bad is going to happen to you soon, if there's any justice in the world.


Location:
Dundrum, Dublin.

04 - D - 23613 - Mercedes S class

Category:

Dangerous driving.



Thoughts:

So you're in a hurry. Hey, so is everyone else, but no-one else felt they had the right to create a new lane of traffic by driving down a narrow cycle lane (so narrow, in fact, that you had to clip the wing-mirror of a car in the correct traffic lane to fit past), and then cutting up a cyclist. Oh, you didn't see him? Well, that was fairly obvious. He's ok, in case you're actually concerned.


Location:

Sandford road, Dublin.

08 - CE - 3015 Ford Focus

Category:

Littering.



Thoughts:

Another arsonist here... When you throw a lighted cigarette out the window, do you even consider where it's going to end up? It's travelling at the speed of your car, so imagine a 60kmph lighted cigarette hitting an infant in a pram. Not a nice thought, is it?


Location:

Corbally road.

01 - CE - 729 ? Green Golf TDI

Category:

Littering and dangerous driving.



Thoughts:

If you're going to throw litter out of your car window as you drive along, at least have the courtesy to stub out the cigarette before you fire it out into the path of the person behind you. It bounced off their windscreen and could easily have come in a window, or the sunroof, and burned the occupants.


Location:

Grove Island, Corbally.

99 - D - 9545 Black Nissan Almera

Category:

Dangerous driving.


Thoughts:

So, you're driving along the Corbally road in the darkness of early morning, after a night of freezing temperatures, on an icy road. You see a bus indicating and pulling out in front of you, and decide to blindly follow the van in front of you in overtaking this bus even though there is a car coming the other direction which you didn't see because you are too close to the van. The van, who had a clear view and left enough space to complete the manouver, successfully pulls in to the left side of the road. You now realise you are overtaking a moving bus with a car coming straight at you, so do you back off? No! You accelerate (green in diagram), and force the oncoming car (white) to swerve hard up against the pavement, and the bus (red) has to brake hard desperately trying to create space. There is a line of traffic ahead of the bus, so you gained no time and the whole manouver was pointless. You are a) completely stupid and should be taken off the road; b) very dangerous; or c) totally selfish and quite prepared to disregard the rules of the road to the extent that you are prepared to play chicken with oncoming traffic and gamble with innocent peoples' lives in order to gain a few metres. Oh, and what if you'd hit a patch of ice? Unfathomable behaviour.



Location:

Driving on Corbally road past Shannon Banks.