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Train Drivers - has train driving affected your car driving?
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PermitToTravel
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Were they in orange or green?
notadriver
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badassunicorn
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yellow haha, they appeared out of nowhere on a dual carriageway. They weren't amused haha
arabianights
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Rail speed limits are very different to road speed limits and there are far more reasons to obey them (e.g. signal spacing, damage to track, spacing of services, rolling stock limitations, professionalism, etc)
On the other hand road speed limits except in very unusal situations such as helping traffic merge at motorway junctions as you will find on most of the "destricted" autobahns are arbitrary and by definition are either pointlessly criminalising safe driving and I would argue causing huge economic costs (in the case where it is safe to massively exceed speed limit), or are useless because they cannot be reached safely and indeed their existence arguably acts as a "magnet"/"target" in those circumstances reducing safety (in the case when speed limit is too high).
HarleyDavidson
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How do you coast a car in gear?
As soon as you come off the accelerator you will be slowed by engine braking unless you depress the clutch, but then isn't that the same as coasting in neutral?
My car is an automatic and when it detects that it's slightly down hill, it'll go to coast mode, but as soon as I touch the brake it re-engages the gears.
The one's I'm glad to say it's never done it on are Porlock & Countisbury hills.
Minilad
Established Member
When someone open the passenger door in my car I always ask to see their cab pass
Totally different scenario, but I'm a sysadmin (/general dogsbody...) and I iften end up trying to use the password of one system on another, or trying to use work passwords at home where usernames are similar etc. sometimes takes me a few seconds to work out why the password keeps getting rejected!
Looked for a seat belt on the train a couple of times.
A friend posted in Facebook the other day (don't work anywhere near the railway, but commutes) that through tiredness, they'd tried to find the seatbelt when on the train!
After driving some of the work cars which have auto handbrake, I have occasionally found myself trying to leave work in my own car by just trying to move off, forgetting mine is a normal type!
Not a driver myself . But I have before today reached for my T key to start my motorbike up .
I found that after riding a motorbike my car driving improved a great deal .
I also keep to the speed limit and if im running up to a red light ill try and smoothly and gradually slow down and hopefully not have to actually come to a stop . Much to the annoyance of people behind me . But I dont get why everybody has to drive up to the red light at the speed limit then brake hard at the last minute to stop for it . Just adding premature wear to your brakes .
Glad im not the only person who has done this . I had a hire car for nearly a week that had the auto handbrake and after getting my car back on a few occassions I tried to pull away from the car park or at light with the handbrake on forgetting .
I found that after riding a motorbike my car driving improved a great deal .
I also keep to the speed limit and if im running up to a red light ill try and smoothly and gradually slow down and hopefully not have to actually come to a stop . Much to the annoyance of people behind me . But I dont get why everybody has to drive up to the red light at the speed limit then brake hard at the last minute to stop for it . Just adding premature wear to your brakes .
Glad im not the only person who has done this . I had a hire car for nearly a week that had the auto handbrake and after getting my car back on a few occassions I tried to pull away from the car park or at light with the handbrake on forgetting .
I wasn't a big fan of it personally , Prefer to just manually put my handbrake on and off its really no big deal to me and I was always paranoid that it wouldn't work and the car would roll off . Or that because it was a flimsy little button me or a passenger would knock it whilst the car was at a decent speed and send the car out of control (dont know what kind of protection against this the system had ) Plus how was a young guy like me to do proper handbrake turns to impress the ladies
As for Hill starts as soon as you go to pull away the handbrake just disengages . Or supposedly . To be honest because I wasn't used to the car or the system I just gave it plenty of throttle when starting on a hill just to make sure .
PermitToTravel
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Or that because it was a flimsy little button me or a passenger would knock it whilst the car was at a decent speed and send the car out of control (dont know what kind of protection against this the system had ) Plus how was a young guy like me to do proper handbrake turns to impress the ladies
The one recent Audis have will refuse to apply if the footbrake isn't engaged, so there's no real risk from passengers playing with it. The button is recessed and you couldn't really accidentally engage it. I didn't try applying it while in motion or doing anything silly, but would be rather surprised if it lets you.
I've never driven anything where you have to have faith in the auto-hold to do a hill start - that would terrify me!
Driving trains has made me a better driver on the road...tend to stick to the speed limits and brake earlier and gradually to an approaching red...the one bad thing is that I call traffic lights as signals when in conversation with non railway friends of mine..
Cherry_Picker
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Am I weird or something? Train driving has had no noticeable effect on car driving in my life as they are entirely different things. I don't drive past a national speed limit sign and accidentally think that the banner is off, I don't beep my horn at people working on the road and I certainly don't get out of the car and go looking for a telephone if a traffic light is red. 
(Actually I guess the biggest influence that train driving has had on my car driving is traffic light related. The colours of the traffic lights are red, yellow and green. I'm not having any of this 'amber' nonsense. )
(Actually I guess the biggest influence that train driving has had on my car driving is traffic light related. The colours of the traffic lights are red, yellow and green. I'm not having any of this 'amber' nonsense.
)A friend of mine was using a ford van for work which had this on but it still let him roll back , all the system does is hold the brakes on for a few seconds after you take the handbrake off , so if you haven't got the clutch and throttle ready to go you still roll back . This was a few years back so I dont know if there are new systems that have been developed by I certainly wouldn't relish the idea of having to rely on the car to stay put either
PermitToTravel
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I wonder if there have yet been any accidents caused by someone getting used to such a system in a work vehicle and then rolling back in their own
The only thing I've come close to is during classroom training. I saw a "national speed limit applies" sign, and thought to myself "oh, that banner repeater looks the wrong way around. Nothing else has affected my driving, train driving on the left seat, car driving on the right helps to create a barrier between getting confused.
whoosh
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Went to my car after a nightshift and pulled out a train master key. Realised that wouldn't open my car door!
I think I do this - if the lights are at red a long way in advance, I'll slow down/change down (forgot all this glide up to the lights in whatever gear you're in b*****ks that we seem to get taught - use of engine braking plus ready to go immediately if the lights change rather than then having to faff around with the gears - I did surprise my instructor when he found me doing this) which probably does annoy those behind me. In traffic I also tend to just move along at a steady rate rather than constant accelerating/braking (such I know that in my car, 2nd gear with no acceleration will give a steady 10mph which is useful for crawling in traffic on some of our local roads in rush hour...it is a lot less knackering, too!)
Not over-enamoured to be honest - I'd much prefer a normal handbrake.
I wasn't a big fan of it personally , Prefer to just manually put my handbrake on and off its really no big deal to me and I was always paranoid that it wouldn't work and the car would roll off . Or that because it was a flimsy little button me or a passenger would knock it whilst the car was at a decent speed and send the car out of control (dont know what kind of protection against this the system had ) Plus how was a young guy like me to do proper handbrake turns to impress the ladies
As for Hill starts as soon as you go to pull away the handbrake just disengages . Or supposedly . To be honest because I wasn't used to the car or the system I just gave it plenty of throttle when starting on a hill just to make sure .
Electronic parking brakes don't seem to be designed to be left on when stopped - one of our company cars is a Peugeot 5008 - as soon as you apply the electronic parking brake, it disengages Eco Mode (whether this is because the car has an auto gearbox, I'm not sure, as I haven't driven a manual version).
I have driven a Hyundai i40 Estate (the first car I drive with electronic parking brake) which also had auto-hold - in this car it would hold the brake (as long as you pulled up with the brake) as long as required and only released it when you hit the gas at all, or disengaged auto-hold. The downside of this, as I found out, is whilst on auto-hold, it held the brake lights on too - not great if its dark and there is a car sat behind you!
The worst I have driven with regards to the electronic parking brake was almost certainly a Vauxhall Insignia - I did try the parking brake whilst I was moving (slowly) and there was a horrible grinding noise whilst it did actually try engaging. It is the only car I have driven, also, where taking the ignition key out doesn't apply the parking brake automatically, and I found the Insignia was rolling off back down the car park as I went to get out!
A downside of them was also apparent on one of the police TV series (I forget which one) - a 4x4 with electronic parking brake breaks down in the middle (or outside) lane of the motorway - ordinarily the cops would push/tow the vehicle off to the hard shoulder. Not in this case, the parking brake refused to come off (as the ignition wasn't running, presumably) and they had to get a recovery truck to literally drag it off the motorway, parking brake still applied!
I have a Golf now - it has a normal handbrake but as I found a few days after I got it, has auto-hold. On an incline (in the respective direction for which gear you are in - 1st or reverse) it will hold it for a few seconds OR will release it when you touch the accelerator. It is nice to have, but to be honest, generally speaking I have often been able to pull away in other cars on hills without such a feature or without using the handbrake, so I could live without it
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I do the same, I once stopped at lights and a cyclist informed me that the brake lights werent working, they were but I hadnt used the brakes as I slowed from 30 to almost zero. Not bad doing it smoothly in a Leyland Olympian with a semi auto box.
Snap, uses the fuel instead of just wasting it.
Thanks to you, and everyone else, who has replied, it seems to be another gimmick because they can rather than an actual improvement, okay it will help some less physically able drivers but for the vast majority its a waste of time.
Seems an odd set up.
My pet hate, being blinded by the (stupidly bright) brake lights of the car in front.
Why is brighter always better, I see lorrys where the LED tail lights are brighter than the bulb brake lights of the tractor unit which is bloomin stupid.
You should be able to tell what lights are on simply by looking at them, not by when they get brighter or dimmer.
Good design that!
It was a nearly new Range Rover and it was stuck in the outside lane of the motorway, it took them quite a while to recover it.
I do like the Golfs, the Passat is also a very under-rated car.
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My stepmum has one of the auto handbrake things in here 3008, confused the hell out of her when she had a sharan as a loan car (I believe it was a big VW, a fence post stepped out behind her!) which had the button but was not automatic. I think more that one she forgot to put the handbrake on.
Also as the 3008 is a Peugeot it has started to release the handbrake a bit too soon when hill starting (probably the computer needs resetting again, the stop start and mpg readout are faulty too)
Also as the 3008 is a Peugeot it has started to release the handbrake a bit too soon when hill starting (probably the computer needs resetting again, the stop start and mpg readout are faulty too)
We've got one, but I don't think it really helps at all. It waits until it feels the car trying to move forward against the brake before releasing, so always moves off with a bit of a jerk. I very quickly found that I was releasing the handbrake manually without even thinking about it, whether on hill starts or a level road! It's tried to run away on me once too - when I got out to open the gate at work (engine running), I obviously didn't flick the little handle hard enough!
I don't think this thread highlights the way in which the training for drivers affects the way in which they do other things (like drive cars) as much as it highlights the terrible standard of driving amongst most of the rest of the population! I've always taken my foot off the accelerator and let it run if I can see standing traffic ahead or I'm catching up with the traffic, just as I try to anticipate bends, obstacles and speed limits to avoid powering up until the last second then braking heavily. All too often, the brake lights in front resemble some sort of disco, flashing (usually so briefly as to have no effect anyway!) at every slight deflection in the road, as though it's come as a complete surprise to the driver despite being clearly visible for some distance before then.
Back on handbrakes - I didn't think many cars had them nowadays? That's the impression I get from sitting behind other cars at traffic lights at night anyway - even though it's clear that we're not going anywhere for the best part of a minute or so (sometimes even more), they're quite happy to sit there with their foot on the brake, unnecessarily blinding whoever's behind with their unbelievably bright brake lights. Don't get me started on the inappropriate use of rear (and indeed front) foglights...!
shedman
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My car is nothing like my train therefore my driving styles are nothing like.
If there isnt any traffic approaching I will put my cars full beam on, if they are going to blind me I will blind them, seems quite fair to me!
On one occasion the driver in front got out of his car (with the result that his brake lights went off
) so I dipped my headlights and got out of my car, we had 'a chat' about the situation and I was half expecting the situation to escalate because he was a big bugger but he was actually quite a reasonable chap and he actually apologised for blinding me and that was the end of that.Some of these 'daylight' driving lamps are where you would expect the foglights to be with the result that when they put their headlights on it looks like they have got your foglights on as well because the (now no longer required) 'daylight' driving lights remain on. Why would anyone want their 'daylight' driving lights on when it is no longer 'daylight' is beyond me.
Ah, daytime running lights - I drove the full length of the yard before I realised that I'd forgotten to turn my lights on last night. I've never done it before, but I can understand how it happens - they're so bright that the forward illumination was almost like dipped beam. I've certainly encounted a few cars, since they became widespread, with just DRLs at the front and absolutely nothing at the back (on unlit rural roads), completely oblivious (but admittedly still more visible than the cyclists who think it wise to cycle in dark clothing along an unlit dual carriageway with no lights of their own). It's hardly surprising that folk don't see motorcycles approaching junctions with the ever-increasing intensity of lighting on other vehicles!
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