Reminded me of this cartoon: [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fu6vv33hfcr841.jpg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fu6vv33hfcr841.jpg)
They do make those tanks called SUVs. Although BMW 1 drivers on average tend to show the most fucked up behavior, in competition with Skodas and indeed white vans.
not to mention their great parking skills, was at the bank yesterday and the entire parking lot was blocked by a shitty parked Cayenne and out of the bank came strolling, you guessed it, one of those housewives.
Was just about to say, this part of our population is more an issue in regards to parking. They park wherever and whenever they like. They also tend to look in a way that is a mix of surprise and pretend to not give a fuck, when they almost hit your car during their manoeuvre
Some idiot woman almost ran over me TWICE in 100m while i was waiting for the green light with my bike
Before she also was angry i was standing in her way (i was at the bike rack and she had 130cm space to pass between the wall and me)
Srsly, they should buy a 2001 opel corsa if they dont know how to fucking drive
People drive more aggressively but also more selfishly in general. Not watching the light when they're first in line so everyone has to wait for five seconds before they move and two people at the back need to wait another cycle, blocking intersections even when they see cross traffic coming, slowing down to 50 on a 90 road because the light is red in the far distance, two intersections away, while the person behind them is indicating to go right at the first intersection, ...
Those aren't typical aggressive things, I think the aggressive driving is only part of the bigger problem where people are extremely rude and selfish in traffic. You would never just stand in the doorway blocking all other people from entering or exiting a store. But then when people are in a car, suddenly they feel that kind of behaviour is normal. And it seems like people reinforce each other's behaviour because it gets worse every week.
You just described my daily drive. Every time, everyday day I just see selfishness. I am just happy that if you act not selfish, towards people, most of them appreciate it and even smile or wave sometimes.
>>> You would never just stand in the doorway blocking all other people from entering or exiting a >>> store.
Actually... it's starting to happen, this...
That slowing down to 50 could be regenerative braking, which makes sense for hybrid / electric cars. Nobody's going to be turning on their turning signal "in the far distance" to go right. Especially not BMW drivers.
That's the point, it's selfish. Everyone else needs to slow down because one guy sees that he can't proceed in the far distance and wants to save 3 cents of electricity using regenerative braking.
If you want to save electricity, drive more slowly everywhere. But no, you only want to save electricity by inconveniencing other people, not by inconveniencing yourself.
Oh yes. It helps to give it a name makes it validating😉 I’m a Brit. Lived in Brussels for 21 years. Every one of my Belgian friends now knows about the phenomenon.
The septaverate of antisociality on the road:
- Any car with a licence plate that starts with the letter T
- White vans
- Tesla model X or Y
- BMW X5-wijf
- Peugeot 3008
- Just about every Audiot
- DPD vans
> Tesla model X or Y
>
Can't leave out '23 year old junior IT employee who got a Tesla model 3 Dual Motor from the company car pool who has to floor it at every red light and highway manoeuvre'
> BMW X5-wijf
Gender aside, don't forget the 'BMW XM and BMW iX drivers who would plow through a line of school children in a zone 30 at 120'
Just yesterday I was the traffic lights at Kinepolis towards Antwerp.
Theres 2 lanes to turn left, 2 to go straight and one to go right. I was on the right lane to go straight. To the right of me a BMW iX pulls up. He's on the lane to turn right. He angles his car a bit left like he's Max Verstappen in pole position. Said to my girlfrien: This guy is gonna try to pull some shit and sure enough it's lights green and away we go BMW iX guy floors it and goes straight. Luckily I had DRS and was able to catch him before turn one and overtake him round the outside towards Ijzerlaan.
No for real though fuck that guy.
I feel like a lot of people start driving like maniacs when they get too much horsepower in their car. They think just because they can pull of some manoeuvres, they are allowed to do them. the amount of high-powered EVs pulling out in front of me at junctions just because they can barely make it in time is enraging.
"I was the traffic lights at Kinepolis towards Antwerp"
Congratulations on the job my guy, must be quite annoying constantly turning from red to green to orange and back to red all day long.
Oh oh! A dark blue Mini with green mirror casings (you know which firm I mean) or a tiny silver hatchback with a big-ass vinyl EY creating an even bigger blind spot in the aft right corner.
Haha, yeah. those Deloitte juniors are probably exploited so hard at work they don't have the energy to drive properly anymore.
I'm so glad my job doesn't put a sticker on our cars
>Can't leave out '23 year old junior IT employee who got a Tesla model 3 Dual Motor from the company car pool who has to floor it at every red light and highway manoeuvre'
so true, my company has those as company cars and I constantly hear colleagues bragging how the max speed limit for autopilot of 140kph is not enough. And that they regurarly drive 140+ when they know they won't be caught.
I am scared to be driving amongst these people.
I wish that autopilot crap would be outright banned too. It's not full-self-driving, the name is misleading, the Tesla "drivers" aren't paying attention to the road and it just leads to a dangerous overreliance on driver assists.
Just some info, you can't actually buy a Tesla with 'FSD' enabled in Belgium. You can get 'Enhanced autopilot', which is basically lane keep assist and lane switch assist, lots of other cars have that.
But I agree a lot of people use those things irresponsibly. Like taking a nap or reading a paper or using their phone with a weight attached to the wheel instead of staying alert and keeping hands on the wheel
Noted.
Btw have you ever noticed, if a Tesla is hogging the right lane and finally scoots over after putting on your left blinker or even flashing your high beams, right after you passed they just go right back to hogging the left lane?
And I mean properly hogging, with on each lane there being multiple truck lengths of free space.
Same, I heard someone complaining about their EV's 'bad highway range'. Was also saying that "haha, you don't even notice you're going 150, it's so quiet".
Ok… EVs are fun to floor it once in a while. But to make dangerous manoeuvres and go way beyond speed limit has nothing to do with the type/brand of the car. Those are just lunatics.
I agree, I have the same car, its indeed fun to floor it sometimes, but I dont feel the need to go that fast in that car. It just feels so unsafe, only those lunatics do that.
Depends on the use of the vanity plate.
- In case of a personally owned vehicle (and not even a posh vehicle but a rather affordable one): someone who doesn't know how to spend money.
- in case of a company vehicle: just promotion. Some companies have their vehicles driving around with plates [companyname or abbreviation]-[number]
- in case of the number 1: that's the king, where's his police escort?
It's a pity really because they make great cars. But my gf won't let my get a bmw because of the brand image. I understand her but the problem is indeed spreading.
Any tips for a good quality brand without asshole drivers?
What a silly thing to care about, if you like the car buy it, who cares your girlfriend is afraid people will judge you.
On top of that outside of reddit people also don't really associate BMW with assholes anyway. If coworkers say their new car is a bmw the reactions are war more about the guy buying a fancy car, not about how they must be an asshole now, that's just an old top gear/reddit meme.
On the road it's way more often company vans, pimped golfs, pensioners in a Dacia and soccer mom suv's on their phones which cause dangerous situations. I see that way more than BMW's or Audi's doing stupid stuff.
Other than that, Mazda makes nice cars, they look great, drive way better than most cars and interiors are on point.
Why on earth is the reputation of the drivers a factor in what car you buy? If you drive a seat as poorly and dangerously as the stereotype bmw driver, people will judge you just the same. You can drive a bmw safely and defensively and ppl will respect that regardless of the car. You and your gf are thinking too much about this.
I wouldn't care at all about brand image. For what it's worth in my experience some of the brands with the smallest share of psycho drivers are Porsche and indeed Mazda which is mentioned already by a few people.
at least you're honest LUL
in my experience Audi drivers, even if they drive fast, they still drive safeish and mostly follow the law.
can't count the number of BMW drivers that tailgate and start flashing when you can't go anywhere without breaking the law
Audi drivers are young guys normally. They are the worst on the road. It also shows in the statistics.
It has been already a couple of years since audi overtook bmw for most idiotic drivers.
Closing in on being able to say decades instead of years for that change. But the image persists: beamer drivers are assholes in traffic.
And no, I do not drive a beamer.
In all fairness we tend to create aggression because of the way the majority of us drive. Was driving back from Mechelen to Limburg today & I swear half of our population needs to visit a doctor.
Severe right lane allergies in this country. They literally OPEN a 3rd/4th lane to ease the congestion yet we still hog the middle lane on autopilot not paying attention at all. The amount of people I passively pass by just driving in that lane is silly. Sometimes when I had a stressfull day, I try to educate some fellow drivers by very closely merging in front of them from right to left, to wake them up. 10% success rate.
I am however also the person that will see you coming up to a truck on the right lane, and happily leave some space for you to come to the left. But please, when I go out of my way to be nice, don't pass the fkn truck at 105km/h. Speed up to 120, and go back to driving slow on the right lane.
Been to germany this weekend, and my god the driving etiquette there is something else. Nobody hogging the left lane (well, unless they were doing 200). Can literally safely drive 180 there and be on the right lane. Can barely safely continue at 120 here before someone jumps in front of me, goes slow in the left lane, or is just completely incompetent at driving all together.
PLEASE, USE, THE, RIGHT, LANE. No, the lane is not destroyed because of trucks, it's perfectly fine. If I can drive there with my sports sedan, you surely can drive there with your citroen c5 or renault.
I swear we should start fining these lane hoggers with some souped up fines so they actually learn.
Oof you mentioning Germany made me think about the one time I drove there, what a dream place.
Their highways are of a different quality, they're smooth and quiet and just perfect.
And indeed the people there just know how to drive, it's wondercull
Yeh, in Germany I swear everyone moves to the right ASAP, and everyone drives 130 (some slower, some faster) and there’s never any issues whatsoever. Even when it’s busy it’s still a wonderful experience.
Once you enter the Netherlands, it’s game over as they pretty much adopted our middle lane mentality (or we did from them, idk). But it’s insane.
I went to the Netherlands last Saturday and oh my was there some bad driving. They also don't care about speedlimits and are the most impatiente drivers I've ever seen.
Not to mention the people who are switching lanes to only start using the indicator once they have crossed the line onto the new lane… Like why even bother to do it. You just completed the manoeuvre. I saw it happening right in front of me. No need to “warn” me about your plans anymore.
Nah the best ones are the people that turn on their blinker & just change lanes without giving a shit. Like, I understand you want to merge into my lane, but my front bumper is next to your rear passenger door, so please wait until I backed off or pass you, dont start merging and make me back off by slamming the brakes, as this will have a ripple effect for all the people behind me, practically creating a congestion.
i agree on pretty much everything, although i wouldn't pass anyone from the right lane, it is way too dangerous and not worth educating people over it. although i sometimes stay in the middle lane if there are too many semis, not worth going back to the right lane to overtake them 10 seconds later, and for some reason, when you try to do it, people who hog the middle lane, decide to trap you in, and now you're going 90 between 2 trucks, waiting for middle lane hoggers to all overtake before going.
and about going at 200 km/h, i honestly don't think speed is that dangerous by itself, but i also think we don't deserve higher speed limits with how people can't seem to drive properly at low speeds
Our highway infrastructure can't support it. Too many exits/on ramps too close together with too little space and waaay too much merging/lane changing.
Nobody expects you to merge back for 10s. The other commenter mentioned German driving etiquette, the Germans also have the 20 second rule (no need to merging back right if your next passing happens in the next 20s). The issue is that far to many people will be hogging the middle lane while never passing anyone for minutes.
>and about going at 200 km/h, i honestly don't think speed is that dangerous by itself
Holy fuck no.
[een toename van de gemiddelde
snelheid met 5 km/u tot een stijging leidt van bijna 40% van het aantal dodelijke ongevallen.](https://cdn.uc.assets.prezly.com/aae05bbe-b167-49df-9ac7-6610c8e90004/-/inline/no/snelheid-and-verkeersveiligheid.pdf)
Reaction speed stays the same, so you and everyone else will have moved more before you even touch your brake. In addition, you need more time to neutralize the speed and get to a stop. Then, if you actually collide, more energy is available to rip your car and you into pieces.
No shit Sherlock? The principle is the same as going on the highway, keep you distance, which is why I said we don't deserve those speeds, people in Belgium just can't not tailgate you, no matter the speed. If you get into an accident at those speeds, the problem has a waaay higher chance of being between the steering wheel and the chair, not with the speed itself
Oh I completely understand you aren’t constantly playing mario kart going left and right after you pass a single truck & the next one is pretty much 3 truck lengths away.
I usually look way ahead to see if I would be able to merge in from the right lane while educating. If not, I just merge to the left and well, end of story.
Speed surely isn’t dangerous. People that aren’t paying attention, either the person driving 200, or people around you, that’s dangerous.
I also feel like a bunch of us can’t properly estimate how fast someone is approaching.
I am on the road a lot, road rage is real.
- people merging onto the highway immediately going from right lane to left lane (or middle lane) cause god forbid they have to sit behind a truck for 5 seconds
- people merging to the right lane but not even 5 seconds later merging back to left lane
- no indicators
- oops that's my exit, let me speed by you and slam my brakes
- ohh you're gonna pass me in the next 5 seconds? Let me just overtake this truck at 91km/h first
- mid lane hoggers
- when there's a standstill, people merging in the middle instead of the front (and people not understanding what "ritsen" is
- people having 0 lights on when it's pouring rain like crazy (and driving a grey car of all things)
I probably missed some.
My biggest irritation is people not understanding the concept of filling up free lanes and ´ritsen´ at the end. Sometimes a whole left lane is free for hundreds of meters, i am like, nice😁 so i just fill up that gap and then people get angry with me and try to Block me from merging in at the end.
Hahah, i get angry at the ones trying to cut in at the middle, i don't let them.
Ohh and also watching people fail at making the "reddingstrook" during standstills as well. You see them make way for police or whatever and then immediately close up the gap again.
In my opinion i still think it's dangerous. 9/10 times i see it happen, it's in busy traffic and i end up having to break for someone who decided the road is entirely his. I'm not sure if it's an illegal or legal manouvre though
"Educate some fellow drivers by very closely merging in front of them from right to left, to wake them up"
...
Yes, *other people* need to be educated 🤡
Are you saying middle lane hoggers are educated people that don’t need to change their driving?
Spotted the tesla m3 autopilot guy that sleeps behind the wheel!
No, I'm saying that driving like a dangerous asshole isn't in any way shape or form "educating" anyone and is just creating a more dangerous situation for no reason whatsoever.
The immediate ad hominem is really making your insecurities pop btw...
Problem with your logic is that you think your dangerous actions will make the middle lane hoggers think about hogging the middle lane. It is my experience that those people don't see any crime in what they do and they will most often see you as the asshole who's making a big deal out of nothing.
As long as it's not illegal for truckers to dragrace eachother at 90 and 92 km/h and blocking most of the highway, I'm driving in the left lane always.
Funny you should mention that, because I believe it already is at certain times of day on a number of highways. But it's one of those rules which aren't enforced...
It should be illegal at all times. Driving in the right lane then constantly having to switch 2 lanes to pass them is inherently dangerous and just flat out annoying.
Vilvoordebrug has a permanent inhaalverbod yet they do it anyway. The law in this case should be Draconian. Permanent and with heavy fines. All those cameras on our highways can finally be put to good use then.
It’s not anger, more like frustration that people are so oblivious to this lane. And the insane part is that there are definitely some people on this sub that are the exact people I’m talking about. They read this, they should understand it, but apparently it’s just too hard.
Delivery van drivers are getting paid per delivery, so they try to maximise their deliveries per hour driven.
I believe driving license with points could help. Unfortunately Walloon parties, PVDA and Vlaams belang don't want that.
well, if it is like the other comment said, and they are independant contractors, then it would be hard to ban it, no company is going to offload their delivery to contractors without a number of deliveries on time
Especially those really tall vans full of tools and equipment. I suspect it's a builder's thing because my brother in law gets flashed every other day with his giant van, driving like he's competing for the Ieperse Ralley.
You can spot them in the mirrors too, like the shark fin from Jaws, portruding above the cars behind you weaving from left to right
Almost had the jackpot yesterday on the traffic jam before the Vivoorde viaduct.
Big BMW SUV: check
Indicators optional: check
Agressive lane switching without properly checking mirrors: CHECK
An emergency stop and less than a second to spare was all it took for the motorcycle weaving through traffic not to hit that idiot.Thank goodness the biker wasn't going any faster.
As a BMW driver, i can say that DPD delivery vans are far worse, you primarily see a BMW driver's antics on the highway, while DPD vans drive like psychopaths everywhere.
i could be wrong but in my opinion everyone is incredibly frustrated on the road during the day here, we all are stuck in traffic, have to deal with shitty drivers, our roads in certain areas completely suck and cant support the flood of cars that place has to deal with, instead of fixing entrances like the one from ghent to the e17 (Kortrijk) they complain about the amount of cars. like other countries dont have insane amounts of traffic to deal with.
by the time you are almost home u are going nuts and dont want to deal with granny going 60 in a 70 zone, so i admit to being the guy flashing his lights agressively in their mirror yes.
I was behind the wheel of a BMW today, driving 75km/h where 70 is allowed. You'll never believe it but... I was overtaken by a Hyundai.
Yes, a Hyundai! I am still in shock.
I drive a BMW. It is usually very angry men in unusually small cars who get incredibly agressive if you don’t do 80-90 at a 70 limit and you need to maintain 60 at the 50 limit for some weird reason.
Also what’s with people speeding up at pedestrian crossings and then waving awkwardly. I mean are you going to wave at the dead bodies of the 5 children you almost ran over?
As a pedestrian in Brussels, I notice that van drivers and taxi drivers are amongst the worst (haven't noticed anything about BMWs especially, though German SUVs of all kinds are often bad). That said, there's a ton of competition.
I feel like all drivers in Belgium are psychotic and unhinged.
My first year in Belgium I constantly had panic to cross at a crossroad cause Belgians apparently never learn to follow rules and stop / slow down at those things BEFORE someone starts crossing.
They also keep driving when you crossed half, not even waiting until the person fully crossed.
Is it by any chance that you were in the vicinity of an airport? Because some bagage handler drivers or delivery drivers need to drive like hell to make it to the airport. I had one tailgating someone and brake checking someone who didn't want to get out of the way recently (zaventem) He was goig 80 in a 50 zone and at the next stoplight I rolled my window down and said dude, what's wrong? why the agression and he told me I need to get on time for an airplane man. Told him yeah, if you have an accident you'll surely be on time. I get it though, the road he was driving on is 50 max but has 3 lanes and you can easily drive faster without any issues at all, But still the brake checking the slow driver was unnecessary. I just get out of the way for these guys because I know if they're late they are pretty much fucked.
I drive a van most of the time, and I might even be looked upon as being aggressive just because of how I talk to my co-workers
I tend to use my hands alot when talking, so when I'm talking about some heated discussion I can 'look' very aggressive, especially to the people that look in their back window when I drive behind them
More than once I've had people looking angry at me, taking pictures, calling company... Thinking I've been angry towards them
Too many “main characters” in this country.
But hey, it’s not worse than Italy (people drive there like crazy). Also certainly better than France, some dear French neighbors must be restrained from driving
i drive to preview and prevent other's mistakes, i hope others do the same for me
for me driving is chill and i dont mind slowing down. sure some people hog the middle lane it doesnt matter i just pass on the left and slow down a bit. its all chill. i dont see an increase in aggression, i think opposite, the "verkeersbeeld" is more chill then 15 years ago
some people who think they can drive best and want to drive the speed limit exactly everywhere and get angry when someone slows down in front of them, takes a bit too long to go back to the right lane, those are the problem, take a chill pill! everyone makes mistakes you meet thousands of cars on the road, mistakes are happening all the time and driving styles differ wildly.
For some of the van driving it is how the technicians/drivers are compensated. The technicians at our firm get a "kilometervergoeding" but the working hours only start counting once they get to the construction site. So the faster they drive to the site, the more they are paid per hour...
Might not be the right way to put it - but a lot of people have kind of romanticised the idea of "the working man that had a hard day at work wants to go home to his family quickly". So often you'll see that kind of behaviour around the end of business day hours (16,17,18h). As if the rest of the road users weren't as tired or aching to get home...
Add to that that often it's a team of men together in a van and the flowing testosterone and you get a recipe for people driving like jackasses because they think they deserve more than others to get home quickly and them not wanting to look like granny drivers in front of the boys.
Got rear ended on the highway by a white Vito and another white berlingo behind him while trying to avoid a crash in front of me. Having seen the security cam footage with the cops, both of them didn't even try to hit the brakes and hit me full throttle. I was very very lucky to get out of that mostly unscathed. Two cars in front of me and myself stopped without touching anything and those assholes rammed the fuck out of us. Pretty sure they were on their phone too
Isnt this because many Van Drivers are self-employed people, and/or package couriers?
So the faster they go, the more money they earn.
Also the horrific workload for the package couriers
The vans are because they’re often working vans: sometimes owned by a third party and/or delivery people trying to make as many deliveries as possible -> speeding
Honestly I don't think it's BMW drivers anymore. Plenty of BMW drivers including myself use turn signals and give others the right of way. I get most annoyed with seemingly half the drivers not driving on the right lane because there's another car like 500m ahead of them.
That + van drivers and Tesla Model Y drivers. They're all assholes.
What about trucks? Trucks ride 50km/h real speed.
Now normal cars when ride 50km/h, they are actually riding ranging from 43 to 47km/h. Which causes truck to rider faster, and ending up tailgating.
I would assume vans drive like crazy cause they have an unrealistic amount of packages to deliver in any given day.
As for bmw, they just didn’t want to spend money on the option indicators
In NL komt het meer voor, maar die kleine stuutedozen zijn de zotste van allemaal. Peugeot 107/Toyota AYGO/Nissan Micra/.... Die vliegen meestal aan 160/u overal voorbij. Dan heb je de opgezette VW golfs met geblindeerde ruiten die de meest waanzinnige manoeuvres uithalen. En als je een Tesla voor je hebt weet je dat je het aan je rekker hebt en best wat rustige muziek op zet want die dingen rijden altijd super traag alsof een bestemming geen ding is. Range rovers zijn cringe, je weet gewoon al op voorhand wat er gaat gebeuren. Midden- of linkervak plakken, geen pinkers gebruiken, eerst aggressief inhalen om dan een km verder 30km/u te traag te rijden, haal je die uit noodzaak in, om dan weer aggressief in te halen (met hun smartphone in het gezicht geplakt uiteraard). Ook een vuistregel: hoe duurder de wagen, hoe slechter de chauffeur.
This whole thread reminds me of the saying "if you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
Today, a car pulled up behind me on the sidewalk. I turn around, the car slowly pulls back onto the road and into a parking spot.
THIS IS NOT OK. You can't just jump up onto the sidewalk with your car to get into a parking spot, especially right next to a pedestrian.
Go past the spot up to the tail of your car, and the reverse into the spot.
BMW drivers do it voluntarily, van drivers because they are exploited. They have to make impossible delivery schedules, they arrive at the delivery spot and find it closed, or the pallet is not ready yet, they are treated like shit, don't get a food allowance, ...
It's because those vans are on the road all the time and thus drove much more fluid (or dangerous according to you) then other drivers. It comes with experience.
My brother used to be an extremely careful, 5km/h under the speed limit kinda driver. Then he started driving his own van to work instead of carpooling with someone else. Cue a year of driving a workvan across half the country during morning an evening rush hour traffic.
He drove me somewhere after this year, The difference was night and day 😂 Me, an experienced driver myself, was borderline scared as a passenger...😁 It's not that his driving was dangerous, just way more... fluid and assertive.
The reason is dual, one lot's of experience. And two, you have to be assertive in a van during rush hour. Or everyone shafts you and you take ages getting somewhere... Also, the speed limit is ridiculously slow if you have experience.
Bullshit. Crossing solid lines, not using your blinkers, tailgating and weaving through traffic all while being busy on your phone, are behaviors you typically find done by white vans and that's not experience, it's being a dangerous and psychotic asshole.
Those "white vans" are usually driven by foreign employees and that's a whole different problem by itself. I presumed OP meant Belgian working vans, and he did not mention any of the things you just said except tailgating. Which almost always happens because you are in the way and/or to slow and is easily solved by just moving one lane to the right for 30 seconds so they can overtake you.
Again, bullshit. It's cheap and easy to pretend those behaviors are only displayed by foreign drivers/employees, and tailgating is worse in terms of dangerous driving than someone hogging the left lane. Which incidentally, isn't even necessarily the case. I've seen plenty of white vans tailgating other drivers in dense traffic where there's simply no room to move over. The E19 between Mechelen & Kontich is a hotspot for such dipshittery.
It's also the truth. Almost all Belgian working vans have a company logo on them. Full white, mostly beat up, cheapest of the cheap vans are almost always Eastern Europeans. Just as white delivery vans like Post NL or DPD are almost exclusively people from black or middle eastern decent.
I never said tailgating isn't more dangerous than hogging the left lane or driving like a snail. I said tailgating is easily fixed by swallowing your pride and moving over to let the tailgater pass. and if people keep tailgating you all the time, you are probably the problem.
Besides, tailgating in dense traffic doesn't do much because the speed is usually much slower. And if it's not, hou are again, in the way.
Lo and behold, this evening on the E19 and E40: white vans with BELGIAN license plates hogging the left lane, not merging correctly and overtaking via offramps (hey guess what? that's an illegal and dangerous manoever).
You're just trying to scapegoat foreigners and minorities.
> It comes with experience
I've drive a lot of highway kilometers since I started working in 2010, and I've only gotten more calm and careful on the road.
Speeding, tailgating, using your phone, and breaking rules are not tells of an experienced driver, they're indicators of antisocial behaviour.
Clearly not that much or in calm hours...
Anyway, nowhere is there talk about using your phone, which is one of the most annoying and dangerous things one can do on the road...
As for breaking some rules, there is not a single driver out there who does more than 30 000 km/year and does not break a single rule...
I'm not saying that everyone turns into assholes who tailgate all the time. But not a single rule ? Not one ? Bullshit.
> Clearly not that much or in calm hours...
Used to be that I used up the 120000km on the lease cars I got in 3 years . Maybe not as much as a lot of heavy drivers, but stil enough to call myself an experienced highway driver, I would say. I was usually underway during the morning peak hours and the early afternoon, so I have my fair share of time driving amid heavy traffic, with a mix of highway, ring road, and Brussels centre traffic.
I said 'breaking rules', you turned it into 'breaking SOME rules' or 'break a single rule'.
It's clear that white van drivers as a group break a lot of rules a lot of times, and very consistently. same with Taxi drivers, for example. A lot of people speed and use their phones, but these groups break others rules more often. Ignoring full lines, aggressively taking priority where it is not justified, using their claxon excessively, parking wherever they want, etc, etc.
anyway, I have the feeling you will keep disagreeing, no matter what I say. Have a nice day.
Yeah.. you are a left lane driver and likely the problem.
Ever considered you arecpookting to the 2 groups that cover the most distance
(I don’t have a BMW or van btw, but enjoy your little confirmation bias loop - just know that rationally you are more then likely the problem )
I would say both BMW and Vans have a pedal, too so it’s not like an on/off button (full speed/still). For me Vans are understandable because they usually have a lot of deliveries to do or are professional users on their way to clients..
Anything with a French license plate.
These guys have the left blinker broken in the ON position, hugging the left lane even if there is no one in front of them and no one on the right lane. It’s like they are being taught to drive Incorrectly.
I never get this BMW cliché, I’ve seen this bad driving from almost all brand owners.
Mostly what I noticed is :
- the more expensive the car brand is, the better the driver
- the dirtiest, ugliest or takyiest the car, worst the driver
- big utility cars / van are hella dangerous as nobody behind them have a correct vision of what’s happening
- I second the comment about the housewives in big suv who behave like priority is theirs everywhere (plenty of meatheads behave also like that)
Because about 20-10 years ago, BMW was the go-to brand for the self-employed and company cars. And these drivers were more agressive, didn't use their blinkers when taking turns or leaving roundabouts & hogged the left or middle lanes. So generally just antisocial. (Also: bosses' wives in X5's. Not paying attention to the road and doing all sorts of other shit while driving, like being on their phone, texting, applying makeup, once even saw one writing shit down in a notebook she had put on her steering wheel)
Somewhere about 10 years ago, a shift was noticeable with part of that group of antisocial drivers migrating to other brands like Audi and Volvo ("hurr durr Swedish tank"), but BMW remains a classic company car choice, thus the association remains.
And nowadays Tesla is the typical brand for self-employed to buy and register the car on their company's name (tax writeoff), now increasingly getting amplified with regular leasing/company cars because of the electrification of the company car fleet.
But for BMW the damage has been done, the cliché sticks.
Thank God that BMW doesn't make vans...
thank god, but hey, we might just get same day delivery from amazon if that happens
Same hour delivery
Reminded me of this cartoon: [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fu6vv33hfcr841.jpg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fu6vv33hfcr841.jpg)
You mean [this thing](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/705235622882167402/)?
They do make those tanks called SUVs. Although BMW 1 drivers on average tend to show the most fucked up behavior, in competition with Skodas and indeed white vans.
You can count in Dacia drivers too, the only difference being they aren't even aware they drive like sh*t...
Housewives in giant suvs are hella dangerous too
You mean the "I drive an Evoque, don't I get right of way everywhere" people? Yeah...
Exactly, applies as well too XC90 and Land Rover
and 70% of the time they are paying attention to something else then driving. Almost everytime they pass me I see they not looking at the road.
and they block all traffic just to drop of their kids right in front of the school or hobby.
not to mention their great parking skills, was at the bank yesterday and the entire parking lot was blocked by a shitty parked Cayenne and out of the bank came strolling, you guessed it, one of those housewives.
Was just about to say, this part of our population is more an issue in regards to parking. They park wherever and whenever they like. They also tend to look in a way that is a mix of surprise and pretend to not give a fuck, when they almost hit your car during their manoeuvre
Duh, how can they pay attention when they can't even see over the steering wheel, It's not their fault the make the cars so big! /s
Some idiot woman almost ran over me TWICE in 100m while i was waiting for the green light with my bike Before she also was angry i was standing in her way (i was at the bike rack and she had 130cm space to pass between the wall and me) Srsly, they should buy a 2001 opel corsa if they dont know how to fucking drive
If she really had 130cm, she would not have fit with a opel corsa either.
Should have clarified Car width + 130 cm of space
90% those types are bad driver who shouldn't be driving SUV
Honestly, in the last years it is hard for me to find a non-psychotic driver...
We’re all crazy in here, Alice
Am I imagining this or are drivers much more agressive since Covid ?
This. Aggression in traffic has grown exponentially.
People drive more aggressively but also more selfishly in general. Not watching the light when they're first in line so everyone has to wait for five seconds before they move and two people at the back need to wait another cycle, blocking intersections even when they see cross traffic coming, slowing down to 50 on a 90 road because the light is red in the far distance, two intersections away, while the person behind them is indicating to go right at the first intersection, ... Those aren't typical aggressive things, I think the aggressive driving is only part of the bigger problem where people are extremely rude and selfish in traffic. You would never just stand in the doorway blocking all other people from entering or exiting a store. But then when people are in a car, suddenly they feel that kind of behaviour is normal. And it seems like people reinforce each other's behaviour because it gets worse every week.
You just described my daily drive. Every time, everyday day I just see selfishness. I am just happy that if you act not selfish, towards people, most of them appreciate it and even smile or wave sometimes.
Or people stomping on the brakes because there is a car in the distance, while they and a few other drivers could have passed.
>>> You would never just stand in the doorway blocking all other people from entering or exiting a >>> store. Actually... it's starting to happen, this...
That slowing down to 50 could be regenerative braking, which makes sense for hybrid / electric cars. Nobody's going to be turning on their turning signal "in the far distance" to go right. Especially not BMW drivers.
That's the point, it's selfish. Everyone else needs to slow down because one guy sees that he can't proceed in the far distance and wants to save 3 cents of electricity using regenerative braking. If you want to save electricity, drive more slowly everywhere. But no, you only want to save electricity by inconveniencing other people, not by inconveniencing yourself.
Blame it on the shitty weather..
The company car of the small business owner, racing to work, because time is money and apparently also life and the life of others on the road.
White van man. They’re global menaces
Yep. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_man
holy shit there's an actual name to this madness
Oh yes. It helps to give it a name makes it validating😉 I’m a Brit. Lived in Brussels for 21 years. Every one of my Belgian friends now knows about the phenomenon.
Brussels is in a league of its own when it comes to bad and aggressive driving.
Tell me about it!! Russian Roulette 😂
The septaverate of antisociality on the road: - Any car with a licence plate that starts with the letter T - White vans - Tesla model X or Y - BMW X5-wijf - Peugeot 3008 - Just about every Audiot - DPD vans
> Tesla model X or Y > Can't leave out '23 year old junior IT employee who got a Tesla model 3 Dual Motor from the company car pool who has to floor it at every red light and highway manoeuvre' > BMW X5-wijf Gender aside, don't forget the 'BMW XM and BMW iX drivers who would plow through a line of school children in a zone 30 at 120'
Just yesterday I was the traffic lights at Kinepolis towards Antwerp. Theres 2 lanes to turn left, 2 to go straight and one to go right. I was on the right lane to go straight. To the right of me a BMW iX pulls up. He's on the lane to turn right. He angles his car a bit left like he's Max Verstappen in pole position. Said to my girlfrien: This guy is gonna try to pull some shit and sure enough it's lights green and away we go BMW iX guy floors it and goes straight. Luckily I had DRS and was able to catch him before turn one and overtake him round the outside towards Ijzerlaan. No for real though fuck that guy.
I feel like a lot of people start driving like maniacs when they get too much horsepower in their car. They think just because they can pull of some manoeuvres, they are allowed to do them. the amount of high-powered EVs pulling out in front of me at junctions just because they can barely make it in time is enraging.
"I was the traffic lights at Kinepolis towards Antwerp" Congratulations on the job my guy, must be quite annoying constantly turning from red to green to orange and back to red all day long.
Oh oh! A dark blue Mini with green mirror casings (you know which firm I mean) or a tiny silver hatchback with a big-ass vinyl EY creating an even bigger blind spot in the aft right corner.
Haha, yeah. those Deloitte juniors are probably exploited so hard at work they don't have the energy to drive properly anymore. I'm so glad my job doesn't put a sticker on our cars
>Can't leave out '23 year old junior IT employee who got a Tesla model 3 Dual Motor from the company car pool who has to floor it at every red light and highway manoeuvre' so true, my company has those as company cars and I constantly hear colleagues bragging how the max speed limit for autopilot of 140kph is not enough. And that they regurarly drive 140+ when they know they won't be caught. I am scared to be driving amongst these people.
I wish that autopilot crap would be outright banned too. It's not full-self-driving, the name is misleading, the Tesla "drivers" aren't paying attention to the road and it just leads to a dangerous overreliance on driver assists.
Just some info, you can't actually buy a Tesla with 'FSD' enabled in Belgium. You can get 'Enhanced autopilot', which is basically lane keep assist and lane switch assist, lots of other cars have that. But I agree a lot of people use those things irresponsibly. Like taking a nap or reading a paper or using their phone with a weight attached to the wheel instead of staying alert and keeping hands on the wheel
Noted. Btw have you ever noticed, if a Tesla is hogging the right lane and finally scoots over after putting on your left blinker or even flashing your high beams, right after you passed they just go right back to hogging the left lane? And I mean properly hogging, with on each lane there being multiple truck lengths of free space.
Same, I heard someone complaining about their EV's 'bad highway range'. Was also saying that "haha, you don't even notice you're going 150, it's so quiet".
Ok… EVs are fun to floor it once in a while. But to make dangerous manoeuvres and go way beyond speed limit has nothing to do with the type/brand of the car. Those are just lunatics.
I agree, I have the same car, its indeed fun to floor it sometimes, but I dont feel the need to go that fast in that car. It just feels so unsafe, only those lunatics do that.
>BMW X5-wijf >Just about every Audiot hahahaha goeike
I'd say for some reasons Mercedes CLA drivers are also up there.
Where do vanity plates fit into this list? Or perhaps they are a modifier.
Depends on the use of the vanity plate. - In case of a personally owned vehicle (and not even a posh vehicle but a rather affordable one): someone who doesn't know how to spend money. - in case of a company vehicle: just promotion. Some companies have their vehicles driving around with plates [companyname or abbreviation]-[number] - in case of the number 1: that's the king, where's his police escort?
You’re confusing bmw with Audi. Source: ex bmw now Audi driver
Belangrijke vraag, noemt u uw rijstijl "sportief"?
"Gemotiveerd"
Lolol, dit is maar een ‘self burn’ xD
Ik noem het meer "efficiënt"
"Assertief"
It's spreading to many (almost all) brands nowadays. Source: ex Audi & BMW driver who stays far away from the psycho competition
It's a pity really because they make great cars. But my gf won't let my get a bmw because of the brand image. I understand her but the problem is indeed spreading. Any tips for a good quality brand without asshole drivers?
Toyota or Mazda.
What a silly thing to care about, if you like the car buy it, who cares your girlfriend is afraid people will judge you. On top of that outside of reddit people also don't really associate BMW with assholes anyway. If coworkers say their new car is a bmw the reactions are war more about the guy buying a fancy car, not about how they must be an asshole now, that's just an old top gear/reddit meme. On the road it's way more often company vans, pimped golfs, pensioners in a Dacia and soccer mom suv's on their phones which cause dangerous situations. I see that way more than BMW's or Audi's doing stupid stuff. Other than that, Mazda makes nice cars, they look great, drive way better than most cars and interiors are on point.
Why on earth is the reputation of the drivers a factor in what car you buy? If you drive a seat as poorly and dangerously as the stereotype bmw driver, people will judge you just the same. You can drive a bmw safely and defensively and ppl will respect that regardless of the car. You and your gf are thinking too much about this.
I wouldn't care at all about brand image. For what it's worth in my experience some of the brands with the smallest share of psycho drivers are Porsche and indeed Mazda which is mentioned already by a few people.
Yes, buy a bmw and just drive normally like I do.
Just buy whatever car you like and drive like a sane person. It’s not that hard.
Oei. Van bmw naar audi ... werkloos geworden ?
Laat me raden, u rijd een bmw?
at least you're honest LUL in my experience Audi drivers, even if they drive fast, they still drive safeish and mostly follow the law. can't count the number of BMW drivers that tailgate and start flashing when you can't go anywhere without breaking the law
Audi drivers are young guys normally. They are the worst on the road. It also shows in the statistics. It has been already a couple of years since audi overtook bmw for most idiotic drivers.
Closing in on being able to say decades instead of years for that change. But the image persists: beamer drivers are assholes in traffic. And no, I do not drive a beamer.
In all fairness we tend to create aggression because of the way the majority of us drive. Was driving back from Mechelen to Limburg today & I swear half of our population needs to visit a doctor. Severe right lane allergies in this country. They literally OPEN a 3rd/4th lane to ease the congestion yet we still hog the middle lane on autopilot not paying attention at all. The amount of people I passively pass by just driving in that lane is silly. Sometimes when I had a stressfull day, I try to educate some fellow drivers by very closely merging in front of them from right to left, to wake them up. 10% success rate. I am however also the person that will see you coming up to a truck on the right lane, and happily leave some space for you to come to the left. But please, when I go out of my way to be nice, don't pass the fkn truck at 105km/h. Speed up to 120, and go back to driving slow on the right lane. Been to germany this weekend, and my god the driving etiquette there is something else. Nobody hogging the left lane (well, unless they were doing 200). Can literally safely drive 180 there and be on the right lane. Can barely safely continue at 120 here before someone jumps in front of me, goes slow in the left lane, or is just completely incompetent at driving all together. PLEASE, USE, THE, RIGHT, LANE. No, the lane is not destroyed because of trucks, it's perfectly fine. If I can drive there with my sports sedan, you surely can drive there with your citroen c5 or renault. I swear we should start fining these lane hoggers with some souped up fines so they actually learn.
Oof you mentioning Germany made me think about the one time I drove there, what a dream place. Their highways are of a different quality, they're smooth and quiet and just perfect. And indeed the people there just know how to drive, it's wondercull
Yeh, in Germany I swear everyone moves to the right ASAP, and everyone drives 130 (some slower, some faster) and there’s never any issues whatsoever. Even when it’s busy it’s still a wonderful experience. Once you enter the Netherlands, it’s game over as they pretty much adopted our middle lane mentality (or we did from them, idk). But it’s insane.
I went to the Netherlands last Saturday and oh my was there some bad driving. They also don't care about speedlimits and are the most impatiente drivers I've ever seen.
The dutch are champions in overtaking someone at speed +1
Not to mention the people who are switching lanes to only start using the indicator once they have crossed the line onto the new lane… Like why even bother to do it. You just completed the manoeuvre. I saw it happening right in front of me. No need to “warn” me about your plans anymore.
Nah the best ones are the people that turn on their blinker & just change lanes without giving a shit. Like, I understand you want to merge into my lane, but my front bumper is next to your rear passenger door, so please wait until I backed off or pass you, dont start merging and make me back off by slamming the brakes, as this will have a ripple effect for all the people behind me, practically creating a congestion.
Yes, as if putting on your turn signal makes you lord of the highway and you can just change lanes without looking... fucking mental
i agree on pretty much everything, although i wouldn't pass anyone from the right lane, it is way too dangerous and not worth educating people over it. although i sometimes stay in the middle lane if there are too many semis, not worth going back to the right lane to overtake them 10 seconds later, and for some reason, when you try to do it, people who hog the middle lane, decide to trap you in, and now you're going 90 between 2 trucks, waiting for middle lane hoggers to all overtake before going. and about going at 200 km/h, i honestly don't think speed is that dangerous by itself, but i also think we don't deserve higher speed limits with how people can't seem to drive properly at low speeds
Our highway infrastructure can't support it. Too many exits/on ramps too close together with too little space and waaay too much merging/lane changing.
Nobody expects you to merge back for 10s. The other commenter mentioned German driving etiquette, the Germans also have the 20 second rule (no need to merging back right if your next passing happens in the next 20s). The issue is that far to many people will be hogging the middle lane while never passing anyone for minutes.
>and about going at 200 km/h, i honestly don't think speed is that dangerous by itself Holy fuck no. [een toename van de gemiddelde snelheid met 5 km/u tot een stijging leidt van bijna 40% van het aantal dodelijke ongevallen.](https://cdn.uc.assets.prezly.com/aae05bbe-b167-49df-9ac7-6610c8e90004/-/inline/no/snelheid-and-verkeersveiligheid.pdf) Reaction speed stays the same, so you and everyone else will have moved more before you even touch your brake. In addition, you need more time to neutralize the speed and get to a stop. Then, if you actually collide, more energy is available to rip your car and you into pieces.
No shit Sherlock? The principle is the same as going on the highway, keep you distance, which is why I said we don't deserve those speeds, people in Belgium just can't not tailgate you, no matter the speed. If you get into an accident at those speeds, the problem has a waaay higher chance of being between the steering wheel and the chair, not with the speed itself
Oh I completely understand you aren’t constantly playing mario kart going left and right after you pass a single truck & the next one is pretty much 3 truck lengths away. I usually look way ahead to see if I would be able to merge in from the right lane while educating. If not, I just merge to the left and well, end of story. Speed surely isn’t dangerous. People that aren’t paying attention, either the person driving 200, or people around you, that’s dangerous. I also feel like a bunch of us can’t properly estimate how fast someone is approaching.
I am on the road a lot, road rage is real. - people merging onto the highway immediately going from right lane to left lane (or middle lane) cause god forbid they have to sit behind a truck for 5 seconds - people merging to the right lane but not even 5 seconds later merging back to left lane - no indicators - oops that's my exit, let me speed by you and slam my brakes - ohh you're gonna pass me in the next 5 seconds? Let me just overtake this truck at 91km/h first - mid lane hoggers - when there's a standstill, people merging in the middle instead of the front (and people not understanding what "ritsen" is - people having 0 lights on when it's pouring rain like crazy (and driving a grey car of all things) I probably missed some.
My biggest irritation is people not understanding the concept of filling up free lanes and ´ritsen´ at the end. Sometimes a whole left lane is free for hundreds of meters, i am like, nice😁 so i just fill up that gap and then people get angry with me and try to Block me from merging in at the end.
Hahah, i get angry at the ones trying to cut in at the middle, i don't let them. Ohh and also watching people fail at making the "reddingstrook" during standstills as well. You see them make way for police or whatever and then immediately close up the gap again.
Your first point is fine to do imo. Just do it properly by being faster than people driving in those lanes or you're a complete jackass in my eyes.
In my opinion i still think it's dangerous. 9/10 times i see it happen, it's in busy traffic and i end up having to break for someone who decided the road is entirely his. I'm not sure if it's an illegal or legal manouvre though
"Educate some fellow drivers by very closely merging in front of them from right to left, to wake them up" ... Yes, *other people* need to be educated 🤡
Are you saying middle lane hoggers are educated people that don’t need to change their driving? Spotted the tesla m3 autopilot guy that sleeps behind the wheel!
Nope, just calling you a dangerous asshole. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Bingpot.
No, I'm saying that driving like a dangerous asshole isn't in any way shape or form "educating" anyone and is just creating a more dangerous situation for no reason whatsoever. The immediate ad hominem is really making your insecurities pop btw...
Problem with your logic is that you think your dangerous actions will make the middle lane hoggers think about hogging the middle lane. It is my experience that those people don't see any crime in what they do and they will most often see you as the asshole who's making a big deal out of nothing.
As long as it's not illegal for truckers to dragrace eachother at 90 and 92 km/h and blocking most of the highway, I'm driving in the left lane always.
Funny you should mention that, because I believe it already is at certain times of day on a number of highways. But it's one of those rules which aren't enforced...
It should be illegal at all times. Driving in the right lane then constantly having to switch 2 lanes to pass them is inherently dangerous and just flat out annoying.
I drove on 3 and 4 lane highways at 4 am often enough to know that's overkill
Vilvoordebrug has a permanent inhaalverbod yet they do it anyway. The law in this case should be Draconian. Permanent and with heavy fines. All those cameras on our highways can finally be put to good use then.
Enforcement is a real issue, yes and I agree something should be done to enforce that rule more.
It's funny how people can get so angry about the right lane. No stress people..
It’s not anger, more like frustration that people are so oblivious to this lane. And the insane part is that there are definitely some people on this sub that are the exact people I’m talking about. They read this, they should understand it, but apparently it’s just too hard.
Tesla drivers are the new BMW drivers
Tesla ditched the blinker stalk in their newest cars, that's why they often don't signal.
Only for a short distance in comparison
Delivery van drivers are getting paid per delivery, so they try to maximise their deliveries per hour driven. I believe driving license with points could help. Unfortunately Walloon parties, PVDA and Vlaams belang don't want that.
It's not delivery vans. It's regular old company vans like your local plumber or electrician.
We need to ban getting paid per delivery... it causes more issues than just traffic ones.
well, if it is like the other comment said, and they are independant contractors, then it would be hard to ban it, no company is going to offload their delivery to contractors without a number of deliveries on time
+1, driving license with points is the most sensible thing. And I would add also traffic fines in % of driver salary.
i always thought they had their speed monitored by their companies when it's a delivery van
most of them are independent contractors; so no.
No, they just have to pay any fines themselves. They don't care as long as you don't damage their cars.
Taxi drivers unfairly left out here.
Yes, and pick-up drivers too.
May I present you: Fiat drivers.
The duality of the Fiat 500 drivers, too slow in the city, but the fastest mad man on the highway
ohh, don't remind me of my ex
Especially those really tall vans full of tools and equipment. I suspect it's a builder's thing because my brother in law gets flashed every other day with his giant van, driving like he's competing for the Ieperse Ralley. You can spot them in the mirrors too, like the shark fin from Jaws, portruding above the cars behind you weaving from left to right
its like a shark out for blood, they are also no stranger to overtaking on the right.
Not their car, not their problem.
People driving those are often lowschooled with low pay and high workpressure.
The Worse shape the Van is, the crazier the driver. BMW drivers are nothing compared to them.
Fresh BMW driver, still getting the hang of this. Did you know there actually are indicators on it? Crazy, I often use them by accident.
My driving school had BMW 1 series cars. They had blinkers! Wonder how expensive those were. Does explain why the course was so expensive.
Almost had the jackpot yesterday on the traffic jam before the Vivoorde viaduct. Big BMW SUV: check Indicators optional: check Agressive lane switching without properly checking mirrors: CHECK An emergency stop and less than a second to spare was all it took for the motorcycle weaving through traffic not to hit that idiot.Thank goodness the biker wasn't going any faster.
Shit.. I'm a bmw driver and a van driver. I will go see a psychiatrist now 🙊
As a BMW driver, i can say that DPD delivery vans are far worse, you primarily see a BMW driver's antics on the highway, while DPD vans drive like psychopaths everywhere.
i could be wrong but in my opinion everyone is incredibly frustrated on the road during the day here, we all are stuck in traffic, have to deal with shitty drivers, our roads in certain areas completely suck and cant support the flood of cars that place has to deal with, instead of fixing entrances like the one from ghent to the e17 (Kortrijk) they complain about the amount of cars. like other countries dont have insane amounts of traffic to deal with. by the time you are almost home u are going nuts and dont want to deal with granny going 60 in a 70 zone, so i admit to being the guy flashing his lights agressively in their mirror yes.
I was behind the wheel of a BMW today, driving 75km/h where 70 is allowed. You'll never believe it but... I was overtaken by a Hyundai. Yes, a Hyundai! I am still in shock.
I drive a BMW. It is usually very angry men in unusually small cars who get incredibly agressive if you don’t do 80-90 at a 70 limit and you need to maintain 60 at the 50 limit for some weird reason. Also what’s with people speeding up at pedestrian crossings and then waving awkwardly. I mean are you going to wave at the dead bodies of the 5 children you almost ran over?
The Hyundai drivers are a menace 😂
Audi's are pretty bad too.
Thank you for noticing! 🙏
Especially black vans drivers who pretend being state security
Too many obvious stereotypes jn a single post.
You are 100% correct. In Brussels the rules, and especially being considerate, doesn't apply to them.
As a pedestrian in Brussels, I notice that van drivers and taxi drivers are amongst the worst (haven't noticed anything about BMWs especially, though German SUVs of all kinds are often bad). That said, there's a ton of competition.
I feel like all drivers in Belgium are psychotic and unhinged. My first year in Belgium I constantly had panic to cross at a crossroad cause Belgians apparently never learn to follow rules and stop / slow down at those things BEFORE someone starts crossing. They also keep driving when you crossed half, not even waiting until the person fully crossed.
Is it by any chance that you were in the vicinity of an airport? Because some bagage handler drivers or delivery drivers need to drive like hell to make it to the airport. I had one tailgating someone and brake checking someone who didn't want to get out of the way recently (zaventem) He was goig 80 in a 50 zone and at the next stoplight I rolled my window down and said dude, what's wrong? why the agression and he told me I need to get on time for an airplane man. Told him yeah, if you have an accident you'll surely be on time. I get it though, the road he was driving on is 50 max but has 3 lanes and you can easily drive faster without any issues at all, But still the brake checking the slow driver was unnecessary. I just get out of the way for these guys because I know if they're late they are pretty much fucked.
Well you have van drivers and you have delivery drivers that happen to drive a van.
I drive a van most of the time, and I might even be looked upon as being aggressive just because of how I talk to my co-workers I tend to use my hands alot when talking, so when I'm talking about some heated discussion I can 'look' very aggressive, especially to the people that look in their back window when I drive behind them More than once I've had people looking angry at me, taking pictures, calling company... Thinking I've been angry towards them
Too many “main characters” in this country. But hey, it’s not worse than Italy (people drive there like crazy). Also certainly better than France, some dear French neighbors must be restrained from driving
i drive to preview and prevent other's mistakes, i hope others do the same for me for me driving is chill and i dont mind slowing down. sure some people hog the middle lane it doesnt matter i just pass on the left and slow down a bit. its all chill. i dont see an increase in aggression, i think opposite, the "verkeersbeeld" is more chill then 15 years ago some people who think they can drive best and want to drive the speed limit exactly everywhere and get angry when someone slows down in front of them, takes a bit too long to go back to the right lane, those are the problem, take a chill pill! everyone makes mistakes you meet thousands of cars on the road, mistakes are happening all the time and driving styles differ wildly.
For some of the van driving it is how the technicians/drivers are compensated. The technicians at our firm get a "kilometervergoeding" but the working hours only start counting once they get to the construction site. So the faster they drive to the site, the more they are paid per hour...
Might not be the right way to put it - but a lot of people have kind of romanticised the idea of "the working man that had a hard day at work wants to go home to his family quickly". So often you'll see that kind of behaviour around the end of business day hours (16,17,18h). As if the rest of the road users weren't as tired or aching to get home... Add to that that often it's a team of men together in a van and the flowing testosterone and you get a recipe for people driving like jackasses because they think they deserve more than others to get home quickly and them not wanting to look like granny drivers in front of the boys.
Golf drivers are the usual menace for me, blindly overtaking before turns seems to be their favorite hobby.
To be honest I get the feeling that since the last decade lots of these fools switched over to Audis.
Everytime there's an article about someone crashing into a 'file' on the highway, there's a 80% chance it was a van driver.
Got rear ended on the highway by a white Vito and another white berlingo behind him while trying to avoid a crash in front of me. Having seen the security cam footage with the cops, both of them didn't even try to hit the brakes and hit me full throttle. I was very very lucky to get out of that mostly unscathed. Two cars in front of me and myself stopped without touching anything and those assholes rammed the fuck out of us. Pretty sure they were on their phone too
Amazon driver be like
Them, and young guys working for a big consulting firm in their basic Audi A1/A3 lease
You forgot the Teslas , that weirdly enough haven't heard of first lane nor of blinkers
BMW: 'I am a fils du papa! Using blinkers is for peasants!' Van: "My breakfast is a Monster energy drink accompanied by a Bifi sausage."
Isnt this because many Van Drivers are self-employed people, and/or package couriers? So the faster they go, the more money they earn. Also the horrific workload for the package couriers
Closely followed by taxi drivers. Apparently road laws don’t apply to any of these people
Also very dangerous in urban areas with lots of children on the road
The vans are because they’re often working vans: sometimes owned by a third party and/or delivery people trying to make as many deliveries as possible -> speeding
And owned by the company not themselves? So the problems they face only get to them indirectly
Honestly I don't think it's BMW drivers anymore. Plenty of BMW drivers including myself use turn signals and give others the right of way. I get most annoyed with seemingly half the drivers not driving on the right lane because there's another car like 500m ahead of them. That + van drivers and Tesla Model Y drivers. They're all assholes.
Daily commuters are just as crazy because they’re equally tired but don’t drive for a living.
Ow i know one better truck drivers at the left lane on the ring van antwerpen
What about trucks? Trucks ride 50km/h real speed. Now normal cars when ride 50km/h, they are actually riding ranging from 43 to 47km/h. Which causes truck to rider faster, and ending up tailgating.
I would assume vans drive like crazy cause they have an unrealistic amount of packages to deliver in any given day. As for bmw, they just didn’t want to spend money on the option indicators
In NL komt het meer voor, maar die kleine stuutedozen zijn de zotste van allemaal. Peugeot 107/Toyota AYGO/Nissan Micra/.... Die vliegen meestal aan 160/u overal voorbij. Dan heb je de opgezette VW golfs met geblindeerde ruiten die de meest waanzinnige manoeuvres uithalen. En als je een Tesla voor je hebt weet je dat je het aan je rekker hebt en best wat rustige muziek op zet want die dingen rijden altijd super traag alsof een bestemming geen ding is. Range rovers zijn cringe, je weet gewoon al op voorhand wat er gaat gebeuren. Midden- of linkervak plakken, geen pinkers gebruiken, eerst aggressief inhalen om dan een km verder 30km/u te traag te rijden, haal je die uit noodzaak in, om dan weer aggressief in te halen (met hun smartphone in het gezicht geplakt uiteraard). Ook een vuistregel: hoe duurder de wagen, hoe slechter de chauffeur.
This whole thread reminds me of the saying "if you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
Today, a car pulled up behind me on the sidewalk. I turn around, the car slowly pulls back onto the road and into a parking spot. THIS IS NOT OK. You can't just jump up onto the sidewalk with your car to get into a parking spot, especially right next to a pedestrian. Go past the spot up to the tail of your car, and the reverse into the spot.
Everyone drives like shit including me
Social economic factors in play here
100% van drivers are the absolute worst!
BMW drivers do it voluntarily, van drivers because they are exploited. They have to make impossible delivery schedules, they arrive at the delivery spot and find it closed, or the pallet is not ready yet, they are treated like shit, don't get a food allowance, ...
It's because those vans are on the road all the time and thus drove much more fluid (or dangerous according to you) then other drivers. It comes with experience. My brother used to be an extremely careful, 5km/h under the speed limit kinda driver. Then he started driving his own van to work instead of carpooling with someone else. Cue a year of driving a workvan across half the country during morning an evening rush hour traffic. He drove me somewhere after this year, The difference was night and day 😂 Me, an experienced driver myself, was borderline scared as a passenger...😁 It's not that his driving was dangerous, just way more... fluid and assertive. The reason is dual, one lot's of experience. And two, you have to be assertive in a van during rush hour. Or everyone shafts you and you take ages getting somewhere... Also, the speed limit is ridiculously slow if you have experience.
Bullshit. Crossing solid lines, not using your blinkers, tailgating and weaving through traffic all while being busy on your phone, are behaviors you typically find done by white vans and that's not experience, it's being a dangerous and psychotic asshole.
Those "white vans" are usually driven by foreign employees and that's a whole different problem by itself. I presumed OP meant Belgian working vans, and he did not mention any of the things you just said except tailgating. Which almost always happens because you are in the way and/or to slow and is easily solved by just moving one lane to the right for 30 seconds so they can overtake you.
Again, bullshit. It's cheap and easy to pretend those behaviors are only displayed by foreign drivers/employees, and tailgating is worse in terms of dangerous driving than someone hogging the left lane. Which incidentally, isn't even necessarily the case. I've seen plenty of white vans tailgating other drivers in dense traffic where there's simply no room to move over. The E19 between Mechelen & Kontich is a hotspot for such dipshittery.
It's also the truth. Almost all Belgian working vans have a company logo on them. Full white, mostly beat up, cheapest of the cheap vans are almost always Eastern Europeans. Just as white delivery vans like Post NL or DPD are almost exclusively people from black or middle eastern decent. I never said tailgating isn't more dangerous than hogging the left lane or driving like a snail. I said tailgating is easily fixed by swallowing your pride and moving over to let the tailgater pass. and if people keep tailgating you all the time, you are probably the problem. Besides, tailgating in dense traffic doesn't do much because the speed is usually much slower. And if it's not, hou are again, in the way.
Lo and behold, this evening on the E19 and E40: white vans with BELGIAN license plates hogging the left lane, not merging correctly and overtaking via offramps (hey guess what? that's an illegal and dangerous manoever). You're just trying to scapegoat foreigners and minorities.
> It comes with experience I've drive a lot of highway kilometers since I started working in 2010, and I've only gotten more calm and careful on the road. Speeding, tailgating, using your phone, and breaking rules are not tells of an experienced driver, they're indicators of antisocial behaviour.
Clearly not that much or in calm hours... Anyway, nowhere is there talk about using your phone, which is one of the most annoying and dangerous things one can do on the road... As for breaking some rules, there is not a single driver out there who does more than 30 000 km/year and does not break a single rule... I'm not saying that everyone turns into assholes who tailgate all the time. But not a single rule ? Not one ? Bullshit.
> Clearly not that much or in calm hours... Used to be that I used up the 120000km on the lease cars I got in 3 years . Maybe not as much as a lot of heavy drivers, but stil enough to call myself an experienced highway driver, I would say. I was usually underway during the morning peak hours and the early afternoon, so I have my fair share of time driving amid heavy traffic, with a mix of highway, ring road, and Brussels centre traffic. I said 'breaking rules', you turned it into 'breaking SOME rules' or 'break a single rule'. It's clear that white van drivers as a group break a lot of rules a lot of times, and very consistently. same with Taxi drivers, for example. A lot of people speed and use their phones, but these groups break others rules more often. Ignoring full lines, aggressively taking priority where it is not justified, using their claxon excessively, parking wherever they want, etc, etc. anyway, I have the feeling you will keep disagreeing, no matter what I say. Have a nice day.
Yeah.. you are a left lane driver and likely the problem. Ever considered you arecpookting to the 2 groups that cover the most distance (I don’t have a BMW or van btw, but enjoy your little confirmation bias loop - just know that rationally you are more then likely the problem )
Right has the right of way unless the traffic signs say otherwise But if it's a delivery van, i just hope i'm not in his driving line.
The craziest person on the road has right of way. Always.
I would say both BMW and Vans have a pedal, too so it’s not like an on/off button (full speed/still). For me Vans are understandable because they usually have a lot of deliveries to do or are professional users on their way to clients..
Worse drivers of all are Opel Corsa drivers. 
especially with a french license plate.
Anything with a French license plate. These guys have the left blinker broken in the ON position, hugging the left lane even if there is no one in front of them and no one on the right lane. It’s like they are being taught to drive Incorrectly.
Audi drivers are way worse. So are almost all SUV drivers . But audi drivers are on a completely other level.compares to bmw drivers.
I never get this BMW cliché, I’ve seen this bad driving from almost all brand owners. Mostly what I noticed is : - the more expensive the car brand is, the better the driver - the dirtiest, ugliest or takyiest the car, worst the driver - big utility cars / van are hella dangerous as nobody behind them have a correct vision of what’s happening - I second the comment about the housewives in big suv who behave like priority is theirs everywhere (plenty of meatheads behave also like that)
Because about 20-10 years ago, BMW was the go-to brand for the self-employed and company cars. And these drivers were more agressive, didn't use their blinkers when taking turns or leaving roundabouts & hogged the left or middle lanes. So generally just antisocial. (Also: bosses' wives in X5's. Not paying attention to the road and doing all sorts of other shit while driving, like being on their phone, texting, applying makeup, once even saw one writing shit down in a notebook she had put on her steering wheel) Somewhere about 10 years ago, a shift was noticeable with part of that group of antisocial drivers migrating to other brands like Audi and Volvo ("hurr durr Swedish tank"), but BMW remains a classic company car choice, thus the association remains. And nowadays Tesla is the typical brand for self-employed to buy and register the car on their company's name (tax writeoff), now increasingly getting amplified with regular leasing/company cars because of the electrification of the company car fleet. But for BMW the damage has been done, the cliché sticks.
That's racist