Tropes you see on the road

[warch]

1 minute ago, Steviemillar said:

Most of the Divorced Bikers seem to have the grey/white pony tail with balding head spec

I usually picture them as looking like Shaun (Barry from Eastenders) Williamson who has absolutely nailed the laddishly cheerful desperation of the middle aged divorcee (see his appearance in Plebs). But I agree about the other, my mates dad had a 'mid'life crisis in his 70s and ran off with a female friend of the family, he opted to stay relevant by growing a straggly grey ponytail out of his remaining hair.

[5speedracer]

18 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

I wondered where all these trucks with a slightly weird name suddenly came from!  
Are ‘Willi Betz’ and ‘Norbert Dentressangle’ trucks still about? Great names from my days of frequent motorway commuting in the 90s-00s. 

Willi Betz still exist but are being squeezed by the Romanians, Lithuanians and Turks who will do International Spedition cheaper. Norbert Dentressangle sold out to the yanks, XPO Logistics, in 2015.

[warch]

4 minutes ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

It’s easier to just write yourself into a trope to save the embarrassment.  Trust me.

Aah good idea. Here goes...

Orange* Qashqai driver. Male, mid-40s. All the women want him, all the men want to be him. 

That ought to cover it. 

*The car is orange not me, I'm not Donald Trump.

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, warch said:

These are brilliant, so well observed, I've even recognised myself about three times, especially the 'Failure in their 30s one'.

'The divorcee biker' Male, middle aged, gone to seed. Not often actually seen out on the roads because they're too busy fettling or sorting out the paperwork for the literally 30 or 40 bikes they've managed to cram into their small semi since the missus upped and left. Most likely encountered riding too and from an MoT on a 70s Universal Japanese Motorcycle. Most likely encountered (by shocked friends) sitting on a dilapidated brown leatherette sofa possibly wearing only their pants and a vest eating a Pot Noodle or something out of a tin whilst watching daytime telly over a forest of bikes crammed into their lounge. Prone to repeating his mantra of; 'best thing I ever did getting shot of the old ball and chain'.  The bike/single man theme extends to the rest of the house which is festooned with posters of nude women/bikes, bike and actual porn and furnishings which haven't been changed since the divorce. May own a 4 wheeled vehicle, usually an old van, which doubles as additional storage for more bikes.  

 

This reminds me of a blokes house I once went to to pick up a lawnmower, his wife had presumably fucked off, the entire house was full of lawnmowers, behind the sofa he’d got about four ATCO mowers in various states of disassembly. Oil all over the carpet. Either she’d left him or she was going to leave him the moment she arrived back. 

[egg]

'R50 Mini owners' (I'm sorry...really)

Typically an enthusiast in their 40's who uses it as their weekend car for 'adventures'. Runs a Mini group on Facebook like the Stasi. Insist that the BINI is a continuation on the original, 'it's just the same idea, brought up to date',  'Rover were involved more than people think',  eats M&S sandwiches when on their lunchbreak from their £40k a year white collar job in NHS management. Often seen with a lanyard.  Picture of mini as their desktop wallpaper.  Big fan of Bini meets at Gastro pubs that were formerly spit and sawdust places 'it's great they kept the car-park'.  Aren't they unreliable?  'No you just need to be pro-active about maintenance, and you can get classic insurance now that helps'. Dreams of owning a Y-reg.

[quicksilver]

18 hours ago, grogee said:

Builder's flatbed

Transit or similar flatbed. In the frame of the flatbed there is a broom poking out. All manner of 'site' equipment in the back that may or may not be lashed down. Grubby tea-towel flapping in the breeze off some lengths of 2x4.

The reversing lights come on when they brake and the indicators don't work. It hasn't had a legit MoT since 2015.

Three blokes in the front, apprentice 16yo dropout gets the crap seat in the middle. 

Pumps out clag as they desperately try to keep up with outside lane traffic. 

'HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE' sticker on the back, waiving any obligations to the highway code. 

Copy of the Sun, filthy screwed-up hi-viz, spirit level, empty energy drink cans, fast food wrappers and other detritus a permanent feature on the dashboard.

[rusty_vw_man]

The bin man

Drives a council bin lorry. Life is not the same since he can’t smoke in the cab, but he can vape, no one’s going to stop him doing that. Unlike the lads doing the actual bin moving, he won’t get out the cab until it’s time to go home. As such, he might be just a touch ‘big boned’.

As it’s job and knock, bins must be collected at the fastest speed possible, so taking corners should be done to get a 45 degree lean. He must accelerate aggressively slightly before his crew are actually all back in the cab.

As he is an essential worker and COVID hero he has an inflated sense of his own importance, and feels that he has absolute right of way at all times, even if that does mean everyone has to wait, or poor little old Ethel has to reverse for the first time in her 40 year driving career. 

It’s quite a dull job, but he manages to keep awake by a mix of cheap energy drinks, and watching dubious things on his phone whilst slowly creeping down the street waiting for the lads to finish. 

[LoftyvRS]

Early 50's Ford Focus ST Owners

This savvy collection of middle aged fellas all had perfectly good fast Fords "back in the day" and are continually resentful of them being sold back when their kids were small for almost pocket change.

Now in the bracket of a little bit of disposable income they try and relive their youth by buying Focus 2.5 ST's in various flavours and colours. These individuals all seem to dress the same, M-Sport monogrammed soft shell jacket, Tesco £7.50 jeans and Sports Directs finest Lonsdale trainers. Coupled with short cropped but spiky grey hair, they adorn their cars with as many "motorsport" items as possible, with compulsory items such as wind deflecctors, Sparco rally mudflaps, monster stickers and of course hand painted red calipers.

Seen attending many a local cars and coffee meet with their chubby resentful other half, equally adorned in M-Sport regalia, they will be heard before they are seen, drainpipe exhaust bellowing in the distance and popping and banging - cus rallycar init?

Stories will be told about the cars they should not have sold, wistful glances given to Sierra RS Cosworths and then grumbling about the price of a cup of brown mud from the Baristas on site.

Said Focus driver will drive home like he has a wasp in his trousers, park the Halfords special up on the drive and then commute all week in the daily, probably a 10yr old KIA SUV, the reliable choice as all the disposable money will go on more mods for "the toy"

[GrumpiusMaximus]

32 minutes ago, rusty_vw_man said:

The bin man

Drives a council bin lorry. Life is not the same since he can’t smoke in the cab, but he can vape, no one’s going to stop him doing that. Unlike the lads doing the actual bin moving, he won’t get out the cab until it’s time to go home. As such, he might be just a touch ‘big boned’.

As it’s job and knock, bins must be collected at the fastest speed possible, so taking corners should be done to get a 45 degree lean. He must accelerate aggressively slightly before his crew are actually all back in the cab.

As he is an essential worker and COVID hero he has an inflated sense of his own importance, and feels that he has absolute right of way at all times, even if that does mean everyone has to wait, or poor little old Ethel has to reverse for the first time in her 40 year driving career. 

It’s quite a dull job, but he manages to keep awake by a mix of cheap energy drinks, and watching dubious things on his phone whilst slowly creeping down the street waiting for the lads to finish. 

@dozeydustman can you confirm or deny?

[GrumpiusMaximus]

29 minutes ago, LoftyvRS said:

Early 50's Ford Focus ST Owners

This savvy collection of middle aged fellas all had perfectly good fast Fords "back in the day" and are continually resentful of them being sold back when their kids were small for almost pocket change.

Now in the bracket of a little bit of disposable income they try and relive their youth by buying Focus 2.5 ST's in various flavours and colours. These individuals all seem to dress the same, M-Sport monogrammed soft shell jacket, Tesco £7.50 jeans and Sports Directs finest Lonsdale trainers. Coupled with short cropped but spiky grey hair, they adorn their cars with as many "motorsport" items as possible, with compulsory items such as wind deflecctors, Sparco rally mudflaps, monster stickers and of course hand painted red calipers.

Seen attending many a local cars and coffee meet with their chubby resentful other half, equally adorned in M-Sport regalia, they will be heard before they are seen, drainpipe exhaust bellowing in the distance and popping and banging - cus rallycar init?

Stories will be told about the cars they should not have sold, wistful glances given to Sierra RS Cosworths and then grumbling about the price of a cup of brown mud from the Baristas on site.

Said Focus driver will drive home like he has a wasp in his trousers, park the Halfords special up on the drive and then commute all week in the daily, probably a 10yr old KIA SUV, the reliable choice as all the disposable money will go on more mods for "the toy"

@stuboy Can you please confirm?

[Twiggy]

A brilliant thread ! Thank you for posting. 

[quicksilver]

The school minibus. Transit or Peugeot Boxer driven by a stressed-out teacher who doesn't like leaving the security of the classroom, isn't comfortable with driving anything bigger than his/her car and can't cope with the responsibility of delivering 16 little darlings to their destination without incident. The kids' mood will vary depending where they're going: they'll either be hyperactive and out of control with excitement if it's somewhere fun, or miserable and taking out their frustration on the teacher for making them go somewhere they don't want to. Either way, they're making it far more difficult for the hapless teacher to concentrate on the road and his/her blood pressure is rising with every mile.

Sometimes seen in convoy piloted by several such teachers with the added stress of keeping up with the one in front.

[GeordieInExile]

'Failure in their 30s' describes me terrifyingly well. Or did when I was driving around in shonky old quick Volvo estates. Now I'm in a really quite nice C6 and I feel like I've moved up in the world.

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, LoftyvRS said:

Early 50's Ford Focus ST Owners

This savvy collection of middle aged fellas all had perfectly good fast Fords "back in the day" and are continually resentful of them being sold back when their kids were small for almost pocket change.

Now in the bracket of a little bit of disposable income they try and relive their youth by buying Focus 2.5 ST's in various flavours and colours. These individuals all seem to dress the same, M-Sport monogrammed soft shell jacket, Tesco £7.50 jeans and Sports Directs finest Lonsdale trainers. Coupled with short cropped but spiky grey hair, they adorn their cars with as many "motorsport" items as possible, with compulsory items such as wind deflecctors, Sparco rally mudflaps, monster stickers and of course hand painted red calipers.

Seen attending many a local cars and coffee meet with their chubby resentful other half, equally adorned in M-Sport regalia, they will be heard before they are seen, drainpipe exhaust bellowing in the distance and popping and banging - cus rallycar init?

Stories will be told about the cars they should not have sold, wistful glances given to Sierra RS Cosworths and then grumbling about the price of a cup of brown mud from the Baristas on site.

Said Focus driver will drive home like he has a wasp in his trousers, park the Halfords special up on the drive and then commute all week in the daily, probably a 10yr old KIA SUV, the reliable choice as all the disposable money will go on more mods for "the toy"

Thing is these people are compulsive bullshitters, they’ve this nervous affliction that kicks in specifically where there’s fields with cars in with oval blue badges. Upon contact they are unable to resist feeling as if they need to come up with some bullshit about the 1.8 LX Sapphire  RS Cosseh that they had.

[warch]

38 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

The school minibus. Transit or Peugeot Boxer driven by a stressed-out teacher who doesn't like leaving the security of the classroom, isn't comfortable with driving anything bigger than his/her car and can't cope with the responsibility of delivering 16 little darlings to their destination without incident. The kids' mood will vary depending where they're going: they'll either be hyperactive and out of control with excitement if it's somewhere fun, or miserable and taking out their frustration on the teacher for making them go somewhere they don't want to. Either way, they're making it far more difficult for the hapless teacher to concentrate on the road and his/her blood pressure is rising with every mile.

Sometimes seen in convoy piloted by several such teachers with the added stress of keeping up with the one in front.

I’ve mentioned this before, but our old school bus (c. 1990) was an old Sherpa/Freightrover. There were no seat belts or headrests and the last pupil who got in had to hold the back doors shut with a length of string. 
 

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

2 hours ago, rusty_vw_man said:

The bin man

Drives a council bin lorry. Life is not the same since he can’t smoke in the cab, but he can vape, no one’s going to stop him doing that. Unlike the lads doing the actual bin moving, he won’t get out the cab until it’s time to go home. As such, he might be just a touch ‘big boned’.

As it’s job and knock, bins must be collected at the fastest speed possible, so taking corners should be done to get a 45 degree lean. He must accelerate aggressively slightly before his crew are actually all back in the cab.

As he is an essential worker and COVID hero he has an inflated sense of his own importance, and feels that he has absolute right of way at all times, even if that does mean everyone has to wait, or poor little old Ethel has to reverse for the first time in her 40 year driving career. 

It’s quite a dull job, but he manages to keep awake by a mix of cheap energy drinks, and watching dubious things on his phone whilst slowly creeping down the street waiting for the lads to finish. 

My bin man drives a 2015 SLK to and from work (honest) so I can forgive him all of the above.

[MiniMinorMk3]

Arm Chair Enthusiast.

Can be any age or gender. Mostly seen at car shows telling anyone who will listen that the screws on the air filter of that MG are wrong and that they never made a 2-Door 1600E. Owns a non-running classic that is in a council lock up that will never see the light of day before they are six feet under and the family brush the rust into a skip to get rid of it.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

1 hour ago, GeordieInExile said:

'Failure in their 30s' describes me terrifyingly well. Or did when I was driving around in shonky old quick Volvo estates. Now I'm in a really quite nice C6 and I feel like I've moved up in the world.

My Golf says 'Hi!':

[GrumpiusMaximus]

1 hour ago, quicksilver said:

The school minibus. Transit or Peugeot Boxer driven by a stressed-out teacher...

Needs to be an older teacher with a pre-1997 Grandfathered Minibus licence.  But yes.  I've been in this minibus.  Going down a massive hill, the driver (my manager at the time) terrified me with:

'Oh, feels like the brakes are fading a bit...'

[dozeydustman]

1 hour ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

@dozeydustman can you confirm or deny?

It varies from crew to crew. So I will sit on the fence.

[egg]

21 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

'Failure in their 30s'.

My 30's cars were Corsa B, Astra G, Astra G (didn't learn the 1st time), Ford Fusion.  Smell the misery.

[MiniMinorMk3]

Tanning Shop Manager

Fading beauty who drives a white Range Rover Evoke Convertible with tan leather seats that matches their skin. Bumps up the curb and parks outside the shop every day as they feel they are entitled to because of the service they give to all the other fading beauties in the neighbour. 

Tanning shop receptionist

Drives a Pink Fiat 500 or R56 Mini with those headlamp eyelashes. Does the same as the manger in the morning to unlock the shop, but then has to park in the local car park before the manager arrives.

[dozeydustman]

On 10/4/2023 at 3:08 PM, sierraman said:

Always sounds really adenoidal. 

Or like John Major

[LoftyvRS]

Just now, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Drives a Pink Fiat 500 or R56 Mini with those headlamp eyelashes. Does the same as the manger in the morning to unlock the shop, but then has to park in the local car park before the manager arrives.

Everything they "own" will be on some sort of finance package, especially the car, mobile phone and various pay day loans for the expensive handbags.

Usually accompanied by some ratty little yappy trophy dog, that is permanently shivering despite the expensive coat they bought off QVC - on the tick natch.

[timolloyd]

Pound shop Sultan of Brunei.

A ‘fleet’ of approx 50 vehicles of which only 1-2 are used regularly. The remainder are in various states of disrepair because they’re on the list to be ‘looked at’ by long suffering local mechanics and enthusiasts.

Frequently found telling people ‘I’ve got one of those’ except in reality they only have 0.75 of one. 

[dozeydustman]

22 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

Failure in their 30s'.

Drives an old car that was once considered a decent model but is now towards the end of its life, diesel, covered in dents from a previous owner and rarely washed.  Bonus points for slightly obscure, quick-ish estates.

This could be me.

22 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

Likes cars but can't afford anything newer and secretly harbours ambitions of owning a modern as they sat in one once and quite liked it.  Usually have had several jobs and have finally settled into a career that is inexplicably dull to everybody around them.

Then you said this. Don't want anything modern, and have only ever had 2 full time jobs, 1 if you include the same job at 2 places 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

That's because you're a massive success due to an outstanding Secondary Education, obviously.

[dozeydustman]

Just now, GrumpiusMaximus said:

That's because you're a massive success due to an outstanding Secondary Education, obviously.

Nothing to do with being born in Erith and living in G-town most my adult life?

[GrumpiusMaximus]

2 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

Nothing to do with being born in Erith and living in G-town most my adult life?

It's all to do with you living in G-Town.  You have my condolences on Erith.

[EyesWeldedShut]

55 minutes ago, egg said:

My 30's cars were Corsa B, Astra G, Astra G (didn't learn the 1st time), Ford Fusion.  Smell the misery.

C15 van, Montego 1600 estate, BX Diesel, 1983 Range Rover, Volvo 340, M plate Mondeo, 1989 Range Rover plus a 1967 Ser2a Land Rover for 6 years.
Misery, joy, misery, joy - take your pick.