PIDU – Performance Cars

[PIDU = People I Don’t Understand]

There are many, many types of people I don’t understand – or at least whose thought processes are beyond me. That’s the theme of the PIDU posts (as mentioned here, although I’ll probably repeat this a few times) and may also become a bit of a throwback to the rants of yore.

In this case, I don’t understand people who buy performance cars, and whose driving abilities can’t match the car at all.

I’m not even talking about high-end performance vehicles like Ferraris and the like.  No, this is even down to the level of a standard (for example) VW Golf GTI.   Anything that’s at the higher-end of performance than the standard models of cars.

As an aside, I also don’t really get why anyone in the UK would bother buying any of the seriously high-end performance cars, when our top legal speed can be attained by them in second or third gear.  But that’s a thought for a different time.

A lot of the drives I do are on country roads – still decent-enough roads, which I can easily (as well as legally and safely) cover at 55-60mph with no problems. But they’re narrow enough, and bendy enough, that if you’re stuck behind someone, you’re stuck behind them for the duration.

I regularly end up behind other drivers, usually in cars with a much better performance than my shitty Kia – yet we’re going at 40mph instead, and they’re still braking at every sodding corner, and panicking when another car comes towards them.

Last night was a perfect example – I spent the drive following a beautiful Lotus Evora 400 (one of my current favourite cars) that did the entire thing not going above 50mph, and usually slower than that.   It was a total waste of a brilliant little car, and I almost wanted to stop them, and suggest we swapped vehicles.

I just don’t get it, why someone/anyone would pay out a load more on a sporty/performance car – and on the commensurate higher-rated insurance and so on – when they’re just going to drive it slowly and badly. It seems to be a case of either “More money than sense” or just believing they’re better at driving than they actually are.