Ignorant human beings

[Tree Man Tom]

it is shocking at the quality of driving with some people, not to beat down a stereotype, but i find executives in their german 2 Ltr saloons seem to care more about themselves and keeping their speed over 85 on the motorway, than being a bit polite and letting you out into the lane they are in.

 

If you look at people who drive for a living, the standard is truly shocking, ive nearly been sideswiped by a wagon on the motorway because he decided he wanted to stay on the motorway as he was going up the slip road and nearly caused a pile up.

 

Taxi drivers, when they have no passengers, can be ABISMAL.

 

From driving tractors the past couple of years now, mainly fairly long journeys, been up to lancaster, to manchester a few times and down to crewe. People do completely daft overtaking and it seems to bring out the worst in people. i was driving on a B road and there was nowhere suitable to stop for a good 25 minutes, when i did finally find a layby, out of about 40 cars, i think 2 or 3 waved thanks, the rest just seemed irate and one wagon driver clapped sarcastically at me.

 

but what can we do? theres not enough traffic police to catch the real numpties until they are caught out and the good people get caught up in it!

 

Bit of a sweeping statment mate, my second job is driving all over england and wales delevering. I consider myself to be a safe driver, but as i spend alot of time on the roads i do see alot of numpties about. I just have a chuckle to myself, helps to keep me sain on the long trips lol

[Treewolf]

I had an 'interesting' moment a month or two back. Not far from here there is a major single-carriageway A road which runs through a series of sweeping bends that are not particularly sharp (50mph sort of thing) but which greatly restrict visibility due to high hedgerows. Throughout this stretch (perhaps 1 mile) there are double solid white lines up the middle and single solids up the sides to prohibit overtaking and stopping, both very sensible.

 

One Sunday evening towards dusk I am heading along this is the Defender, fully laden, at about 50, no traffic about, lovely. As I round one of the bends, all that changes! There is an ambulance coming fast towards me on my side, across the doubles, because a car coming towards me has STOPPED completely in the oncoming lane presumably to let it past. Some serious braking by both of us and nothing untoward happened fortunately, but it did make me think how little some people think about what they are actually doing behind the wheel.

 

1) it is illegal to stop on a road with solid white lines, unless you are in a stationary queue of traffic.

 

2) it is illegal for anyone to cross a solid white line on a road, even emergency drivers are not allowed to, unless it is to turn off the road and no break in the line is provided, or to cross back to you own lane when there is a broken centre line on your side and a solid on the other. Even police pursuit drivers are not allowed to cross solid lines (an apparently drivers like the one I encountered are a major problem to them).

 

The oncoming driver should have kept going (even speeded up) until the ambo driver could overtake safely and legally, instead of putting several lives (and the ambo driver's job) at risk by forcing him to act illegally.

 

I do agree with the earlier posters that there is a lot of chronically bad driving about now. I think that the reliance on technology to enforce motoring laws has a lot to do with it (speed cameras are the root of this since they cannot do anything to prevent bad driving). There is also the widespread view that everyone has a 'right' to drive rather than it being a privilege, and the test regime is not really right. If there was some way to test that someone had a sense of responsibility before letting them drive, we would be better off. Cars now also engender a feeling of safety and security that encourages risk taking - there is a lot to be said for the theory that the biggest single step that could be taken to improve driving standards would be to remove the driver's side airbag and seat belt and fit a sharp metal spike in the middle of the wheel, then drivers would drive with care.

 

Nowadays I tend to take the mellow approach. Assume that everyone on the road actually wants to kill you, and sit back and watch them all give themselves stress related illnesses.

 

Avoid unnecessary stress and confrontation. Life is too short and precious to make it more diffficult than it already is.

[arbogrunt]

I agree, there are a lot of selfish, rude people about. However, they are in the minority, most people are ok. Some area's seem to be worse than others (and not always in urban locations either!). I find the older I get the less tolerent I'm becoming of these people...I just smile and keep my distance and avoid talking to them if I can, but, one of these days I'll just chin one.

[Ty Korrigan]

Ah so true, France does just what it says on the tin:001_tt2:

 

And yet... Paris is not representitive of France just as London is not when compared with say Shropshire...

[APC]

Someone mentioned about tractor driving and being on the receieving end of chumps looking daggers at them. I regularly do a 30mile drive in a tractor with a max speed of about 25mph, out of a housing estate and then along winding backroads. I've never had a driver give me the finger or look angry at me. It's weird, it's as though I'm missing out.

 

/me sticking up for other road users stops now.