Safe Speed Forums

The most common "near misses" I encounter travelling to and from work seem to be people pulling out without checking their mirrors or signalling before manoeuvring.

These are the basic principles we are taught when taking our test but seem to be the first ones forgotten.

Discuss.

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Prepare to be Judged

I do see more than enough such near misses of this type to believe they're something of a problem, including the most recent one where the nearness of the miss was scarily close for comfort - just joined the M40 when the muppet in front of me decides they want to be in L2 right now, despite there being an Oxford Tube double-decker already passing me... quite impressed by the braking ability of the coach and the reaction speed of its driver, totally unimpressed by the inability of muppet to spot a huge red-painted coach just a few yards behind and to the right of them before they changed lanes

However, in my experience, the biggest problem (at least on D/Cs and motorways, where I do most of my driving) is impatient/selfish/arrogant drivers believing they have some sort of divine right to stick their vehicle onto any part of the road surface at any time, regardless of whether there might be another road user attempting to use/actually in the process of using that part of the road. In other words, those drivers who know full well there's another vehicle alongside them/just behind them but choose to pull out/cut in anyway. Forcing another road user to take evasive action because you hadn't bothered to see if they were there first is bad enough, but forcing evasive action from someone when you DO know they're there, and when you DO know what the consequences of your maneouvre will be, is totally unacceptable.


Signalling... what I find particularly frustrating is when someone starts a maneouvre and then starts indicating - it's as if they're remembering some vague notion about signalling their maneouvres, but haven't quite grasped the concept of indicating intent rather than action.


With regards to near misses/crap driving in general though, has anyone else noticed an obvious increase over the last few weeks? Up till this month, the examples of bad driving I'd see each day on my drive to/from work could always be counted on the fingers of one hand. In the last few weeks though, I seem to be running out of fingers with at least half the journey still to go...

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Chris

could it be due to the large amount of immigrant drivers all driving to their own country's low standards maybe?

on the other hand they may now be making cars similar to HGV's, ie. the indicators only start working on turning the steering wheel!

Well done about the comment about HGV,s indicators that only work when you turn the wheel !

As a HGV driver for over 35 years can you tell me which ones are fitted with this style of indicator as it would definitely save me having to use the bloody stalk on the column to let people like you know where I am going at junctions etc. or to let other drivers know I am turning left or right, or are you one of these prats that points the car in the direction you want to go and take the view that every other driver is a mind reader or has a degree in telepathy such as the prats at roundabouts or junctions who then turn without indicating?

Obviously you used to be vain but are no longer as you are now bloody perfect!

To err is human

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"There But For The Grace of God Go I"

"He Who Ain,t Made Mistakes Ain,t Made Anything"

Spannernut

Yes, funny old thing, by the time they indicate you could probably have a pretty good guess that they're changing lanes or whatever, as they are bloody halfway over!

about 90% I would imagine from what I observe on my travels, and yes cars are just as bad

I think driving standards generally are at an all time low recently

I think it's the old "I'm al right Jack" attitude that has crept into society to be honest reciprocating itself on the roads

I'll post this again in here as it got lost in the middle of another huge thread. I think it's relevant to the discussion.

Link to video

It's only 800kb so won't take ages to download.

Mike.

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www.misspelled-signs.com - A tribute to illiterate signwriters.