Cranky Trucker wrote:
As the joining vehicle its is your resposibilty to check the traffic and adjust your speed to allow you to adjust your speed to safely join. If that means you slow down to join behind a vehicle whether it be a car or truck that is what you are supposed to do. Not pull in front of the vehicle forcing it to take action to avoid hitting you.
I hope I can give you a better way of looking at this. It doesn't matter how wrong or right the other driver is. It doesn't matter how many times you ask for better behaviour. When you're driving you're ALWAYS going to come across folk doing it wrong. Saying (or thinking) 'he shouldn't be doing that' won't stop it happening or lessen your risk.
But you CAN lessen your risk if you make it your responsibility to be prepared to deal with idiots. Of course we all do it in practice to greater or lesser extents.
I'm suggesting that dealing with idiots should be a matter of personal skill, responsibility and ultimately pride. And never anything to get worked up about.
I view other road users as 'hazards to be negotiated', in much the same way as a bend is a hazard to be negotiated. You can't trust other road users to get out of your way, and when they are in your way it isn't personal.
Cranky Trucker wrote:
... 1 in 3 of us are gonna get killed whilst at work, We stand a 1/250 chance of being killed in a traffic accident compared to an average car driver who stands a 1/8000.
Those figures are odd. You might want to check the source.
With 450,000 HGV drivers in 40 year careers and about 120 HGV drivers a year dying on our roads the lifetime risk facing an HGV driver is about 1 in 100. With 32,000,000 licenced car drivers and about 1,500 dying in each year and a driving lifetime of 60 years, the risk affecting a car driver is about 1 in 350.
But take heart - those are the risks affecting an average person. To a large extent it is the worst drivers who tend to get it. The working estimate is that 60% of the crashes are caused by 10% of the drivers - and 80% of crashes are caused by 20% of the drivers.