Road rage.....

[cookiescrumble]

On my first ever motorway journey, I was cruising along in the middle lane and got undertook by some d**khead in a massive range rover who must of been doing at least 90.

About 10 miles later, saw the same range rover parked up in the hard shoulder with a police car parked up behind it  .

Cookies,

Please don't take this the wrong way, but why were you 'cruising along in the middle lane'. If you'd been in the inside lane then the Range Rover driver wouldn't have had to undertake you!!!!! I know he was speeding and that is probably the reason why he was pulled, not for undertaking.

CLOD's or Centre Lane Only Drivers are the only people who really do p155 me off big style. I always pull over to the inside lane whenever I can, and I do 'cruise' along at about 80 useing my cruise control, and the amount of times I have to cross from the inside lane to the 2nd overtaking lane and back to the inside lane is ridiculous.

TGhe Police should be pulling these people over and doing them for 'driving without due car and attention', but the lack of Traffic Plod and the reliance on cameras is one of the reasons these idiots get away with it.

Right I'll get of my high horse now. 

Regards

Neal.

P.S. I'm like Newportbobby and travel many many miles in a year, but as a Field Service Engineer.

I was there, as the overhead sign posts told me I needed to be in that lane, to get to the place I wanted to get to  . I don't hog the middle lane just for the fun of it, as I understand the nuisance it can cause....

Sorry for my post causing offence. Even as it was my first motorway journey on my own (well, with 3 mates in the car), I took what my instructor told me on board  .

[Mustermark]

I did further lessons after i passed to learn the Motorway too, and i encouraged my kids to do the same.

When i lived in Leicestershire in the 90 s the Police had a big thing about drivers pootling in the middle lane.  They were on TV and all telling people they would get pulled over.  It was funny to see them leaving 80-odd mph speeders alone and waiting for the middle lane hoggers. IMO it was quite right because 50mph in the middle lane is a major hazard.

But if we're talking about bad driving... Here in North Carolina the majority of drivers (male and female) are on the phone (it's not actually illegal yet - but since they are only driving and have 'nothing better to do' they call their mom), they dont indicate, they only use their mirror to see if their hair is looking good and they only use the windows to see if it's raining. I am amazed there arent more accidents.  It's not surprising though when you know how simple the test is, i dont think that a 16yo has to learn any more than to make the car go forwards, backwards and stop, and what the road signs mean.  The test takes about 10 minutes and 5 of that is getting to a nice quite car park to do the manoevers! Having done an advanced driving course, i am now putting all those "defensive" skills into practice constantly on the road here.

I'm sure it's not as bad as what i hear about Italy though. And the 4-way stop wouldnt work in the UK!

[EtchedPixels]

What i don't understand is why someone can take driving lessons and pass their test without once going on a motorway and then drive on the fastest stretches of road in the country without any experience........

Because no politician dares to fight the road lobby. If they did then the thousands of deaths a year would lead to evidence based policy making.  Mowing someone down carelessly being an offence with years in jail, speeding getting you a proper sized fine, 20mph zones would be come standard, cars would get speed limiters and so on.

It's really sad how scared they are. Our local council took over traffic wardens and did it's best to minimise their impact because they got lobbied by shops "it'll ruin our business" and the like. Now they are being lobbied by locals to set the wardens loose, in volume down all the permanently blocked up residential roads. Half the reason the roads by the shops are blocked is that the shop workers all park outside the shops too.

Grrr



Another stupidity is that you can get a driving license, not drive since your test for many years, then get into a car and drive. Legally I can do that. I've not driven (for medical reasons) for 20 years. Now I'm passed as fit to drive I can just walk down the road, buy a car, and go on the motorway. Likewise you can drive a mini for thirty years, get to 50, have the required crisis and drive a Ferrari with no training !

On the other hand - in most other equivalent situations I'd be obliged to show a continuous experience, vehicle familiarity and basic route knowledge.

Alan

[Fratton]

Best roadrage i have ever experianced hapened on the way to work once, we were just outside sandown racecourse and the woman driving our minibus realised she was in the wrong lane so indicated and started manouvering to the left, she couldnt see at the time the taxi driver going far to fast planning on doing the same manouver with no idication and undertaking her in the process,

the taxi driver slammed on the anchors and hit the curb edge coming to a stop just behind us and not making contact with our vehicle, the driver immediately jumped out his car and stormed up to the drivers door of our minibus and started punching the window and shouting expletives at her to get out of the van,,,

this was the not very wise move,,,

in his fit of rage he didnt even seem to notice that I and my 8 colleagues all experianced doorman had got out of the van and had taken possition eitherside of him,,,,

the deflation of the look on his face was so priceless i nearly laughed at the time, i have never seen someone go from complete utter rage to slightly wetting themself to then offering to pay for any damage done to our vehicle without infact hitting it,,,

due to police presence for the event we were working at police quickly noticed the traffic incident and a police bike arrived and once told what happened the driver was gone over with a fine tooth comb and we were free to go,,

the biggest road rage often come from the smallest minds

[Lawrence]

My instructor took me on to the A1 from Northallerton to Darlington, scared the holy wotsit out of me but a great part of the learning process

[jonclox]

Well I was driving or about to drive back when the motorways started up. 1st time I encounted them was going on a short holiday with my father driving up to the lake district.
2 lengths...Preston and Lancaster byepasses designated M6 made travelling easier. Father insisted sticking to the centre lane with foot flat on the floor (about 95 MPH)ball the way up both stretches of road. Now that wasn`t to bad but we had a 15foot single and a16 foot long double kayak strapped on a cheapy roofrack on the top.
By the time we got off the M way I was we***ng myself every time a gust of wind hit us.
My 1st driving on a motorway was without any instruction,rough idea of where it would take us and pure luck so I learned the hardway what Mways were all about 

[Newportnobby]

I always thought the middle lane was for overtaking anyway. The outside lane for the suicide drivers.

And you are right......until you get an artic doing 56½mph overtaking one in the slow lane doing 56mph, or come across a pillock tootling along in the middle lane (I will not undertake, don't trust em to stay put). I too am fed up with going from lane 1 to 3 and back again to 1
There just seem to be some drivers who think the outside lane is just for them too, and then there are those who just love to jink in and out of all lanes - grrr

[hairygit]

Unfortunately you can blame the E.U for trucks being restricted to 56mph (80kph) on motorways, and some companies (Tesco) restrict their trucks to 52mph , and some are even locked down to 50mph in a pathetic effort to save a few pence worth of fuel , so the guys who can do 56 will try and get past the slower trucks, as their tachographs (More E.U. crap ) eats up their working day. Life on the road for truckers and coach drivers is a nightmare these days, and selfish car drivers who recklessly overtake, then cut in front and brake hard as they're coming off at the slip road really hack us off As Jeremy Clarkson said, 3,000 people a year die or are seriously injured on British roads every year, HOW is it so FEW?

[edwin_m]

Don't bring Clarkson into this please, just thinking about him is enough to introduce road rage in the likes of me! 

And if that's what he said, he's as wrong as he usually is.  Latest statistic is 1910 killed and 24560 killed or seriously injured. 

http://www.dft.gov.uk/statistics/releases/road-accidents-and-safety-quarterly-estimates-q2-2011

[hairygit]

Like the man or loathe him (seems to be no middle ground with him!), he is right, how do so few people get killed when you see the madness on our roads, driving in central London, or Manchester or Birmingham is like being in a Mad Max film set, and the lunacy on our motorway system, beyond belief sometimes!

[Fratton]

Clarkson has made a character of himself before the new incarnation of top gear he did alot of genuine documentary and jernolism work, and correct statistics or not he has a point it's ammazing more people don't die, nearby where I live we had 2 fatal accidents with 10 miles in the same week,

This video can be a bit much for some people it's a compilation of Australian newzealand and European road safety campaigns sewn together with footage of real RTA's and some police chase stuff,,,,

The following link shows graphically the consequences of wreck less driving a shock and awe if you will,,, sorry if anyone finds it distasteful but I think it should be shown to those who do not drive safely as an eye opener
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUTRcH4e84xE%26sns%3Dfb&sns=fb&v=UTRcH4e84xE&gl=GB

[EtchedPixels]

Unfortunately you can blame the E.U for trucks being restricted to 56mph (80kph)

However the fact that the few moronic truckers who like to fill both lines going at 55.995 mph and 56.002mph trying to overtake is not the EU's fault. For the difference in time it'll make they should just sit in line in the slow lane instead of waving at each other in the cabs.

Alan

[davieb]

hi all

having been a HGV Class 1 driver i can confirm to everyone out there that there are indeed some BAD wagon drivers out there or should i
call them LAZY 
it is very easy to drive a wagon on our motorways, you just point it in the right direction and put your foot to the floor and let the limiter do what it is designed to do.
easing off and just following another hgv requires the driver to think and use his foot to operate the throttle

the one thing that really used to get my back up was cars in the first lane going 50mph meaning you had to overtake someone who is legally allowed to go faster than you but instead just saunter along looking at the scenery

also you have to remember that HGV'S have a tachograph fitted and the drivers only have a limited time to drive in a day so any delay in their journey could mean the difference between getting home or not

and don't get me started about the stupid supermarket chains limiting their fleet to 50mph to save fuel
if it is a long flat run then yes it does but if you are dealing with hills then the lack of momentum they have requires more fuel to get the wagon up a hill as the engine has to work even harder

this is just my point of view on the subject

dave 

[hairygit]

I'm in total agreement, we have tachographs in our coaches too, and driving hours run down alarmingly fast at times. We are maybe lucky that our speed limiters are set to 62mph, but that is only because of the E.U., we were allowed to do 70 until they butted in! There is absolutely NO evidence that this is any safer than 70 in a coach, in fact, there have been more coach accidents since speed limiters were fitted, particularly with national express coaches where the timetables were not changed when speed limiters came in, resulting in drivers travelling too fast on slip roads and motorway interchanges (remember the one on the M4/M25 interchange about 5 years ago?) to try and maintain time? Trucks and coaches have never been safer with A.B.S as standard, so the E.U should keep it's nose out of our traffic system, maybe anyone who drives for a living should vote U.K. independance party next time , even David Cameron had the balls to stand and so no to the last lot of financial bile they tried to rope us into!

[Pete Mc]

Part of the reason for the standards dropping in relation to driving standards is this devil may care attitude and belief that the airbags in every part of a cars interior,coupled with abs brakes,traction control and electronic stability programs fools people into thinking they are invincible and cannot possibly be killed or injured whilst driving their big,posh,intelligent cars.

Ford based an earlyish ad campaign for the last shape mondeo with a thing called "intelligent protection system",which turned a lot of them into maniacs,Nissan did something similar with the Primera while Skoda did something truly outlandish.

Skoda came up with the best campaign when it just said,"Its a Skoda,honest".

No frills from them,no boasts it'll save my life if I drive like a race driver everywhere,its why I bought one.

Also,I have a long held belief,that as a bus driver,which is what I do at the moment,if I'm driving along a road towards a cliff with a sheer drop off it,someone in a car or van will overtake me to drive off the cliff first.It may seem a bit mad but one of the things lacking in peoples driving abilities these days is anticipation,or a total lack of it,and heing able to see further than the end of their car bonnets or headlamp beam,not reading the road and conditions.

A couple of years ago,as an example,Iwas stuck at the bottom of a hill,behind a colleague of mine who was stuck at some traffic lights and couldn't go anywhere due to snow making the hill impassable.So as we waited for our managers to come and supervise our safe reversing moves to clear the road,a chap in a Volvo V70 came round the corner just a bit too quickly.Now you could actually see the esp at work individually braking each wheel to keep it from losing control and crashing.The bloke was having an incident in his trousers as well by the look on his face and was relieved to get round without crashing.The bloke in the car behind who took the corner at the same speed in an older car did not fare so well though and ploughed straight into my colleagues bus.Donut was not a word we used to describe his incompetence,nor was it the police's word either.

The main problem is that no one seems to have the time these days and everything is a massive race against time.It needs to stop now.

Pete