ADUK Archive

Is it just me or has anyone noticed the standard of driving seems particularly bad on Friday afternoons? Some drivers seem in a rush to get home or on hols on something...seems to be a lot of impatience and inappropriate speed to me.

Many LGV drivers have noticed this as well and some have a regular post in their forums called Numpty Friday where they list what the numpty drivers do on a Friday !!

I definitely felt that driving standards over the bank holiday weekend were lower than normal, both in terms of silly things being done and aggressiveness.

regards
P.

Fridays always seem bad to me with the rush hour starting around lunch time as peope leave work for an early start to the weekend. Driving standards as a whole are worse than at other times of the week.

Most Fridays I have to travel off to a motor racing circuit for the weekend and so start my journey in the morning. This has the benefit of avoiding "Friday afternoon mayhem" and once I turn off the M25 the satnav is re programmed to avoid motorways. Much more fun

On a sort of related note, was waiting at a roundabout today when some numpty in a Polo came screeching onto it, attempted to Scandinavian flick his car around it then failed to catch the resulting slide and ended up parked sideways across the road.

The fact that he was quite happy to mess around when there was traffic about worries me...

TiJay wrote:On a sort of related note, was waiting at a roundabout today when some numpty in a Polo came screeching onto it, attempted to Scandinavian flick his car around it then failed to catch the resulting slide and ended up parked sideways across the road.

The fact that he was quite happy to mess around when there was traffic about worries me...

Eeeejiot!

Did you get his reg?

Unfortunately not, his mate's car pulled up behind him straight after then they disappeared pretty sharpish. Hopefully one of the other drivers nearby got a better look and reported him though.

TiJay wrote:Unfortunately not, his mate's car pulled up behind him straight after then they disappeared pretty sharpish. Hopefully one of the other drivers nearby got a better look and reported him though.

Is it the general feeling here that you would report somebody for that sort of driving? After all, it might have been a genuine error of judgement, albeit a fairly serious one. On the other hand he might knowingly have been driving like a tit, and that might be normal for him; but I wouldn't report somebody for an incident of that sort.

I don't think we ought get into this mentality of reporting each other too readily, unless we get cases of deliberately aggressive and dangerous behaviour.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

I am not personaly in favour of the public reporting traffic offences, because, as said in another thread, we are back to third party perception, and are the general public experts in traffic law? No. What one person would consider behaviour that was below the sandard of a carefull considerate nature, another would consider to be ok. Take the example of Rennies friend reported for what was considered to be a dangerous overtake by the overtaken driver. As overtaking is increasingly seen by many as unaceptable and dangerous, would these people report a driver who overtook them? How many drivers would be prosucuted for a traffic offence simply because someone didn't like being overtaken, or they didn't like the speed the other driver was driving at?

There was talk a while back, of allowing driving instructors to report offences. I don't think many instructors were in favour. As I tell pupils when they make a comment because another driver has overtaken them at above the speed limit. "They may be breaking the law.It's not your job to enforce the law, that's a matter for the police."

Going back to the OP, it does seem on the face of it that the driver was possibly fooling around, but as Dave said, was it an error of judgement. Who are we to judge?

Nigel ADI
IAM observer

fungus wrote:I am not personaly in favour of the public reporting traffic offences, because, as said in another thread, we are back to third party perception, and are the general public experts in traffic law? No.

....Going back to the OP, it does seem on the face of it that the driver was possibly fooling around, but as Dave said, was it an error of judgement. Who are we to judge?

I don't think anyone would get prosecuted on the evidence of 1 member of the public but if there were multiple reports of different 'incidents' then I would like to see the police make a visit and have a chat at least.

I'm sure we've all seen driving that is not an 'error of judgement' but quite deliberate, dangerous and probably not isolated for the individual. I can think of several incidents where it's pretty plain the driver is a 'knob' and is an accident waiting to happen. Let's not forget we are talking about people's lives here and not just their own.

I think anyone who clearly has a demonstrable interest in road safety (ADI, IAM, ROSPA) and has received extra training should have more of a voice than the general public - that's not to say we should be pseudo-traffic police, just listened to by the pros.

As an afterthought, I think i would be influenced by the demeanour of the 'offending' driver immediately following such as incident as described to us. If the driver looked suitably shocked by what had happened I'd be inclined to regard it as an unfortunate error, and leave it at that.

On the other hand, if he appeared to laugh it off with a couldn't-care-less attitude, I'd be more likely to see him as somebody going looking for an accident, and likely to cause one pretty soon; in which case I'm then much more likely to mention it to the police in the hope that they would have a word and induce an improved attitude in the person concerned.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

TripleS wrote:As an afterthought, I think i would be influenced by the demeanour of the 'offending' driver immediately following such as incident as described to us. If the driver looked suitably shocked by what had happened I'd be inclined to regard it as an unfortunate error, and leave it at that.

On the other hand, if he appeared to laugh it off with a couldn't-care-less attitude...

That's very topical with an incident my wife had earlier this week. Car pulled out in front of her leaving it a bit tight but not a problem. However the car following also pulled out making my wife have to brake sharply to avoid a collision. The young driver pulled a face which showed he thought it was funny.

Yesterday I had 2 cars adjacent to me (at seperate junctions) in the wrong lane to continue straight ahead...both just drifted across in front of me...not dangerous but neither indicated or acknowledged what they had done or thanked me for opening a space. It's just plain rude or being charitable, shows a lack of awareness. It's not something I would report of course but it may have escalated to a road rage incident with other drivers .

Is it the general feeling here that you would report somebody for that sort of driving?

To be honest, if the road was empty and he'd caught the slide I wouldn't be that bothered as I'm sure many drivers of RWDs enjoy the odd oversteer moment on an empty roundabout perfectly safely. The fact he deliberately flicked the car with traffic around and then failed to recover means he's driving beyond his capabilities and is going to get it seriously wrong if he carries on like that.

TiJay wrote:

Is it the general feeling here that you would report somebody for that sort of driving?

To be honest, if the road was empty and he'd caught the slide I wouldn't be that bothered as I'm sure many drivers of RWDs enjoy the odd oversteer moment on an empty roundabout perfectly safely. The fact he deliberately flicked the car with traffic around and then failed to recover means he's driving beyond his capabilities and is going to get it seriously wrong if he carries on like that.

OK, fair enough. Verdict: driving like a tit. Needs a word from some suitably authoritative person.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

ROG wrote:Many LGV drivers have noticed this as well and some have a regular post in their forums called Numpty Friday where they list what the numpty drivers do on a Friday !!

Like 'chariot racing' when one trucks extra 1/2 mph is put to full use in a 3 mile overtake?

No . . . they'll do that any day of the week - including (as I saw a few weeks ago) past an m-way 'on' slip, leaving the trucker in lane 1 nowhere to go to try and make space for 2 lanes of 'rush hour' traffic trying to merge . . .