Other drivers

This happens a lot where I live! Recently I was stuck behind someone doing 30 in a 60 for 2 miles, who was overtaken by 4 cars in a row on the straight section. He beeped and flashed at every one 😂 clearly like many drivers on MN he believed his driving was fine and it was everyone around him with a problem…

I also got beeped at by someone in a 4x4 trying to leave a (very large and clearly lane marked roundabout). I was in lane 1 to exit, he also should have been in lane 1 to exit but inexplicably joined lane 3 (probably because there was no traffic there) then tried to cut across and beeped at me for having the audacity to exist in his road space…

I just ignore them. But I've done advanced driving so I know they're the problem.
I've been flashed and had bad drivers up my backside for 25 years. I can read numbers and speed limits and manage to stick to them. Their points and blood pressure is their problem.

I leave enough space to stop in an emergency but the amount of people who see it as a space to go into meaning I have to brake and slow down frustrates me

This!! People drive far too close and seem to have zero understanding of how much space they should leave between them and the car in front. Especially on motorways. I always try to leave a decent space but some car almost always pulls into it and I have to brake and then drop further back. My uncle and cousin were killed when a lorry went into the back of their car on the motorway (there was an accident ahead and the lorry was driving too close to them and although they stopped in time for the accident ahead, the lorry behind them didn't).

See, I totally agree with moving over, get yourself out the way of the idiot and less likely then to be involved in anything stupid they choose to do, that's common sense, but, it's them that chooses to do anything stupid, saying it's caused by someone else just offloads the responsibility away from the person choosing to be an idiot in the first place doesn't it?

I think what's happened is that people are driving less since the pandemic, so you have those that dawdle as they're not particularly in a rush to get somewhere. Also people are just damn ignorant.

I leave enough time that I don't need to rush or speed but even I get fed up or frustrated with people who won't move over but are doing below the limit (I do a lot of motorway driving). They sit in the middle lane meaning I have to go across two lanes to get past the lorry in front of me. The worst are those that get past the lorry but don't move over so there's a line of cars wanting to get past a lorry and it's spray.

I've also been a passenger in a 70mph crash so I'm also a careful driver and leave enough space to stop in an emergency but the amount of people who see it as a space to go into meaning I have to brake and slow down frustrates me and don't sit on my bumper because I quite like my life and am in the correct lane for my exit.

Yesterday I was approaching a mini roundabout, single lane, queueing cos school run. Some daft lass tried to overtake everyone else by going onto the wrong side of the road, then looked flustered when a car coming the opposite way, off the mini roundabout nearly wrote her off.

Old people not looking as they pull out or at junctions.

Mums on the school run distracted by kids in the back.

Men being impatient, aggressive and aggy.

People not driving to the speed limit (30 in a 60, new straight A road with excellent visibility) or doing ridiculous speeds down winding country lanes loved by cyclists and horse riders.

It's not just men, all demographics seem to have deteriorated the last few years. DH drives about 80 miles a day and most days comes in chuntering about idiots on the motorway. And I do about 10 miles a day and at least once a week see alldastupid.

Indicators seem to have vanished. The drive from my home to supermarket is 7 roundabouts, drove it the other day and didn't see one car indicating
It's like I'm meant to be a mind reader
If I'm going straight across then I indicate at the junction I'm coming off at, so then drivers coming the other way know what I'm doing too and can cross the roundabout but nobody else seems to do that?

Around here, we don't really see much aggressive/speeding driving. Our problems are dawdlers, people driving below speed limits for no reason (probably don't even know the limit), pulling out without looking, general lack of awareness due to looking at their phone, not noticing road markings/traffic lights, etc. So more general incompetence than aggression/speeding.

There've been loads of near misses and crashes, mostly low speed, so not particularly serious although we've had two head on collision fatal accidents, both involving women drivers in their 80s who just crashed into each other at pretty low speed, apparently in both cases, both were all over the road and just didn't notice the other doing the same, so ending up crashed into each other!

I think it's because our village has a big primary school, so lots of parents on the school run not concentrating, along with an aged local population, so lots of OAPs who don't have a clue.

Just move over. It's safer for everyone.

Not just safer. It’s a legal requirement.

The idea of "the fast lane" is half of the problem.

Just move over. It's safer for everyone.

If you just stay in the fast lane doing the speed limit and an idiot comes up behind you wanting to get past and you stay where you are, you cause them to do dangerous things and you contribute to the problem.

Just move over then neither one of you will be stressed.

Where I live (Northern city) I reckon people are pretty polite drivers on the whole. However the one thing I despise is tailgaters.

I sometimes have to drive across winding hills - I know the road well, but at night I end up reducing my speed quite a bit round the bends, particularly as my old car doesn't have super bright headlights. On one such trip in the dark, I was tailgated for miles by a large vehicle, which terrified me with the kids in the back, and there was nowhere suitable to pull in and let them pass. When I eventually turned off, I looked back and was horrified to see it was an ambulance (no lights or siren of course) - I would have expected an ambulance driver to understand the importance of stopping distance!

Awful isn’t it.

I’m currently on holiday in England and not looking forward to going back.

It is not advanced drivers doing this trust me. Its lazy idiots.
It’s an extremely busy main road with constant traffic both sides, they can see that there is a steady stream of drivers coming towards them and cause them to have to go dangerously close to the kerb.

(edited to add, it should be blatantly obvious that they aren’t advanced drivers who can clearly see that nothing is oncoming because I am literally oncoming that’s how I see them doing it!)

@Thementalloadisreal "I mean not staying on the correct side of the road at all - literally veering over the middle line of an ordinary two-way road, so that 1/4 of their car is driving directly at oncoming traffic.
There is a particular bend in a road in my town where this is extremely common now, as if people are too lazy to move the steering wheel the required amount to stay on their side of the road."

If they can clearly see there is nothing oncoming then driving in a straight line over the bend rather than following the bend round is actually good driving. Advanced drivers are taught to do this.

I mean not staying on the correct side of the road at all - literally veering over the middle line of an ordinary two-way road, so that 1/4 of their car is driving directly at oncoming traffic.
There is a particular bend in a road in my town where this is extremely common now, as if people are too lazy to move the steering wheel the required amount to stay on their side of the road.

It is what the OP means and they're also a new driver (see name change fail above). OP has said they do the speed limit or just under - that's not the actions of someone hovering to overtake.

Very clear to me that's what they're talking about, especially since they're a new driver.

It’s getting worse because the speed limits are getting rediculous.

That's not what that sentence means. That would be:

I'm sick of people up my rear end and hovering to overtake when I'm doing the speed limit.

I appreciate it might be what OP means but I don't think it's remotely clear.

No, the OP isnt talking about themselves as is very clear in the fuller quote:

"I'm sick of people up my rear end when I'm doing the speed limit and hovering to overtake."

Drivers behind are "up my rear end" and they're the ones "hovering to overtake".

If this is the case and the other cars are running up OP's backside on a single lane road then obviously YANBU and there is nothing OP can do about it.

However OP does seem to be talking about herself there.

when I'm doing the speed limit and hovering to overtake.

One of the places I lived had different speed limits when it was raining which I quite liked.

Some drivers seem to be completely unaware (or don't care?!) that you should drive for the conditions you're in. I was on the M3/M27 in torrential rain last week. Visibility was very poor, there was a lot of surface water yet some cars were still driving aggressively doing well over the speed limit. I'm a very experienced driver and have had good habits drummed into me from a young age by my ex-rally driver father but even I find it quite nerve-wracking. I usually love driving but I was very relieved when that drive was over as the concentration required for those conditions was intense.

Don't even get me started on white cars who don't have any lights on in low light / poor visibility conditions so are practically invisible. Accidents just waiting to happen.

There does seem to have been a deterioration in driving standards in the last couple of years.
My two biggest grips are people cutting corners at junctions and then being surprised by someone being in the road already.

And driving over mini roundabouts, in cars that are perfectly capable of driving round them.

I often wonder if my car goes invisible sporadically. Drivers seem to think it’s ok to pull out in front of me and round here it’s the bigger the car the more entitled the driver is.
Driving standards are low.