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Original poster

To realise very few people care about road rules or the Highway Code any more

185 replies

JacquesHarlow · 24/09/2025 13:08

AIBU here - is anyone on Mumsnet like me, and thinks about the Highway Code or bothers to follow its guidance? Please join me if so!

For my job I have to drive a LOT. I drive pretty much all over the UK.

Yes, the standard of driving is far better than many countries around the world. But something I have noticed increasingly (and especially since the pandemic) is this:

  1. Very few people indicate right on a roundabout. You get this bizarre situation where someone approaches a roundabout in a right hand lane, doesn't indicate, careers around the roundabout for 270 degrees, then once at their junction, they indicate off left to show they're taking the exit!!
  2. Middle lane hogging is now third lane hogging On any four lane motorway in the UK, I find the vast majority of drivers have moved to the third lane and sit there at 60 or 65mph. The first and second lane have been re-designated as a lorry lane, and as a lorry overtaking lane. Again, this is not the Highway Code.
  3. Phone driving is an absolute epidemic. On the school run people drive off holding their phones and checking messages... next to a SCHOOL where children are still walking and crossing the road.
  4. Merge in turn is completely ignored - instead you see bizarre behaviour like road captains who sit straddling two lanes, a mile before the merge, to stop "queue jumpers". This goes completely against the road rules and the Code but once again, British drivers know best and no one can tell them otherwise
  5. Give way if parked cars are on your left again seems to be ignored. I've seen plenty of fellow women do this one, where they barrel through hoping the other person will concede, and then when asked to reverse their car, go into a complete blind panic and start swearing and shouting for the other person to reverse instead.
  6. Give way to traffic already on the motorway when joining Again, forget it. When I'm in lane 1, and I see a slip road ahead, I try and move over. I can't straightway because middle lane hoggers, however I wait for a gap and then move in time. Only to find the car that is joining isn't happy I've made a space...because they want to slalom across two lanes and barrel their way into lane 2 or 3 in one quick glide! WTF.

Yeah I've shared too many examples, but I could share dozens more.

It's like the Highway Code is irrelevant to most drivers. They decide "what is fair". So if they feel they don't want to wait and there's an obstruction on their left? Barrel on through!

The only way around this is either

  • increased traffic policing of road offences, which we all know won't happen because we have fewer police
  • mandatory driving retraining, which everyone would hate

Is this just me? Does anyone else care about this or notice this, or am I a lone female voice in this space and actually it's fine to just make up the rules as we go along?

Thanks in advance

OP posts:
stillawip · 26/09/2025 14:39

Oh yes OP, Number 4 on your list drives me insane!!! ESPECIALLY the idiots who then take it upon themselves to straddle both lanes with 400 yards to go so that no-one can use the free lane. READ THE HIGHWAY CODE PEOPLE!!! I would love to know how they think they can justify this….

thing47 · 26/09/2025 10:31

crankycurmudgeon · 26/09/2025 08:23

The person who trundles along at no more than 40 mph on a B-road in the national speed limit sections, despite the road conditions making it safe to go at 50-60 mph much of the time... and I'm trying to be charitable and thinking "maybe they're just a really cautious driver"... and then we enter a village with a 30 mph... and they just carry on at their set speed of 40 mph. So* *no they're not cautious, just lazy, with no road awareness.

Oh yeah, the 40mph merchants! A road I use daily has stretches of 50mph slowing to 30mph whenever you pass through a village - all very normal and sensible. There are always drivers who just go 40mph the whole time, so half the journey they are breaking the law and the other half they are ignoring Highway Code and road safety organisations' guidelines.

And I have to say, if the speed merchants are almost always men in their penis-extension cars, then the 40mph drivers are almost always women, totally oblivious to whatever is going on around them.

hindsightisuseful · 26/09/2025 09:51

MoonWoman69 · 25/09/2025 22:34

I had the misfortune of having to drive through part of Bradford last week. Temporary traffic lights on a busy crossroads. I was about 7 cars back and the lights changed to red. We all stopped. A few seconds after the lights went red, the 5th car back from the lights, so two in front of me, decided that he didn't want to wait at the lights, pulled out of the queue and hurtled round the first 4 cars and into the crossing traffic who were on green and had been for a good 5 seconds! I've seen that happen in Bradford at normal traffic lights on busy junctions. One once pulled out of the queue behind me at red lights, went onto the wrong side of the road and through the lights, no fucks given.
You definitely have to have a different mentality to drive in Bradford that's for sure!

You wish they’d get caught, fined and banned with that stupidity

crankycurmudgeon · 26/09/2025 08:23

The person who trundles along at no more than 40 mph on a B-road in the national speed limit sections, despite the road conditions making it safe to go at 50-60 mph much of the time... and I'm trying to be charitable and thinking "maybe they're just a really cautious driver"... and then we enter a village with a 30 mph... and they just carry on at their set speed of 40 mph. So* *no they're not cautious, just lazy, with no road awareness.

user1476613140 · 26/09/2025 07:32

Well OP you'll be relieved to know many students can't book a test for months due to lack of examiners so you're winning just now. The roads are much more quiet than they should be!

It should be a national scandal 😒

brunettemic · 26/09/2025 07:29

vivainsomnia · 24/09/2025 13:22

I agree with all but number 4. The usual signs encourage people to get onto one lane much sooner than just when the lanes merged.

Yes merging sooner means a very slight longer time, depending on how long the queue is, but those who decide to pass everybody queuing are assholes.they don't do it because they like to.folliw the rules, they do it because they have a sense of entitlement and think others should just make way to their more important self.

That’s complete nonsense. When I go to the office I use a right hand lane and merge into a queue at the end. The motorway gos from 3 to 2 lanes but everyone ignoring that 3rd lane and causing a huge queue is frankly stupid. It’s not a sense of entitlement on my behalf, I’m just using the road as it was designed to be used. I just don’t understand why people would rather queue for 15/20 minutes.

MethusalahsMum · 26/09/2025 07:24

Since when did 'brake checking' other drivers become part of standard driving practice.

Good point about pedestrians walking on non-pavement roads facing the way of oncoming traffic. We were taught this as children. But what is this recent thing of pedestrians walking in the road when there are pavements on both sides of the road? Also so oblivious to traffic. Weird in the centre of residential London.

SharpTooth · 26/09/2025 07:20

randomchap · 24/09/2025 18:19

I've found that on motorways more and more people speed up when you're overtaking them. People doing 65 in the left lane speed up to 70 when you're going past. Forcing you to either speed to finish your manoeuvre, or drop back behind them.

I have noticed this so much recently that I actually started a thread on it the other day!! I don’t know why it’s suddenly started happening SO much!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5414022-drivers-speeding-up-when-you-try-and-overtake-them?reply=147274386

Colourpurplepalette · 26/09/2025 06:38

SemiRetiredLoveGoddeess · 25/09/2025 21:33

Yes, l agree with everything you have said

I no.longer drive due to being disabled with waking and joint problems.Use crutches to get about

However my new pet hates are drivers who park on pavements. ,So you can't get past them.

And the Sainted cyclists who cycle on pavements and through pedestrianised shopping areas without lights, bells or helmets. Despite our local authority spending nearly £15 million pounds on cycle lanes. Which are hardly used.

LONG LIVE THE HIGHWAY CODE.
A NATIONAL TREASURE!

🚴🚙🙈🙉🙊📜👍

There’s a nursery near us where parents continually park on the pavements to pick up their little darlings. We go to a (better) nursery beyond this one and have to steer my buggy into the road to get past. God knows what you’d do if you were in a wheelchair. The entitlement is enraging.

BlackCoffeeAndSugar · 26/09/2025 03:52

Agree op. It is wild.

Our area has recently become 20mph. The number of cars that tail gate/beep/flash/aggression is scary

MoonWoman69 · 25/09/2025 22:34

I had the misfortune of having to drive through part of Bradford last week. Temporary traffic lights on a busy crossroads. I was about 7 cars back and the lights changed to red. We all stopped. A few seconds after the lights went red, the 5th car back from the lights, so two in front of me, decided that he didn't want to wait at the lights, pulled out of the queue and hurtled round the first 4 cars and into the crossing traffic who were on green and had been for a good 5 seconds! I've seen that happen in Bradford at normal traffic lights on busy junctions. One once pulled out of the queue behind me at red lights, went onto the wrong side of the road and through the lights, no fucks given.
You definitely have to have a different mentality to drive in Bradford that's for sure!

ilovemeahack · 25/09/2025 22:32

FieldInWhichFucksAreGrownIsBarren · 25/09/2025 21:53

Agree with all and I'll add my personal favourite of the moment -being in the left hand lane to turn right at a roundabout, wtaf are you doing??

There are some roundabouts where you can turn right from the left hand lane. The road
markings usually show it (normally right hand lane is right only and the left hand lane is left, straight on or right). But obviously this is not every roundabout

Mum2EmLuJa · 25/09/2025 22:29

Totally with you on point 4-this is what causes massive tailbacks! Especially on motorways when people start getting into the lane as soon as they see the sign saying lane closure 800 yards ahead then think no one should dare try to ‘cut in’ so they decide to hover between the 2 lanes! Proper gets on my nerves same with the people who never indicate and also a new one I have found living on the main road into my village-people who get angry with me for forcing them to slow down so I can (whilst indicating with notice too!) go in my OWN driveway!

DiscoBeat · 25/09/2025 22:22

ForPlumReader · 25/09/2025 19:31

Flying through red lights, often when the pedestrian light is green and a total lack of indicating are my favourites. It makes crossing the road terrifying. It's definitely much worse than it used to be.

Edited

Every set of traffic lights should have cameras and automatic fines imo

randomchap · 25/09/2025 21:55

PorkPieandPickle · 25/09/2025 19:49

Omg this, all the bloody time! Just driven back from a trip 200 miles today and this was just so common and it is so frustrating!

Show quote history

I've got the theory that it's insecure dickhead blokes who can't cope with being overtaken by someone in a smaller car or a woman

FieldInWhichFucksAreGrownIsBarren · 25/09/2025 21:53

Agree with all and I'll add my personal favourite of the moment -being in the left hand lane to turn right at a roundabout, wtaf are you doing??

noodlebugz · 25/09/2025 21:51

Danikm151 · 25/09/2025 19:39

As a pedestrian the lack of indicators is very frustrating.
At a junction pedestrians are supposed to get priority of you are turning in but they don’t care.
Some will not bother indicating then turn left meaning we’ve missed the opportunity to cross.
Bolting through traffic lights even though they’ve already turned red.
In a queue of traffic blocking the pelican crossing meaning we have to weave through the cars to cross the road.

This and bloody cyclists who don’t understand that a red traffic light applies to them. They are extremely common and one day I am going to push one over and just say oops didn’t see you there I was looking at the green man.

noodlebugz · 25/09/2025 21:47

Speed limits.
My road is 20mph - it has 2 primaries and a secondary off it.
So today I saw a car doing about 40mph on it - untaxed for the last 112 days. What are the odds they didn’t have Insurance? Nobody interested.
No point in having rules if nobody is arsed enforcing them. Nearly 60mph on the next road over - also a 20 limit - shown on one of those little signs by the other side of the school that flashes up your speed is the worse I’ve seen - thankfully evening time.

SemiRetiredLoveGoddeess · 25/09/2025 21:33

Yes, l agree with everything you have said

I no.longer drive due to being disabled with waking and joint problems.Use crutches to get about

However my new pet hates are drivers who park on pavements. ,So you can't get past them.

And the Sainted cyclists who cycle on pavements and through pedestrianised shopping areas without lights, bells or helmets. Despite our local authority spending nearly £15 million pounds on cycle lanes. Which are hardly used.

LONG LIVE THE HIGHWAY CODE.
A NATIONAL TREASURE!

🚴🚙🙈🙉🙊📜👍

Love4both · 25/09/2025 20:41

Pedestrians are no better when walking in the road with no pavements and have their backs to traffic when the Highway Code says you must face oncoming traffic. This is more important these days with very quiet electric vehicles.

MaybeNotBob · 25/09/2025 20:39

Agree with everything in the OP.

What I've noticed more and more is people who have no idea how a roundabout works. They just pull up and hope that someone will tell them when it's their turn to go. Idiots.

What I've also noticed recently, is someone coming up to a roundabout and indicating right - and then halfway across indicating left and going straight on! I've actually seen it about 4 or 5 times in the last couple of weeks.

TaterTots68 · 25/09/2025 20:39

JacquesHarlow · 24/09/2025 13:08

AIBU here - is anyone on Mumsnet like me, and thinks about the Highway Code or bothers to follow its guidance? Please join me if so!

For my job I have to drive a LOT. I drive pretty much all over the UK.

Yes, the standard of driving is far better than many countries around the world. But something I have noticed increasingly (and especially since the pandemic) is this:

  1. Very few people indicate right on a roundabout. You get this bizarre situation where someone approaches a roundabout in a right hand lane, doesn't indicate, careers around the roundabout for 270 degrees, then once at their junction, they indicate off left to show they're taking the exit!!
  2. Middle lane hogging is now third lane hogging On any four lane motorway in the UK, I find the vast majority of drivers have moved to the third lane and sit there at 60 or 65mph. The first and second lane have been re-designated as a lorry lane, and as a lorry overtaking lane. Again, this is not the Highway Code.
  3. Phone driving is an absolute epidemic. On the school run people drive off holding their phones and checking messages... next to a SCHOOL where children are still walking and crossing the road.
  4. Merge in turn is completely ignored - instead you see bizarre behaviour like road captains who sit straddling two lanes, a mile before the merge, to stop "queue jumpers". This goes completely against the road rules and the Code but once again, British drivers know best and no one can tell them otherwise
  5. Give way if parked cars are on your left again seems to be ignored. I've seen plenty of fellow women do this one, where they barrel through hoping the other person will concede, and then when asked to reverse their car, go into a complete blind panic and start swearing and shouting for the other person to reverse instead.
  6. Give way to traffic already on the motorway when joining Again, forget it. When I'm in lane 1, and I see a slip road ahead, I try and move over. I can't straightway because middle lane hoggers, however I wait for a gap and then move in time. Only to find the car that is joining isn't happy I've made a space...because they want to slalom across two lanes and barrel their way into lane 2 or 3 in one quick glide! WTF.

Yeah I've shared too many examples, but I could share dozens more.

It's like the Highway Code is irrelevant to most drivers. They decide "what is fair". So if they feel they don't want to wait and there's an obstruction on their left? Barrel on through!

The only way around this is either

  • increased traffic policing of road offences, which we all know won't happen because we have fewer police
  • mandatory driving retraining, which everyone would hate

Is this just me? Does anyone else care about this or notice this, or am I a lone female voice in this space and actually it's fine to just make up the rules as we go along?

Thanks in advance

Yes to all of these. It annoys me a lot.

SharpTooth · 25/09/2025 20:16

vivainsomnia · 24/09/2025 14:42

It's the sane principle than lane hoggers. They are so annoying but it doesn't make passing them on the left the right thing to do. You either pass them on the right or you slow down behind however frustrating it is.

Sorry but no. I was recently on a 4 lane motorway. Lanes 3 and 4 were clogged up with people doing 55-60mph. Lanes 1 and 2 were TOTALLY EMPTY. Sorry but im not braking all the way from 70 (which I had got to on the slip road) to 50 when I have a completely empty lane in front of me AND to the right of me. I am maintaining the speed of my lane. Not undertaking.

PorkPieandPickle · 25/09/2025 19:49

randomchap · 24/09/2025 18:19

I've found that on motorways more and more people speed up when you're overtaking them. People doing 65 in the left lane speed up to 70 when you're going past. Forcing you to either speed to finish your manoeuvre, or drop back behind them.

Omg this, all the bloody time! Just driven back from a trip 200 miles today and this was just so common and it is so frustrating!

Danikm151 · 25/09/2025 19:39

As a pedestrian the lack of indicators is very frustrating.
At a junction pedestrians are supposed to get priority of you are turning in but they don’t care.
Some will not bother indicating then turn left meaning we’ve missed the opportunity to cross.
Bolting through traffic lights even though they’ve already turned red.
In a queue of traffic blocking the pelican crossing meaning we have to weave through the cars to cross the road.