Is this just the UK?

[Relaxationdayifonly]

My mother is 81. She’s a very smart, well-groomed 81. Yesterday it was warm and sunny and she was wearing loafers, pale grey linen ankle grazers and a cream silk shirt as a jacket. Her hair is blonde.

Point I’m making is she isn’t a cartoon frail old lady with a stick.

The thing is she isn’t as sprightly as she might at first seem. Her legs are beginning to trouble her (she has all kinds of circulatory problems which she plays down). She walks quite slowly now and rests often.

Yesterday we were out in the city centre. We used the crossing to cross the road. (There was no button/beeping, just black and white paint.) It’s not a terribly fast road.

It felt tricky because a car stopped but the sun was blazing and in my eyes etc and I couldn’t see the driver very well. I kind of waved a thank you - we hadn’t stepped out, If that’s relevant, we had stood waiting for a car to let us cross.

Anyway, we crossed the road. Slowly. Elderly lady crosses road slowly. I reach the island in the middle of the road, my mother is a few steps behind me. Driver blasts his horn loud enough for both of us (but particularly her) to nearly jump out of our skin, she nearly fell over with the shock because it was very close to her, and shouts out of his window something along the lines of “it’s a ROAD it’s for CARS you’re not supposed to TAKE ALL DAY you bloody idiots”.

Is this just our country, because we know that we don’t value or respect our elderly relatives the way they do in say, Asian cultures, or indeed parts of Europe?

It just seems so, I don’t know, barbaric?
An elderly lady being harassed because she can’t move fast enough. She we just lock them inside do you think, because they can’t go as fast as we need them to?

Sigh.

In fact I'd go so far to say elder abuse as such isn't even on the radar in the UK as the majority of people wouldn't even consider taking in and looking after their parents like they do in many Asian countries. Old people being put into care isn't the default like it is in the UK. The way elderly are treated is much different. I even remember seeing this in Turkey and Greece

"I don't much care for people romanticising other countries for their supposedly better attitudes when often it's only better on the surface."

Yes, and sometimes the only reason old people with health problems are still at home is just that there isn't a care home for them.

Not compared to anywhere. Just terrible. Driving too slow, driving too fast, cutting up, tail gating, not looking when pulling out. Leaving a gap big enough for another car in front in a queue, driving with full beams on or off inappropriately, not indicating, braking for no reason other than there's a bend coming up.

We took our house down prior to a rebuild. Every day we sat on the gradually lower and lower chimney stack and had tea and tiffin at the same time. Every day a loon in a Beemer sped by like it was the fucking Nascar Rally. There was an accident and a fire quarter of a mile down the road from us and the driver fried. The following day we noticed dickhead hadn't gone by and you could set your clock by him. Sure enough, the accident turned out to be him. He ended up embedded in the front of an oncoming van and not on his side of the road. The van driver was trapped by his legs as the engine was shunted into his footwell. Luckily his vehicle didn't catch fire like the other one did and he survived. Fried boy had it coming to him quite honestly. It's 50 past here for a reason. There's loads of hazards and adverse cambers, farmers gateways and residential bits.

"Not compared to anywhere. Just terrible."

Right...

Few years since I've been to Rome but I found the safest way to cross the road was to do it close to an elderly woman as the traffic would stop for her when it wouldn't stop for anyone else.

That doesn't mean that we can't and shouldn't improve things here or learn some things from other countries but the perception of things like how the elderly are treated and the reality can be very different as So1invictus pointed out.

I'm still very when people talk about how child friendly Spain is considering how children there were treated by their government during lockdown and I think we got so much wrong here too but that was barbaric.

I am not so sure it is just because the OPs mum is an older person. I bet a child who was slow crossing, or my neighbour who has little sight would have been treated the same way.

Remember that according to Mr Sunak when campaigning for the Tory leadership there is a 'war on the motorists'. And others like Jeremy Clarkson think and argue similarly.

The person concerned probably would like to ban cyclists no doubt.

I agree with this too and I think it's often a reciprocal thing, grandparents looking after grandchildren and then children looking after parents. Which is lovely, but only to a point as it can also be very hard work. I was more talking in general where elderly are respected, which I don't think is that common in Western countries, comparatively. From what I have experienced and observed

Eg ... it's pretty rare for someone to give up their seat to an old person on a bus!!

Not my experience at all. I see it regularly.

Oh that's great then, I don't see this very often at all. Happy to hear that 😀

I don't think the standard of driving is worse in the UK than in other places I've been to. but I .do.think.people are less patient and the standard of driving is deteriorating. That man was an arse.

Another UK bashing thread. We haven’t had one for five minutes. Excellent.

This ^

Where I live, the behaviour of many car drivers towards more vulnerable road users is terrifying.

Close passing children on bikes at speed, generally ignoring the speed limit and using mobile phones whilst driving (both sexes and every age, including mums in their massive Chelsea tractors).

Some horrible transformation seems to happen to some people when they get behind the wheel of a car; I don't think they would engage in similar hostile or dangerous behaviour up close.

I agree with a PP, nothing to do with being older and everything to do with being slow for whatever reason. And it’s not ok. It’s super rude and unempathetic, but I also think it’s the product of a society where you have a “computer says no” attitude to things - so if that motorist is 5 minutes late for work nobody is going to ask or care that he stopped for an elderly woman to cross the road hence there is undue pressure on him to keep driving as fast as possible. He’ll just be penalised financially. Still not ok but I understand why it happens. I’ve been similarly screamed at by motorists for absolutely nothing as a pedestrian and a cyclist. I’m betting this was in the South of England?

Ah OP, you might need to get MN to delete this thread. If you don't, the government will get it deleted anyway. They don't want anyone to know that one of the secret clauses of the Brexit deal is that anyone in Europe who was deemed to be a shit driver was rounded up and forcibly removed to the UK.

Mass testing went on across Europe and anyone who failed was made to move here. Similarly, anyone in the UK who drove too well was sent over to Europe.

I only know about this because that's what happened to my in-laws. FIL was such a spectacular driver he was made to go and live in Portugal. That's what they told us anyway. It was terrible because they really didn't want to be forced to retire somewhere hot and sunny, and to buy a gorgeous villa. It's been such a hard change for them but they had no choice in the matter....so sad.

A few other people got wind of this scheme and the word got out that if you wanted to carry on living in the UK you'd have to fake being a shit driver.

That's why we are a country of shit drivers everywhere. Because that's most definitely true. Not a single good driver left here.

DISCLAIMER: This whole post is all definitely true and definitely not me just procrastinating instead of doing shit that 1) needs doing and 2) I don't want to do.

No, not just this country. There's twats everywhere.

Nothing to do with being elderly and everything to do with people being impatient. I was stopped at a traffic light yesterday and an and the light turned Green and I saw a little boy reach the edge and go to step out before his mum with a pram got there. She grabbed him and I went to move off and got beeped. It was literally three seconds at a light that lasts a long time (not a case of only a few cars get through). Behind me I saw his crazy gesturing and ranting.

Male drivers are becoming more aggressive in my opinion . We’re failing our sons because they seem angrier than ever.

I moved to the UK and finally started to gain confidence in driving. I find drivers in the UK are incredibly patient and polite. They tend to give way to other drivers and pedestrians.

So are female drivers. I passed my test 50 years ago and women were much more considerate than men but I think they are about the same now. I also live near a school and find that the inconsiderate parkers all seem to be women, when I pointed out to one that she was actually putting children in danger she was very aggressive.

My husband on the other hand thinks it is BMW drivers, he swears if he is ever witnesses aggressive drivers it is nearly always BMW drivers. I'm not sure how that works but I guess we all see different things.

I think we see what we're looking for @Iwasafool to confirm what we already thought. No doubt your DH will have seen many aggressive non BMW drivers but they won't have registered for him whereas when he sees a BMW driver being aggressive, he takes note.

No @Gwenhwyfar in Germany they respect CYCLISTS more because of the strong lobbying groups. They have no problem or guilt driving past anyone waiting at a pedestrian crossing, including my under 9 year old as he walks to school. They don't want to slow down their BMW or Mercedes for some primary school aged child. Idiots are everywhere.

Cyclist lobbying is a thing everywhere at the moment. I agree.
At least here in Belgium they get their own bike lanes. When I lived in Cardiff, the council gave them parts of the pavement. Pedestrians coming last again. There was also complete tolerance of cyclists on pavements even when there wasn't a bike lane on the pavement.

Actually as a disabled person who I struggling to cross ‘in time’ with the little green man, I understand what she means.

We are all so conditioned that red light means stop and that cars have priority when they are their green light that it makes anyone who can’t cross the road in time uncomfortable. Fir fear of reaction (like the OP had). Fir fear of holding people up. There is a layer if ableism - surely if you tried you could cross in time etc…
Much better for me now that I have an electric wheelchair (because I’m quicker) but yes I’ve often felt uncomfortable crossing roads like this.
And it took me a long time to train myself to say in my head ‘oh f** off. You’ll wait. I’m as entitled to use the road as you are.’

And you also know there will be people who won’t wait and do stupid things too.

I think, as a good friend of mine said, you dint notice it unless you are with someone with mobility issues or have become disabled yourself.