Nearly in a serious car accident - hand hold please

[Usedandhurt]

Im literally shaking. Just had a driver nearly kill me and my dc on the motorway. He/she must have not checked before they pulled onto the motorway from a slip road, I literally had to slam on the breaks to avoid crashing into them and thankfully the driver behind me and the one behind them etc etc were able to stop also. My dc would have been very badly hurt - it was a huge bus and I can only imagine the driver got distracted.

Im a nervous driver at the best of times and Im literally sick with nerves.

Reading this thread and some of the responses has made me feel nervous for the first time about motorway driving - shocking to read how many don’t know the rules.

@Persimmon23 it would have been safer to anticipate the hazard and act before slamming brakes on was needed. Safely changing lanes does not cause accidents.

Your traffic lights analogy is a good one. Good drivers look to their left and right BEFORE they reach a junction in anticipation of someone doing something stupid, like not realising they are on a red and speeding on through. Because it happens. It doesn't mean stopping at every green light, it means being aware of what is around you at all times and anticipating bad driving.

Dangerous drivers are the ones who aren't aware of their red lights, but dangerous drivers are also the ones who blindly assume the road is safe just because their light is green. So, again, being safe is more important than being right. Acting is better than reacting. Take action earlier so you don't have to react at the last minute.

It's funny how the people who would have anticipated the bus's movements are the ones being called bad drivers. Well, I'm happy to be a "bad driver" if it stops people being nearly killed on the motorway.

And on this case the OP was aware of the bus driver and the fact he might do something stupid, because she was able to brake in time when he did.

Have you read the ops initial post - she was aware of slip road, she did see the bus but he was travelling at such a speed into her lane that she she had to take evasive action immediately- she couldn’t move lanes as there was no gap - pretty much like there wasn’t in her lane but - unlike this knob of a bus driver, she wasn’t going to force other cars to make evasive actions to accommodate her car in their lane.

I sincerely hope you don’t travel with children in your car or any other passenger tbh as you don’t seem to know how to drive

If there is a lane space safe enough to change in to 🤦‍♀️ Jesus wept 😂

Maybe she did- who is the say she didn’t see the bus and decided she would speed up to get past it and made a reasonable assumption that the bus driver would see her and ease off a bit and feed in behind her. This is how it works that both drivers anticipate and judge what the other is doing. It seems to me she was trying to get past him for him to feed in behind but he just kept his speed up and wasn’t prepared to let her clear the spot for him to merge in behind. Once she realised she would not clear him she slammed on the brakes.

Nope. That is called reacting. It is not the same as anticipating. Like plenty of other people have said, when you know a slip road is coming up, you take action before you get there by creating space ahead of you and adjusting your speed. And, again, that doesn't involve breaking. It means easing off on the gas pedal so you drop a couple of MPH. No sudden breaking, no endangering anyone else around, and it also makes it easier for you if you do have to react suddenly.

The way I’m reading it is that op didn’t anticipate early enough. Had she anticipated, she would have perhaps been able to slow sufficiently to leave a decent gap. Watching the traffic as it joins the slip road enables a driver to allow vehicles to slot in front or presume they won’t reach the carriageway until the driver has passed the point at which they need to join.
We don’t know what happened as we weren’t there. However, the bus didn’t fly in from nowhere.

As for the police telling op she was in the right, of course she was. The driver had to give way at the dotted line. But not leaving space for a vehicle to join is poor etiquette and creating a headache for those trying to join the motorway.

I drive motorways a lot.

I've noticed that buses and lorries pull out suddenly just expecting you to move over without any consideration for the fact you may not be able to.

It's scary.

Or my worries are the drivers who are in lane 3 and just cut across everyone to exit a slip road 30m before the sit and rely on everyone else behind them breaking.

What I do now is make sure when I know I am approaching a slip road is make sure I have room to pull out into lane 2 of traffic and move over to predict there will be traffic merging and move over once passed if I can. It saves my sanity!

Exactly.

I was driving in the USA last month and one of the things the locals said to me was "when the lights go green, wait a little as someone will most likely be jumping the red"

It was so weird to see these giant cars not diving off the lights like they would in the UK

@Persimmon23 so she saw the bus and the slip road but was still had to take action so evasive she was crying into her tea an hour later? Please!

what I am getting from this post is that the OP was right and should not have slammed her brakes on and screw the consequences

(BTW - I got deleted for suggesting that there was some overreaction)

Well, no. You haven't understood the logic at all I'm afraid. You wouldn't be stopping at every green light unless you were an actual idiot! What you would be doing, and what the OP should have been doing, is to be thinking about what another driver might do and what else is going on around you and behaving in such a way that you don't get yourself into the position of having to slam on the brakes. You use your judgement to understand their speed and your speed and whether the two combined are going to mean you end up in the same place at the same time. Obviously the bus driver in this case should have been doing the same but both drivers should be aware that the heavier, larger vehicle is going to take longer to slow down.

In the case of a driver going through a red light, for example, the clue is that they aren't slowing down.

The car driver in this case is correct in that they have priority. This time they are correct and alive. Next time they will be correct but quite possibly dead. Driving correctly is not the same as driving intelligently.

Yes, of course I read the OP's post.

She says she couldn't move into the middle lane, although it isn't at all clear whether she tried. If you indicate to move over in plenty of time, you'll usually find at least one sensible driver who will make space for you. But as I said, moving into the middle lane was just one option open to her. She could have slowed down. She could have sped up.

I sincerely hope you don’t travel with children in your car or any other passenger tbh as you don’t seem to know how to drive
Oh yes, the typical 'let's resort to an insult to get my point across'. As it happens I don't currently drive with children in my car because I have successfully raised all of mine to adulthood without being so hung up over who has priority on the road that I need to play chicken with a bus on the motorway.

@AsWrittenBy exactly. At least she would have died being "right". What a pathetic mentality that unfortunately seems rife in this thread. I'll await the deletion message. Sigh.

Indeed.

People tend to be a bloody menace on roundabouts. This can be another area where the highway code doesn't really work. People think that as long as they're in their lane all is fine, but really it's idiotic to try and undertake a large vehicle on a roundabout as sometimes we just need more space.

The guidance may say xzy but it doesn't change the physical characteristics of a large truck navigating a small island and needing a bit of breathing space.

I simply dont understand how you cant understand?! when on a motorway - any vehicle that changes lanes needs to make sure they are doing so in a way that is safest. The bus driver saw the OP driving in a lane he wanted to enter, there wasnt room for him to do so given the OP's position in that lane but he decided to make space for himself. Goodness knows how many passengers he endangered. Why didnt he wait until she was past him? You mention reacting via anticipating, the OP had the, quite right, anticipation that a professional bus driver would look at the lane he was trying to enter in a logical way and decide when it was safest to enter it. Not bully his way in. have you driven on a busy motorway where its sometimes very difficult to change lanes, again there was a 6 car accident in NI very recently, that was due to poor driving and people not having the wit nor courtesy to drive appropriately.

who is to say that there wasnt space behind the OP that the bus driver could have used, sadly, given the very real nastiness on this thread I doubt we will ever know. Returnoftherainmac does being so horrible make you feel better, does another persons distress ease whatever causes you to be the way you are? I dont understand what anyone on this forum gets out of being horrible, honestly.

as a previous poster suggested. The OP wanted a handhold as something had happened that upset her. there has been so many utter dicks on this thread adding further to her upset (if she is reading which I hope she isnt as she really doesnt need it). OP hope if you are reading you have managed to get back into the car without too much nervousness.

What would make you think she wouldn't try to avoid a bus by going into another lane? Do you think she honestly thought to herself, right, I've my DC in the car, the bus probably has loads of passengers, its bigger than me and its heading into my lane at speed when there is no room for it, I have room to move into the lane beside me but I'm in the right, the bus shouldn't be doing what its doing so I'm going to sit in this lane and hit it 🙄. No what she did was take immediate evasive defensive action to correct another drivers dangerous action and prevent an accident - which she did.

I'm not insulting you - I was asking a genuine question as, quite frankly, posters such as yourself giving driving advice which is just wrong make me nervous. This is further evidenced by your "playing chicken" comment. I mean wtf - did you read that before you posted it? Just FYI, I too have a large family of children, all grown up and all safe drivers.

I agree. Why persons here are putting the blame on you and not to the distracted driver!!!
However, accidents do happen on the road for one reason or the other. Forget all and relax.
Should be glad the worse did not happen.

@Persimmon23 type @ then username to tag someone. I'm not that horrible. I started off nicely but this thread has descended into an absolute mess of bullshit with the majority showing the Highway Code is gospel and must not be varied no matter the consequences or situation... such as a bus clearly not stopping. Logic says just adjust and they will fit in. Anyone who drives a lot knows buses and Lorry's don't give a single fuck (even to each other) and expect the carriageway to do some of the merging work.

@ReturnOfTheRainMac thank you for the @ tip. You may have started off nicely and I can see how differing views could be frustrating but to quote you from an earlier post "so she saw the bus and the slip road but was still had to take action so evasive she was crying into her tea an hour later? Please!". Was there any need for that, you literally ridiculed someone who was distressed. ? Does your frustration trump the upset of a lady who was online asking for help? Your dig was at her, not at the other posters quoting the law - which tbh mumsnet seems to think does really count. Until of course one of the lewis hamilton wannabes causes an accident which lands them in court at best or jail at worst.

As for you quoting logic above, did it occur that the OP simply couldnt adjust for them to fit? I agree that busses and Lorry's have a "move over im a'comin" attitude but even they would have to admit that what that bus did was potentially life threatening.

I drive a small car and have lost count of times that i have had to dodge out of the way of larger vehicles who consider me negligible because they are bigger. My son calls it vehicular bullying 😂

Why are you so keen to keep harping back to my comment about moving to the middle lane? If you care to re-read my initial post I referred to it as one of a number of options that drivers in general have. I wasn't actually referring to the OP. But the fact remains that we don't know whether the OP actually tried to move to the middle lane in a timely fashion (for most motorways this would be indicated by the signs clearly indicating that you are approaching a junction long before you reach the slip road where other vehicles are attempting to join).

No what she did was take immediate evasive defensive action to correct another drivers dangerous action and prevent an accident - which she did.
No. What she did was delay carrying out any evasive action until she was left with only one option.

I'm not insulting you - I was asking a genuine question
No, you were indeed trying to insult me and you certainly were not asking a question. I sincerely hope you don’t travel with children in your car or any other passenger tbh as you don’t seem to know how to drive is not, in any sense, a question.

posters such as yourself giving driving advice which is just wrong make me nervous.
Perhaps you would like to explain which part of taking early action to avoid an accident long before you actually have to slam on the brakes is either wrong or could possibly make you nervous.

This is further evidenced by your "playing chicken" comment. I mean wtf - did you read that before you posted it?
Well, since I actually typed it, of course I read it before I posted it. Words don't generally just appear for no reason. What a very bizarre question!

Just FYI, I too have a large family of children, all grown up and all safe drivers.
I didn't ask about your family.