What are your biggest driving pet peeves?

[DrivingCrazy]

inspired by the fact I encountered one of mine this morning! What are your biggest pet peeves on the road?

not necessarily something that is breaking the Highway Code etc, but just something irritating! Or something you’d change about the current system!

here’s a few of mine:

Lorries overtaking on a duel carriageway that is uphill, resulting in a huge queue that feels like it lasts ages!

Cyclists on back roads who don’t duck into the passing places to let cars go past

People who drive at 10mph under the speed limit in a 50, but carry on at that speed in a 30!

People who wander aimlessly around a car park with no sense of danger and don’t look for cars moving around

Dogs on long leads right next to the pavement - gives me anxiety that it will run right out into the road

Slightly different tangent but another one is that over 70s should have to sit a very basic driving test each year (not like the one a new driver sits, a much more simple ‘are you safe on main roads’ type test) and it should not be based on a self assessment

Looking forward to hearing what other people hate on the road! Just a bit of fun on a miserable Monday morning :)

They must only have the running lights on so haven't put the headlights on at all.

Poor parking near schools.

The road near me is gridlocked each morning, cars left on double yellow lines and over driveways leave nowhere for passing traffic to pull in. People just follow the car in front and everyone gets stuck. I need to turn into a road that has cars parked both side on the double yellows round a bend and 99% of the time there's a car coming down and we're both stuck in a traffic jam.

I totally agree with them being useless, but they are roundabouts and should be treated as such. As in, give way to the right, like a normal roundabout, not just sit there dithering about who's turn it is!

But if everyone at the roundabout has someone to their right . . . . . ?

Lorry drivers playing leap frog causing the left 2 lanes of motorways to be effectively blocked to faster vehicles and causing long tailbacks for other drivers trying to get into lane 3 to overtake. Very dangerous. On that old Eddie Stobart series, it showed two Stobart drivers, side by side, literally for miles, just leap frogging by a few feet, and then they both stopped at the same service station for their break. So neither of them actually got to the destination faster than the other, yet heaven knows how much congestion behind them they caused. And no, it wasn't just for the film crew, lorry drivers constantly do it.

Any drivers completely oblivious to their surroundings, i.e. not indicating to tell others what they're doing, driving too slowly looking at their phone, their map or just idly chatting to their kids or other passengers, suddenly braking without warning when they realise they've missed their turn or seen a parking space, oblivious to speed limits, so do the same 40 through a 30 mph built up area and then the same 40 on a clear open deregulated main road, randomly braking harshly to let a car in from a side road, it goes on and on.

People with heavy right foots who are constantly aggressively accelerating then aggressively braking when they could easily have just driven more smoothly to the next set of traffic lights or junction, so achieved nothing. Worse are the tail gaters who do it to you when you're trying to drive smoothly and you can see that you're going to have to stop at the next junction/queue etc so they'll achieve nothing even if they do bully you to go faster!

People who over react to speed cameras. You only have to be not exceeding the speed limit, they don't give you bonus points for how far under you are so why do so many people stand on the brakes and crawl past camera vans?
Aldo, there's a road near me that has a long stretch of average speed cameras. The speed limit is 60 mph. It's a busy but straight, wide road and yes, you do have to be a bit careful to make sure you don't creep over 60 over the duration of the cameras, that's the whole point of them after all. But so many people drop well below 60 "just in case" - it's infuriating. Last night I was behind someone who was driving perfectly sensibly until we got to the camera zone whereupon they slowed to 45mph. Unless they were planning to do 130 for the last couple of hundred metres I think they could be fairly sure they weren't going to get a ticket!

Following cars that brake every time a car passes them on the other side of the road!

It mostly annoys me on the lanes around my house which are wide enough for two cars in all but a few places. I accept that they might be more cautious if they don’t know the area but assuming that they do have eyes it’s pretty clear that you could pass in a large van nevermind a Honda Jazz… Its very hard not tail-gate when they’re slamming brakes on every 30 seconds for no discernible reason!

I don't mean to be rude, ok, I do, but do you actually drive?!
You wait til your right is clear, then go! It's a roundabout, not rocket science! Small roundabout, large roundabout, same principles apply! Or are large roundabouts near you different to the small ones? Is there just never always anyone to the right on the large ones? You just take your turn when appropriate!

Aggression.

Most 'quirks' of other people's driving are eminently manageable by not being a dick. Aggressive driving is dangerous and totally pointless.

(And no I'm not an anxious 35mph pootler, I'm a perfectly capable and confident driver)

I think it does happen more at mini roundabouts because they're, well...mini. At a proper roundabout the distance between entry/exit points means even if people do arrive at the roundabout at the the traffic usually continues to flow quite well. But at a mini roundabout in busy traffic there's very little space and you can easily get a car arriving at each entry point at the same time .
This happens loads at the mini roundabout at the entry to the supermarket I use. If you get people wanting to turn right into the supermarket, right out of the supermarket and straight across the main road all getting to the front of the queue at the same time you get exactly the situation the PP describes. Everyone has someone to their right and nobody can proceed without driving in front of someone else. It's fine if at least one of the drivers wants to turn left at the mini roundabout but there are combinations where everyone is going right or straight on that inevitably lead to a stand off. It's nothing to do with not understanding how roundabouts work.

It's a million to one chance that everyone arrived at that roundabout at exactly the same time. The person who gets there first has right of way to enter the roundabout, if no one else is already on it, it's almost certainly to be safe for them to enter and exit. It's not as if only one car can be on the roundabout at any one time, cars opposite each other can safely enter and leave the roundabout together and still leave adequate gap between them (as long as they go around it as far as possible rather than straight across it but even straight across, they'd still just simply pass each other as if the roundabout wasn't there).

If that genuinely happens, you enter the roundabout when someone else leaves it on the same road as you, thereby creating a gap for you to take their place. Not rocket science.

Tailgating.

By far the most dangerous activity on the roads IMO.

At busy roundabouts there is always someone to your right. So everyone sits there wondering who's turn it is to go.

Do you drive?

I can think of at least 3 local examples of mini roundabouts where the stand-off situation regularly occurs. They where all originally light controlled crossroads, which seemed to work fine until mini roundabouts became a thing around 30 years ago and were converted. The junctions are very busy with constant flows of traffic equally using all combinations of exits and entrances. They are also very small, where larger vehicles do not have the turning space to drive round, but have to drive over the roundabout road markings. Two of them are on bus routes too. There is not enough time or space to launch between working out who is going where and everything grinding to a halt - particularly when people don't indicate

O can think of a couple of mini roundabouts like this too - everyone just looks mystified as to whose right of way it is because technically everyone has right of way and there aren't enough gaps to enter in a gap. They were junctions previously too and worked perfectly well, but there must have been an underspend in the road budget that year or something and they decided to spend it on a circle of tar and some white paint.

Someone has to go first though, that's the problem. In crawling traffic, which there usually is at the junction I describe it is very common that traffic in all directions is moving so slowly that 3 people who all want to cross each others paths arrive at the miniroundabout simultaneously. Of course as soon as someone does move everyone can, but nobody clearly has right of way as everyone does have someone to their right who wants to enter the mini roundabout so there's usually hesitation. It would work I suppose if everyone set off at precisely the same time, were driving fairly small cars and traffic was flowing freely after all the exits but that's rare. Space is very tight and people are scared of being the first one to move in case they hit another car and then get blamed for going when there was a car to their right. It's absolutely fine if you go past at night, when most of the shops are closed and traffic is flowing but when it's busy I think the mini roundabout contributes to the congestion rather than solving it.Traffic lights with a filter for people wanting to turn right into the shops would work a lot better but I guess that costs more than a mini roundabout.

Yes I do and I have done for 30 + years. I've driven vehicles of all shapes and sizes, with never an accident or any points on my licence!
The only problems created at any roundabouts are the ditherers who clearly, just all of a sudden, don't seem to know who to give way to! And if they're supposed to be competent drivers, allowed to drive on the roads, then they really should! It's like all knowledge and common sense goes out of the window when they get to a roundabout!

Oh and to add another pet peeve, total lack of awareness of the width of their own vehicles! If you can't handle a larger vehicle, then get a smaller one!
Don't slam all on in front of me when you can clearly get a bus through that gap! There's being cautious and there's dangerous and the majority I see fall into the latter bracket!

So everyone just sits there watching an empty roundabout waiting for someone else to go? I don't think so. People will just make their own mind up and go, or someone will give a "go ahead" wave or flash to let someone else in. If everyone is slow or stationery, it's hardly a dangerous scenario. Common sense prevails and traffic will move.

If I come across a ditherer who technically has right of way but clearly doesn't understand and is dithering, then I'll just go anyway, obviously slowly and cautiously as if they're a ditherer they're probably more likely to make stupid moves too! I just maintain eye contact so I can watch their eyes to check they've seen me and know I'm proceeding - if they were looking away, then I'd be even more cautious as they may move off without looking if they finally realise they have right of way.

I know of a couple of these roundabouts. Normally someone just goes or it’s a case of you go no you go until someone does and then profuse thanking 😂

People who sit in a stationary car with the engine idling while on a phone, or for no apparent reason. It's noise pollution and air pollution. Why do it?

Ditherers who are slow away from traffic lights.

Though all ditherers, TBH…

You can not think so all you like - I use these roundabouts regularly and know exactly what happens.

Tail gating and the really bright car lights

Exactly! When roundabouts are poorly designed like this (because they are actually junctions replaced with a circle of tar) then it's no wonder there's confusion.