Why are people are such fucking awful drivers??

[NoWayNoHow]

I have nearly had 3 accidents in the last week, all because people genuinely don't know what the crap they're doing on the roads!

1st near miss, a really old man just cuts across me in traffic without indicating, making me absolutely anchor brakes, while his poor wife waves madly at me mouthing, "I'm so sorry!"

2nd, I'm driving down a bendy road, road bends completely to the left and as I come round the corner, a guy coming in the opposite direction is overtaking a frickin' bicycle on the bend - had to ramp the pavement to stop from getting hit, lucky I didn't burst a tyre.

And then this morning, I'm minding my own business driving down a residential road and when a huge pick-up truck jumps out of one of the side roads and would have driven right into the front of my car if I didn't put my brake pedal through the floor of the car.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?????

MurderofGoths does your town begin with a S, end with an N and have a Magic Roundabout in the middle?

Murder/Imperial - could it be HH? Another 'magic' roundabout town. I love that r.a.b.

The best example of shit driving I witnessed was a couple of years ago before I moved to where I live now.
Parking is on a residential street. Its dark and cold, I am sitting in my car waiting for the windows to demist. Behind me a car reverses into a space, there's a good 50 metres of clear space in front of him so by no means a tight squeeze. My lights are on and I notice he is getting quite close, I keep thinking he'll stop in a minute.

Not only does he reverse into my car but he keeps on going, pushing mine down the street. I start furiously beeping the horn, at which point he looks in his rearview mirror puzzled as to where that car behind him suddenly appeared from.

I avoided him like the plague after that, his car was never parked straight, I mean to the point of being unsafe and fooling other cars into thinking it may be pulling off.

Yanbu. I frequently drive in the outside lane of the motorway at 90, lit up like a Christmas tree only to have some idiot tailgating me and flashing lights to get me to move over because their journey is more important than mine. No it isn't. My blue lights trump your getting home any day.

My bugbear is those who drive with full beam lights on.

They haven't got a clue what they're for.

My car has an invisibility button some days! Even to pedestrians who walk right out in front of me as if I wasn't even there!!

Also my pet hate at the moment is when people stop dead to let someone out of a side road, if they bothered looking in their mirror they would see that other than me behind them the road is totally clear!!

It's the HH one, but it's not the magic roundabout with the problems

I was arriving back to where I live recently to see the biggest lorry I've ever seen pulling out, carrying the biggest crane I'd ever seen, trying to join traffic which is tricky to get into unless someone is generous and they never are

The lorry driver was on his phone! I just stood there like this ->

What bugs me most are the ones who stick two fingers up at me, or shout "cuck off you funt" at me when THEY are in the wrong.

The elderly man who pulled in out front of me while I was on a roundabout and received a polite toot of my horn then drove parallel with me up the dual carriageway, trying to ram his car into mine while screaming he was going to kill me - that was the worst.

Oh where I live is awful for this, there is one particular roundabout, which is clearly signposted both before the roundabout, at the approach to it and even on the lanes as you drive onto it. The amount of times I've nearly been hit on it is unbelievable. And a lot of my friends go on about what a nightmare it is. No. It's not. It's a spiral roundabout, unless you got your license at the braille academy then it was shown and explained to you during your lessons. Even people I know who sat their tests in Orkney understand the concept. You drive up, pick your lane and STAY IN IT.

And don't even get me started on tailgating. A couple of months ago I was driving home behind a cyclist (who happened to be my DH) and couldn't see round the blind corner in front of me. The van driver behind me, threw his hands in the air, flashed his lights and when I did finally overtake the bike gave me a slow clap. He then followed me home and waited meekly while I parked outside my house before driving around the corner to his own house. Arse. Like 60 seconds is going to make much difference on what was a three minute more journey home.

I took DS1 out today on quite a long trip. He takes his test in 2 weeks and is very competent, drives to the speed limit and doesn't hold any one up. We had a man behind us in a 307 estate flashing his lights and gesticulating, because obviously going 60 mph was not good enough for him, so he had to dangerously cut us up and sound his horn really loudly as he did so, on a round about.

Coming back, we came round a sharp left hand bend, to find a 4x4 in our lane, over taking another car! It was just as well DS1 is close to taking his test so could hit the brakes quickly and control the car, otherwise we probably would have been killed.

What winds me up is these idiots pay next to nothing in insurance premiums, but young kids have to pay through the bloody roof!

I've just had a scary drive home this evening trying not to get killed by a Merc driving tosser who cut me up 3 times weaving in & out of lanes without indicating, only one headlight working, stopping in the middle of a roundabout for no reason, chatting on his mobile while swerving all over the shop, before finally pulling up behind a bus doing a U-turn (clearly doing one) and blocking 4 lanes of traffic. Its been about the only time I've seriously contemplated getting out of the car & bollocking another driver.

Oh I agree, the standard of driving seems to have reached an all time low. Not a day goes by without some driver behaving like a twunt during my commute.

However, was recently coming home from hols on the motorway. Nighttime, late, 11pm ish. Both kids fast asleep in the back. Roadworks in central reservation...bright flashing orange lights, very noisy, massive 50mph signs everywhere with traffic cones. Went down to 2 lanes, we were in fast lane. Lots of traffic so we were completely stuck where we were. Car in front doing 50 . I have absolutely no idea where
the fucking moron in a massive articulated lorry that tailgated us thought we would move to. I honestly thought he was going to ram us. He then put his lights on full beam to dazzle us and pressed his horn for 5 MINUTES. I timed it.

We were terrified. I only wish we had got the bastards plates and / or who he was driving for from the lorry. Clearly he had missed the 50mph signs and wondered why everyone had slowed down. Dickhead.

yanbu i am sick of idiots who drive with their dipped lights on and there friggin fog lights. and the twunt that followed me yesterday had only one headlight working dont the prats realize that they cant see properly

Well it's marvellous to hear the angels chat so serenely about the real world. Immaculately perfect and they never make a mistake or lose patience with anyone else, even in the tiniest matter. They're all so mature, not young or inexperienced, tired, harassed or older and more cautious. Certainly not prepared to spend a single penny on having their own driving impartially re-evaluated. What I tell my pupils is to do their best, but look out for the 'other idiots' and make allowances for them. I've discovered that courtesy is contagious: help one other road user and they will help three others. You'll find your common sense and good deeds repaid within days! And maybe the worst clowns will eventually start following your example. Kill them with kindness! (See my YouTube channel SafedriverN)

Don't worry - it's the L plates they're cutting up, not the driver. Trust me, I'm a Grade 5 DSA Instructor. When I'm driving, I and my pupils get a laugh over it. Real life is better than television comedy, if you can see it that way.

Yes, until someone gets hurt, Avuncular. This is why bad driving irritates and frustrates us - because these people clearly don't realise they are in charge of a heavy, deadly weapon. They are safe inside their little bubbles, with no interest at all in the outside world, it seems.

We live in a semi rural area with a road that goes from too fast with steep hills to very slow with tight bends. One of the zigzagging tight bends has a series of humps at close intervals for about 300m along it as it is REALLY IMPORTANT to go slowly round the sharp blind bend.

The other day some dick overtook me on the hump. Actually alongside me on the wrong side of the road, on the bend, on the hump. There was literally nowhere to go if a car had been coming the other way. Words fail me at the way some people drive. Where are they going in such a tearing rush that they need to shave seconds off their journey and blow their stacks if they perceive they are held up for a micro second? It's terrifying.

I was walking my girls to school recently and a police car came tearing through our village with its lights and sirens blazing. Overtaking every parked car. Leaving no room or time for the lorry coming the other way which had to go up the pavement to avoid it. The pavement that I was walking along with my two dd's. Sometimes they run a bit ahead but thank The Lord they were actually right beside me and I just grabbed them out of the way. The lorry's wheels were bigger than they were. I was nearly sick with fright. Fair put the wind up me. Unfortunately I didn't get the number of the police car. He would have got a fucking rocket up his arse and no mistake.

This is some years ago - I was walking the boys home from school, when a driver decided he didn't want to wait until the lights ahead changed, and the queue of traffic moved off, so that he could turn left - so he simply headed up onto the pavement, where I was walking with my three primary school-age children!

I stood in front of his car, yelled at him and actually pounded on the bonnet until he reversed back onto the road - and then I told him off for not having strapped the child in the back of his car into a car seat.

Some people genuinely ought not to be allowed to have a licence or own a car.

My rule is to anticipate that everyone else will be unpredictable and treat them as a potential hazard.

Yesterday I was driving along the dual carriageway at night at 40mph because one lane was closed. Plenty of space between next and following cars. Suddenly, out of literally nowhere, a car pulled in front of me out of the blocked off lane. I don't even know how he got in the lane in the first place but I didn't see him until he was right in front of me and I had to slam my brakes on. I think the idiot thought he could just slot in between the cars but the lanes are divided by posts atm so driving through the gap slowed him right down. Dick.
I actually wish that stupidly reckless drivers end up having a non serious crash - one that fucks up their cars and teaches them a lesson.

Yes I've had a few oddos this week too. Sort of 'wtf are you doing!' moments.

Mind you I did figure something out last night in the dark, coming back from a hospital trip that was an utter waste of time.

I figured out why, possibly, women are perceived as probably worse drivers than men.

It's because we've been generally brought up to think we are, ie, when I was young (Ok many moons ago) all the little boys I knew were actively involved with motor vehicles in either maintenance capacity or 'driving' stuff or playing with toy cars, or all three.

It wasencouraged among them, massively, and actively discouraged in girls (I know - the trouble I got when I was interested in model railways - shocking) and we got laughed at whenever we expressed an interest.

Thus we, or I'm certain a lot of us, grew up feeling like we would never be accepted by men as drivers or as able to fix cars or anything like that. We never had the early background in it. We were excluded.

And NOW they get to laugh at us for being crap at driving, when really, we're just disadvantaged and it was never our fault.

Saying this fully aware that most women are just as good as most men, but we've had to learn as teenagers or adults while a lot of them were sat on their dad's lap as a young boy and told how to drive right there.

Makes me really cross...and it means that if women ARE ever worse at driving, it's probably for that reason, not because we are women - just because we were never shown the ropes when we were kids.

(sorry to bring gender into it - hope it won't start anything - just a revelation that needed a gender based aibu thread to go on, and there wasn't one)