Who was BU here - traffic incident

[JuanPotatoTwo]

www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/News/Areas/Maidenhead/Video-captures-railway-bridge-stand-off-between-two-drivers-which-held-up-traffic-for-more-than-30-minutes-23092015.htm

I'm sorry, I haven't worked out how to embed videos yet but, in a nutshell, two drivers come face to face under a railway bridge. The woman has right of way but the man refuses to reverse - claiming he doesn’t know how! It's one of those bridges where you can't always see the traffic you're supposed to give way to until you're already part way through so he should have been prepared to reverse.

Of course, if he really can't reverse, then he shouldn't be driving so it seems like the man is totally in the wrong - but I can't help feeling sorry for him. The video is fascinating if only to see how determined they both are.

I think the woman was being bloody stupid. It was clearly easier for her to reverse out, while the man had to reverse further and round a bit of a bend - OK not a big bend, but she had no bend at all. Also, she was closer to her entrance than he was to his.

However, if he really couldn't reverse then obviously he shouldn't have been there at all. But I don't believe he didn't know how to reverse, he just preferred to look incompetent than back down, so he is a twat.

This is were I confess to my one and only road rage incident....mine only last 5-10 mins though
In London driving up a really long straight residential street with parked cars on either side only room for one car to go through the middle.
On one side there are two turnings off - where you can pull in to let someone go. Just a the bottom there is one 'drive' entrance -narrow to an off road parking space and there was one parking space on the same side of the road as the junctions.
I think it started off as a misunderstanding - the minibus drove past the two wide junction gaps -the second one just as I was driving past the parking space. He had obviously expected me to pull into the parking space (quite tight and on his side) to let him past.
But as I turned into the street a car was right behind me -I thought it was still behind me so the gap wouldn't have been big enough so I drove past (can only assume that car had turned up the entrance to the off street parking -which I had never seen a car do before!) expecting the mini bus to wait in the junction. We ended up nose to nose. Both about the same distance from somewhere we could pull in, one big, one small space, both on the minibus's side of the road. One of us needed to reverse...
I usually drive in a way to keep the traffic going - so I will slow down/let someone go etc, wait for someone to get past park cars. Common sense more than right of way. I don't drive with my ego.

But something snapped inside and I thought you selfish twat. Even without a car behind me it would have been easier for him to wait in the wide gap...it would be easier for him to reverse. Made worse by the gestures etc he was making at me...I turned the engine off and got out to talk to him (tell him he should have waited and should reverse). But he was swearing at me, telling me I shouldn't be driving etc blah blah. Fucking women drivers etc.

I just thought fuck you. I said well I'm not going to reverse so looks like we will be here a long time ... I went back to my car and started getting my stuff together (lived near there), got out the car and locked the door and started walking off home ...past the minibus.

A car was stuck behind the minibus and the driver (male) was telling him just to back up...now look what you've done mate we'll be stuck here all day etc. You shouldn't expect a woman to back up, you know they can't reverse. . The minibus started reversing - I got back in my car and quickly reversed back down into the space...the minibus driver actually hesitated for a minute - think he was thinking about a new stand off where we both sat in the spaces neither of us prepared to drive past
In this case I wasn't there so don't know but I think they were both in the wrong. Actually I think the woman was slightly more in the wrong as it did seem that she was closer to the start of the tunnel so he was already in the tunnel when she entered it. As someone else said she (or indeed he) might have done the twat accident causing thing of speeding up to prove a point. (Have had this overtaking a lorry on the dodgy two A roads near where I live - I misjudged it slightly - took longer than I thought, couldn't drop back in cos of queue of cars - the car coming towards me instead of slowing down actually speeded up, I only just made it ...a really near miss - what a fuckwit). It is hard to tell though from that video... I also think the bloke was being a stubborn fool.
I think people were shouting at her more because he had the window up etc - so less available. Maybe if someone had said to him - 'back up mate, you know women can't reverse' she would have reversed and the whole thing wouldn't have even made the news....

Not sticking up for the woman but my BIL sometimes drives my sister's convertible BMW.

She gets quite a lot of shit from people like tootiredtoknow who make strange judgments about her purely because she has a nice car. He doesn't.

I guarantee you that those men would not have crowded round him with various degrees of patronisation and menace telling him to 'just reverse love'.

I don't know why. If I had to guess I'd say it's because he's late forties, and is a large builder with tattoos and muscles .

In fact I'm sure they'd have been falling over themselves calling him 'mate' and admiring his car

Mind you, he's a sensible person so would have have reversed and got himself and his nice car well out of striking distance of the other driver.

I think it's difficult to say who was in the right because we only see it from 10 minutes in. As Tiggytape said, there is a possible scenario where he accelerated on seeing her enter the tunnel.

However, it is possible to say who was in the wrong because it is both of them. Her for not just swearing to herself and backing up and him for not backing up and claiming a inability to do so. So, he is either a twat or an unsafe driver and she is just a twat.

Limited I have two less than three year old land rover discoveries and a range rover sport. We also have a variety of classic cars. Like I said before I am not jealous of her car.

She should be absolutely ashamed of herself. I hope she reads this.

My ultimate lack of respect for the woman ultimately comes from the fact that she ignored the woman who needed to get to her daughter. Teenager or not, we don't know the circumstances. We live in the country, I wouldn't dream of letting any child of mine regardless of age walk the lanes due to the amount of twats that think the winding roads are race tracks.

I didn't say you were jealous of the car tootiredtoknow. I said you made strange judgments about the people driving them.

I don't care what vehicles you drive but as it appears to be important to you I'll disclose that mine is a bus and the other one is a taxi.

You may not have said it limited but you implied it...make strange judgments about her purely because she has a nice car

Our cars aren't important to me at all. They are an expensive bind that are unfortunately a. necessary due to the nature of our work and b. important for the safety of my children due to the fact that twatty drivers, who 7 times out of 10 look just like this lady use the local winding lanes as race tracks. I've lost count of how many times I've ended up diving in bushes so to avoid an accident while the lady in the open top carries on up the middle of a very narrow two lane road oblivious

I did more than imply it. I stated it. You not only judged her by the car she drove, you sneered about its age.

I think cars are rather more important to you than you realise.

But as I said, I mostly travel on buses these days and everyone with any sense gives way to them.

Both drivers are in the wrong here. If the man is incapable of reversing his car then he shouldn't be even driving in the first place, the woman is just a bloody minded idiot. Yes, it may have been her right of way but sometimes you have to give and take a bit whilst driving. I'm not surprised the other people were getting irate, they probably had places they needed to get to.

Elderly drivers are very dangerous and I really do feel there should be an upper age limit for driving. A few years back I saw a fire engine with with all its lights and sirens going get stuck behind a very elderly looking woman pootling along like she had all the time in the world. She didn't make any attempt to pull over, and even slowed down at one ! In the end they had to overtake her (very busy main road), and the traffic coming in the opposite direction had to give way instead. All of which could have been avoided if she'd had just pulled over!

Whoever was in the right, the question here is - is this really worth it? some battles just aren't worth fighting.

The man should not be on the road if he can't reverse. It's part of the driving test! And by the looks of his reversing skills, he really can't do it. What an irresponsible fool. Glad I don't live in Maidenhead with him on the road.

I'm not surprised the bystanders were shouting at both drivers. I'd be furious if idiocy and stubbornness was the reason I couldn't get to pick my children up on time.

Why did nobody call the police?

kungfu did you scare it to death?

I would be very interested to hear what they were both saying in response to the entreaties of the passers by. And although there were a couple of horrible aggressive misogynistic comments, there were also (it seemed) some nice patient people trying to resolve the situation - eg, the man in the orange shirt.

The police were called Magical but the road had cleared before they could respond.

Very difficult to comment not having seen how the whole thing came about. Having watched the video and seen the posts from the pp who lives in the area, I am firmly with SoupDragon on this one. How would some of those men feel if someone spoke to their wife/mother/sister like that? Pure intimidation. And the male driver didn't look scared - just resolute. If he can't reverse, he should be on the road.

Unfortunately for the woman driver, the direction she was travelling from is clearly busier. If there had been queues behind the pair of them I wonder how hints would have unfolded then?

As for the mother allegedly worried about her teenage daughter, that was clearly just intended to guilt trip someone else who was possibly a mother into moving her car.

I can't help thinking that if that happened near me, the cars in the queue would have moved forward to right behind the woman to get the guy to reverse.

She gets quite a lot of shit from people like tootiredtoknow who make strange judgments about her purely because she has a nice car. He doesn't.

I guarantee you that those men would not have crowded round him with various degrees of patronisation and menace telling him to 'just reverse love'.

This, really. Whoever was right or wrong, there seems to have been rather a lot of jealous misogyny directed at the woman.

I ride my horse on single-track lanes. It's amazing how many people who drive cannot actually reverse. I stick to the general rule that whoever is nearer a passing place should go back to it (or in the horse's case, turn around). A surprising number of drivers stick to a "no, you're on a horse, you turn around" rule. Now if they're in a tractor, or have a trailer, fair enough. But if they're just in a car, why? If I turn around, which I'm happy to do if I'm the one nearer a passing place, you will be stuck behind him going at 6mph max because faster than that is not good for my horse's legs. And if you piss me off by making me turn around and go back 250 yards when you could reverse 30 yards and drove past a passing place when I was clearly visible, then I will let the horse do his 1mph funeral walk.

However, I have learned that if you do force the driver to reverse, say for example if another car is behind you, often the reason they don't volunteer to reverse in the first place and do the "But you're on a horse" thing is because they're just shit at reversing.

not be on the road!

kungfu did you scare it to death? shock

I don't think so There were quite a few feathers on the ground so I'm guessing it had a run-in with something, landed, died and just didn't get round to falling over. It looked pretty intact though.

It's still there. I'm hoping a fox will come and take it away as my morning sickness is not going to stand up to disposing of a dead bird.

To give some context, there are road works in the vicinity which mean many more drivers are forced to use this route at the moment, which I guess can lead to lack of patience.

From the man's end, you can see if anyone is waiting to enter from the opposite end, but there is also a bend on the approach, so if she was travelling fast, he could easily have set off without seeing her. The right of way is only to determine who should go first if drivers arrive at the same time. It does not give drivers the right to set off into the tunnel and force oncoming traffic to reverse.

So, IMO, the woman was in the wrong on two counts:
-in the spirit of the highway code the man had possession of the tunnel, she should have waited; and
-in the spirit of being a good citizen she had the opportunity to resolve the situation and deliberately chose not to.

I did think that the comment about anything happening to the teenage daughter and her friend were stupid. As a teenager I was travelling to a city 12 miles away on my own on the bus most weekends. People don't half mollycoddle their teens these days, how the hell are they ever supposed to learn to stand on their own two feet if their parents are still wiping their arses for them?

Millionsofpeaches- in your situation you were bad mannered and wrong. You saw a vehicle approaching the bridge where he had right of way yet continued on ignorantly then used totally irrelevantly used the fact your kids had chickenpox as a justification for being an arse.
WTF my mind really does boggle the more of these driving threads I read.

Old bloke has illegal number plates on his car - no doubt he has no idea about that, either.

Cut him some slack - you don't need legal plates when you are "approaching the end of your driving life"

You saw a vehicle approaching the bridge where he had right of way yet continued on ignorantly

No, she saw a car approaching and judged that she would be clear of the bridge before he arrived at it. He then saw her and sped up.