Drivers who keep stopping to let traffic out of side roads. Grrr.

[MardyBra]

Ok, it's fair enough in really slow moving traffic, but this week I seem to be plagued with drivers who disrupt the normally flowing traffic (20mph or so) to "helpfully" let people out.

What about helping the people who are driving behind you by keeping going?

[TitaniumSpider]

Paula I was taught that you should never flash your lights to indicate to somebody that they can go because if they go and then get hit by another car they can claim that you were telling them that it was OK to go. No idea if that is correct or whether or not I was taught a load of rubbish.

Either way, the highway code says that you should only flash your headlights to let another driver know that you are there.

[TitaniumSpider]

www.drivingtesttips.biz/flashing-headlights.html

[Buzzardbird]

I don't like it when people 'aggressively' flash their lights.

[FlyRussianUnicorn]

YABU OP. Unless a car is stopping to let out 20 cars at a time, then YANBU. I let one or two out and drive along myself.

I imagine you get pretty pissed off yourself when nobody lets you out.

[LeaLeander]

Traffic patterns exist for a reason.

People who gratify their own emotional need for approval by stopping in unmarked and unexpected places to let side-road motorists out are creating a dangerous situation and totally disregarding the safety of the people behind them - let alone the value of the time of the people behind them.

Why should you be able to deem that the person behind you, who has the actual right of way, is more fit to stop and wait in traffic than the person on the side road, who does NOT have the right of way?

Do us all a favor and stick to the existing traffic rules.

[MistressChalk]

I have a shitty junction to get out of every day on my way to work, it's at the top of a very narrow and steep hill onto a NSL road. It's always busy with heavy traffic but every morning people on the main road stop to let people out of my junction otherwise it would mean us pulling out onto a fast road with a blind corner every time there's a slight gap. If one side of traffic stops, so does the other (in most cases).
My pet hate though is people driving right up to a giveway line and hang their nose a good metre over the edge so you're forced to let them out. Though sometimes I make a point of driving round their nose if the road is clear the other way and there is only a car or two behind me.

[MrsGuyOfGisbo]

limitedperiodonly
- loving that Diana connection

[MardyBra]

You should put that Diana thing on the conspiracy thread.

[Sparklingbrook]

I can't even look at that conspiracy thread. I would be tutting.

[MrsGuyOfGisbo]

I do this completely randomly depending on how I am feeling/if their car is old,/if they look like a nice person/if they are not over the white line in a ne entitled way.
If it is a problem, just leave home 5 mins earlier and use the time usefully listening to the Today programme - lots of good stuff on there.

[limitedperiodonly]

I'm glad you've asked that coldlightofday because a surprisingly large number of people aren't interested at all.

For a start, I was on holiday and so was Diana, which is chilling coincidence because it was August and though millions of people do, not everyone goes on holiday then. For instance, my mum, who really liked Diana, wasn't because she was watering my plants and looking forward to a break in the Highlands in the first week in October when the weather is still nice but the midges have gone.

Diana and I were in different countries but still on the same continent. She and Dodi had enjoyed dinner at the Paris Ritz and DH and I had had some tapas and fallen asleep in front of the telly in our hotel room - tellingly not the one that DH's dad owned. His dad never owned a hotel. In fact, his dad was dead at the time, which was the fate to befall Dodi and Diana in the early hours of that fateful morning. Spooky.

Something woke me up. It was a pressing need to do a wee, so you could say I felt something in my water. DH was snoring delicately. The TV was tuned to Sky News. It was disorientatingly out of focus because I was pissed and didn't have my glasses on. When I found them I read that Diana had been in a car accident in Paris. I stumbled to the loo. When I emerged - I can't tell you the timeframe; like Narnia, when you're pissed, what is an entire lifetime is but a moment, but in reverse - she was gone.

[TitaniumSpider]

I would be tutting too Sparkling but I am tempted to go on there but I know it wouldn't end well.

[brightnearly]

I have badgers in my garden. They poo in the flowerbed.

[TitaniumSpider]

That's nothing bright the badgers in my garden dance the night away, I got a video of them recently.

[Careypjc]

In France and Belgium, unless your road is signed as having priority, you must give way to traffic joining your road from the right. I believe this rule was introduced by Napoleon.

[Janeymoo50]

I always do it if possible, it makes for a more pleasant and caring driving community in general (especially if I see it's a woman/or man 😊 with three young kids in the car as that's stressful enough on some school mornings).

[LeaLeander]

Is it pleasant and caring toward the people waiting behind your vehicle?

[Ginslinger]

i've just looked at the conspiracy theories - it's given me a headache. i think there could be a good conspiracy theory around walnut whips and traffic

[knittingwithnettles]

Yanbu, one of the routes I take is often clogged with traffic, and then some people try and queue jump by using the back roads to get round the clogged bit ifysim, and turning into the major road at the last point before the traffic lights, It is sooo frustrating to let them in (but I do sometimes) Why can't they wait like the rest of us in the main artery and it would move so much faster.... Sometimes you just get stuck for what feels like hours before you can cross the main junction while kind people let these spoilt prima donnas in who have been revving round the rat runs. Only those who live in that road should be allowed out!!!!!

On the other hand it is probably the town planners' fault, it is usually is.

[knittingwithnettles]

Or Napoleon.

[Coldlightofday]

limited the only question left is why we haven't seen you in The Daily Mail clutching a can of coke to your heaving bosom and channelling Di through the medium of a well placed 80s haircut.

[limitedperiodonly]

I once let a nice car out - an immaculate vintage Triumph Stag in scarlet - and was so busy saying how lovely it was to DH that I failed to notice the traffic was coming to a halt and bumped it.

Chrome bumpers are lovely but there is a reason why they've been replaced by grey composite ones.

[toohardtothinkofaname]

I let people out if there are cars behind but keep going if there's a natural gap. What is a PITA is when people waiting to be let out aren't even looking at the oncoming traffic so when you flash they miss it & it takes even longer! 😁

[limitedperiodonly]

I've let many other cars out since then. The Triumph Stag is the only one I've bashed into. But I can totally see why the driver was a bit upset.

[SisterMoonshine]

I let people out. And one time, I did slow up at 2 side roads in a row to let people out and the car behind was beeping at me.
I looked in the mirror and it wasn't even the driver beeping - the bloke in the passenger seat next to the woman driver was leaning over to the horn swearing!