To ask you to share the worst examples of bad driving you have seen recently?

[Mycatsabastard]

I have witnessed some truly spectacular examples of bad driving in the last week.

The worst by far was the car on the outside lane of the M3 who realised he was going to miss the junction he needed. So he stopped. In the outside lane. Then indicated left. Everyone had to stop to prevent a mass pile up so he very calmly just turned left and drove across all the lanes of traffic and then across the chevrons onto the slip road (where cars were still exiting at high speed). I truly hope that was caught on camera and he's hammered with points on his license!

On the same journey on a normal road (with a 60mph speed limit) a police car came up behind with blue lights on. All the cars on my side were slowing and pulling over (but not stopping) except the car in front which panicked at the last minute and just slammed the brakes on in the middle of the lane which caused the police car to have to drive on the other side of the road and everyone else to have to stop as well.

Some people shouldn't have a driving license!

Oh yes, France most of it, especially where parents holiday home is (SW) they happily overtake 2 cars at a time on a hairpin bend.

No surprise to learn quite a few road traffic fatalities in France in recent years.

Another one that I actually reported to the police. Following a women who was really dangerously tailgating a car in front of her and braking nearly the entire 20 minute journey because she was so close. it's a road that is almost 30 the whole way apart from a few sections where it goes to 50 or 40 for a few hundred yards.

There was a long line of cars all travelling at the limit so it wasn't particularly slow and there was no way she could overtake as no spaces to pull in she was just being a twat. I had to go slower to keep distance as I couldn't actually see the lights of the car in front and so had no way of knowing if we were braking for a reason or the tailgater was braking because they were trying to drive into the cars boot.

Eventually we get to a junction where our road goes straight on and there's a side road joining on the left. The tailgating woman indicates right and the oncoming traffic stops for her assuming she is turning into a driveway. Only she doesn't, she tries to pull a u-turn and gets stuck half blocking the oncoming traffic. A car has been let out of the side road in the meantime because no one thought she'd do a bloody u-turn and is blocking my side of the road so pulls past her. She starts honking and swearing at everyone because now she needs to reverse and pull a 3 point turn on a main road and they are 'blocking her in'. She then tried reversing into the side of my car as I was waiting behind her and swore at me for being in the way, pulled forward and got even more stuck half across the pavement and the road needing to reverse into traffic again. There was now enough room for both lanes of traffic to keep moving round her so they did just that.

I'd obviously usually wait and let that car sort themselves out but she'd got herself into the situation by being so intent on bullying the car in front of her she'd forgotten where she was going. Who pulls a u-turn out of no-where on a busy main road??

I actually know somebody who thinks those on the main road at a mini roundabout have right of way. None of this give way to your right business! She also thinks that if someone is overtaking a line of parked cars and then another car appears with right of way the original car should reverse (obviously if you're both there at the same time the one on the right side has right of way but that's not what she thinks)

Car with big trailer moved into my lane on a dual carriageway. I had to do an emergency stop, and even then I only missed them by an inch. I think they had forgotten they had a trailer.

Actually sorry I should say I know it is legal to do u-turns on main roads, I just meant on a main road albeit a narrowish one with a steady stream of traffic on both sides!

DP and I were in bed one night a few weeks ago when we heard a car pull up playing loud 1950s rock and roll music. Got out of bed and looked out of the window; there was a middle aged man sitting in the driver's seat, bopping away to the music. After a couple of minutes he turned off the engine and got out. He was clearly steaming drunk: he staggered out of the car and practically rolled across the street. I wish I'd reported him now, but I figured by the time the police turned up he'd be in his house fast asleep, and I didn't want to spend the whole night giving a statement.

God knows how far he'd driven; it's a miracle he hadn't killed anyone because he could barely stand, let alone drive.

The worst I've seen was the prat who ran a red pedestrian light almost running over my daughter and her friend at the time. Luckily friends mum was close enough to grab them and stop them walking into the road. Drive was going so fast we didn't even see if it was a man or a woman, it's a 30 mile limit as well.

The most recent worst example, was the man who drove down our road with his child on his knee. He seemed to be allowing his child to stear the car, I noticed because of the erratic driving. Now be may have though it was a quite road but there is a public foot path that cuts across our road and people do race up and down or street. I really do wish I'd reported him.

Last Friday when the sun and the lure of the weekend was too much for the drivers on my road I had :-

1. A camper van pull out in front of me onto the A road I was on. It's a 60mph, nice straight bit of road, but my 6th sense said he was going to do something stupid, so I slowed a bit and put my foot over the brake. Sure enough - he pulled out and I had to do an emergency stop.

1. On the way home a bloke in some fancy BMW coming towards me overtook on a corner. Again, had to slam on my brakes and get right into the side

Example of my bad driving:
There's a private road near where I live which has a fake "zebra crossing" on it. It's immediately after a bend in the road.
Someone was half way across it and I nearly ran them over as I could not see them due to the blind spot where the windscreen meets the side window whilst coming around the corner (doing about 15mph).
I know I was in the wrong but that "zebra crossing" is soooooo unsafe!

I don't drive that frequently but a couple of years ago I had a couple of months where I did lots of driving in the UK, Europe and US. I think I pulled out on to the wrong side of the road almost every other day. Always quiet country roads, hence I didn't have other cars as a reference, and never in any real danger but I am now hyper-vigilant when driving abroad. Not proud of myself, particularly as I consider myself a good driver generally.

Today we (DH driving) were approaching a busy roundabout that frequently has large lorries on it. There were about two people in front, so we slowed down. There's a reservation that separates the left and right sides of the road as you approach the roundabout. Then the idiot behind us drove at speed down the wrong side of the road (and so the wrong side of the reservation) and onto the roundabout. I don't know how he avoided being hit by the lorry coming the other way.

Not recently, but the worst three I have seen are:

• a woman applying mascara to her eyelashes while driving at 80 mph in a motorway.
• a woman who parked in the central carriage way of a main road roundabout, to use her mobile (perhaps she thought it was a little circular park in the middle of the road?)

• my sister, she is always texting while driving. There are no words you can tell her to stop her doing that, reporting to the police will only work if they catch her while doing it but what are the chances?

Nears me there is a roundabout it has a two lane approach and 3 exits it's signposted and has very very clear markings.

Right lane is straight over or right, left lane is left only almost hourly someone goes straight over from the left lane usually narrowly missing the car in the correct lane

This happened a few years ago, but I shouldn’t think it’s a unique occurrence. I live in an old town[*].

One main road going out of town is just about wide enough for two buses to pass each other. Half-way up this main road is the hospital. It was going-home time, so a long line of traffic going out. I had just left work and was walking down the road. There was an ambulance, lights and sirens, steaming up the road to A&E. Drivers were doing their best to squeeze in to give it room – except for the laughing, smug bastard who was tailgating the ambulance, actually waving at all of us who were looking . If the ambulance driver had had to hit the brakes – which could have happened as there were traffic lights just ahead to allow pedestrians to cross over the road – that smug bastard would have gone into the back of the ambulance.

But, hey, he got a free ride out of town‼! – except he wouldn’t have, as he’d have had to rejoin the queue after the ambulance had turned in to A&E.

[*]Winchester – for anyone either familiar with the town or has had the dubious pleasure of driving through. Goodness only knows how the emergency drivers get through, but they do, partly because most drivers aren’t smug bastards.

Daily I'm astonished by the drivers who sit in an inappropriate lane. Lifeistooshort if you are regularly undertaken can I recommend you move over unless you are actually overtaking?

It is dangerous, illegal and causes accidents and traffic not to do so. I'm delighted to hear there is actually a campaign about it.

I don't undertake myself, but middle or fast lane drivers frustrate me enormously unless they are overtaking.

Saw a great one tonight. Some bare-chested knuckle-dragger in a van tried three times to force his way across three stationary lines of traffic because he was trying to get ahead by jumping lanes in a jam. He was cut off every time and ended up having a shouting match with a motorcyclist he almost knocked off.

We have a dual carriageway out of town here that is formed by two single lanes joining. One comes from town, one from elsewhere, and they join alongside each other to make one side of the dual carriageway. So on one of them you can be driving along and then they join and you can find yourself in the fast, right hand side lane. If you can imagine that at all!

When joining as the fast lane, I have had:

• idiot man who didn't check his mirrors who just pulled out on me and missed me by a whisker. I was shaking after that.

• cyclists who are joining the dual carriageway from the road that becomes the fast lane and end up in the middle of the road. Terrifying. Why you wouldn't avoid I have no idea, it's a 60, but people will go 70+.

Further along the same road I've seen people brake on the slip roads to join and stop with their indicators on. So dangerous.

Living in rural Cornwall, the holidays always bring out some shocking driving.

foreign tourists on the wrong side of the road- a couple of times I've had to avoid cars either pulling onto the wrong side from a junction and driving right at me, or looking the wrong way at a junction and pulling out in front of people. There's a crossroads near me that sees almost weekly incidents due to this during summer hols.

Slightly more, ahem, senior drivers who, frankly, should no longer be on the road. A neighbour of mine is near blind and all but immobile (takes minutes to get from door to car) but still drives. Zero lane control, cuts corners, pulls out hoping for th best , etc. I live very near several of the big 'great gardens' of Cornwall so lots of older drivers doing random shit and wreaking havoc. Not to mention massive coaches on tiny single lane roads. That's always fun.

Holiday makers who seem to think everyone in Cornwall is on holiday and don't mind cruising down country roads st 20, chatting away, looking everywhere except the road in front. Pull over and let me by, I've got stuff to do!

Sorry for the off topic rant!

There really needs to be a crackdown on people who fiddle with their phones while driving.

I was waiting to cross the road a few days ago, had DC with me. A car was going around the roundabout next to the crossing point (quiet street, speed limited, he was exceeding it). He was going around it and around it, on his mobile phone the whole time. I said to the DC that we'd walk up to the other crossing point further up the road because I didn't know which way he was going to turn or when or how fast he'd be going when he did, my exact words were "we'll walk up there while the man either picks an exit or ends his call and pays attention". No way could he have heard me but he must have seen the look on my face because he wound his window down called me a "fucking cunt" and said that he was entitled to be on his "fucking phone" if he wanted to. I invited him to wrap his car around the nearest lamppost. Dick.

On the M25 once, going anti clockwise, got to J10 for the A3 which was stationary on the slip road, but all main M25 lanes were clear and thus going at 70mph.

Cue some woman stupid cunt who decides she no longer wants to sit in stationary traffic pulling out over the chevrons right where the motorway and slip road properly separate, from stationary in to 70mph traffic. Inside lane driver, middle lane (me), and outside lane driver narrowly escaped a pile up.

Took a while for my heart rate to settle after that one.

Recently a local woman decided to reverse on a 40mph road (after a semi blind bend - until recently this was a 50mph) because she had overshot her exit. A sensible van driver stopped early enough to stop traffic ploughing in to her from behind. I and the lady in the car in the next lane just sat staring, mouth agape. It certainly made waiting for our light to turn green much more interesting.

I saw someone who decided they couldn't be bothered to wait in traffic so drove along the pavement Yes, fully on the pavement as if it was road). So dangerous due to the fact he was driving alongside flats with pedestrian entrances with poor visibility due to foliage (and the fact you are not expecting a CAR TO BE DRIVING ON TGR PAVEMENT!

He then parked fully on the pavement presumably outside his garden wall

And my absolute highlight:

DP's DM and her DH live abroad. We visited once, and we'd gone out for a meal in the next town. On the way back H overshot the junction, stopped, reversed about 100 yards, and merrily trundled off the exit as if it was perfectly normal behaviour.

DP and I just stared at each other in terror, mouth agape, totally and utterly lost for words.

We hire a car every time now.

And previously whilst waiting to pull out if the carpark of my sons scout hut into traffic I saw a truck (Humvee?) drive on the wrong side of the road around a pretty much 90° blind corner, along the narrow pavement past the door to the local train station which opens straight onto the pavement (luckily no one was coming out of they would have been pate). Then continued around another blind corner on the wrong side of the road, paused briefly before roaring up the wrong side of the road for about 300 ft!

All to avoid sitting in traffic. Wanker