To think the roads are becoming more unsafe

[Solonelywastheballard]

I've been driving for 16 years and never had an accident. I've lived in two major cities and driven all over the country.

I would consider myself an experienced and very good driver. I've never had an issue on the roads. Until this last month.

Two weeks ago a man became very very aggressive with me. I was really shaken for a while, he looked like a proper thug. This was because I overtook a parked car when he was coming in the opposite direction. I had plenty of time to get round, it's a 20 mph road with speed bumps. He deliberately sped right up, zoomed up to me as I was passing the parked car didn't stop until he was almost touching my bumper, I reversed out the way, he the drove beside me and started spouting abuse at me, calling me a stupid foreign bitch. I thought he was going to get out the car and rip my head of he was so angry. (I'm English and white btw)

Then today I stopped at a roundabout to give way to a car on the right and a van driver drove up the back of me. Another tattooed thug. Shouting about how I shouldn't have stopped I should just have carried on driving to keep the flow of traffic moving. I've noticed people have less and less regard for giving way at roundabouts, he's obviously one of them. I said he needed to take a driving course because you have to giveway to the right.

My dh has also had two road rage incidents in the last couple of weeks while I've been in the car - one was a thug on a bike.

I feel like the roads aren't safe and the world is being taken over by bully boy men. Right now I don't want to get behind the wheel again but my DS is disabled and I need to drive for him.

Is anyone else feeling like the roads are becoming lawless or is it just me.

Thanks fern

It’s strange you’re just going about your business and stuff happens....
I’m not sure what happened in the woman’s life to make her lose it so badly but unfortunately there will be serious consequences for her.
It’s just all so unecessary

who left the gate open at the cunt farm

My personal hate is when you're coming up the slip road onto the motorway and the cars already on it are spaced too closely for the speed they are going. You'll be glancing right to identify a gap, speed matched to the other cars, and the arseholes speed up to close off the gap, even when you're running out of slip road. If you get desperate and try to edge into a gap they get furious if you cause them to so much as tap their brakes or move into the (much more clear) overtaking lane and start tailgating and flashing.

It's OK if the motorway traffic is crawling as you can just stop if you run out of road and keep indicating, waiting for someone to let you like a normal junction, but if they're doing about 50 and nobody will let you on, what are you supposed to do when you have very nearly run out of road? It's not as if I want them to make acres of clear road just for me, I just hate trying to wedge another car into a gap between two cars that was already much much shorter than the safe stopping distance between them. Options are
a) brave the rage, force your way on into a tiny gap and hope one of the ragers doesn't go into the back of you
b) hold your nerve and keep indicating in the hopes of some normal kind person taking pity on you and making you a reasonably safe gap, until you're coming up to the safe stopping distance from the end of the slip road, then check your rearview and slap the anchors on, leaving yourself stranded at the end of the slip road trying to get on from a standing start and keeping an eye on the rearview in case you need to stick the hazards on
c) just treat the hard shoulder as an extension of the slip road and drive along it, dropping back a bit and matching, dropping back a bit and matching, indicating and trying to make eye contact until you find somebody who isn't an arse to let you on.

Interestingly, it's often the lorry drivers or trailer- towers, who can least easily brake, that voluntarily steady up briefly to let you join. Van drivers or anyone who drives as part of their living seem to be more decent than car drivers IME. I always thank anyone who makes a gap for me!

The only time I am deliberately arsey to other road users is when someone has blatantly used a filter left lane to jump a very slow moving queue and is trying to barge back in. I'm not going out of my way to help them..unless they have been sufficiently punished by all the cars they skipped holding fast and refusing to let them back in...there's a nice communal "I love it when a plan comes together" feeling when that happens. I suppose if they had the hazards on and looked a bit frantic I'd relent in case they're doing a hospital dash or something.

who left the gate open at the cunt farm

That's too good not to steal.

As a bloke, road rage in my area has definitely gone up as has the sheer amount of aggression on the roads. Then you factor in lack of manners, lack of indication, slow/fast drivers and it's very clear there are many incidents.

The decline in serious, and minor, incidents is likely more due to the advances in vehicle design, with motors designed to crumple on impact.

Road management and planning is severely lacking in too many drivers I see too.

I find too that people don't like to give way when you have right of way on a straight road (eg when there's cars parked on their side but not yours and you're already proceeding past them).

Oh yes, this with bells on. I often travel a rural road and see this every single time there, and across the half county I travel.

there are days that I drive home wondering who left the gate open at the cunt farm

Legendary comment!!!

So perhaps these people know they’re going to get away with their aggressive behaviour, so just do whatever they want.

This.

The police want more people to have dash cams and submit videos of dangerous driving to the police. At first I thought it was a bit twatty grassing on people. But now I think this is the way to go. I'd definitely get a dash cam if I could afford it.

Summer holidays - more cars on the road and less tolerance.

I've been driving 35 years and you'd see the odd rubbish driver, now it's all the time. I drive a meriva, it's not a small car but it's got a small engine, now I'm sorry white van man but I cant nip into traffic I've not got the power to. They are all such bullies

now I'm sorry white van man but I cant nip into traffic I've not got the power to. They are all such bullies

Dh has that problem. He has a big slow car so needs to wait for big gaps and pull off slowly and people rage at him constantly for it.

I think I would have been less upset if the guy got out of his van and just said sorry. It's was the shouting and trying to blame it on me that really got me. He did later admit that it was his fault, but it felt like if I hadn't stood up for myself he would have bullied me into thinking it was my fault.

And now I've got all this hassle with insurance and garages to fix the damage - all because some arse was driving too close to me and/or not paying attention.

there are days that I drive home wondering who left the gate open at the cunt farm

Stealing that one

There are a couple of roundabouts near my home (proper ones, not mini - not that it makes a difference) that no one thinks they ever need to give way at. It is quite unbelievable. I have noticed, in recent years, that driving standards for a lot of motorists are terrible.

They are definitely getting more dangerous for cyclists. I wish there would be more investment in decent cycle lanes and a cycle lane network.

Roads are becoming safer

Anxiety is on the increase and you seem to have been on the receiving end of two aggressive episodes of it. Thugs are thugs. With no other coping mechanism, testosterone takes over and angry man is born.

I think you may have just been unlucky though.

I think part of the problem is that people have expensive cars (that are also huge, so they feel very safe) and they genuinely think they have more right to be on the road than the people in the cheaper cars.

You'd think they'd want to keep their expensive cars nice, but time after time it's me who backs down to avoid an accident, although my car is an 07 registration and it really owes me nothing now and I would like an excuse to buy a new(er) one

Honestly, there are days that I drive home wondering who left the gate open at the cunt farm.

Im stealing this. Brilliant

Cornwall’s road are a joke. The increase in houses built have meant the few major roads in the county can barely cope with regular traffic and now it’s silly season it’s absolute chaos. Yesterday it took 50 minutes for us to drive 2 miles on the A30, we were only taking our baby home from sensory . The aggressiveness of some of the drivers is unreal, they have zero patience and some do U-Turns (no central reservation) which often leads to accidents. I have sadly developed driving anxiety and no longer drive.

Sometimes I wonder if its a regional issue. I'm originally from the north but now live in the south east and work in the greater London area. I've noticed more and more that people seem to be in a rush all of the time and have absolutely zero patience/tolerance for other road users (opposite being when I go to see family up north, people aren't in a rush to get anywhere which is equally as annoying but then maybe that's me having been conditioned by the south eastern ways!). Speeding is a real issue where I live.

My latest gripe is when you pull up behind someone on a main road who is turning into a side road...you are obviously either stopped/going slowly and you have to pick up speed. Lots of people have started then overtaking because apparently you're not getting back up to speed fast enough

Said cunt farm is most definitely located inside the M25

I had 3 in incidents the other day that could have been crashes, non my fault.

Woman nearly reversed into me. I was waiting to pull off a side road into a (pub) carpark to swing around. Woman came flying down road (it's a deadend, narrow road) and pulled into pub. I started moving to swing, she slanmed hers into reverse and came hurtling backwards. It was only because I managed to slam mine into reverse and pull back that she didn't hit me.

A bloke was coming down the road from the golf club to join the road we were already travelling on. Didn't see us and we both had to slam on. Was my priority, he should have looked. Shook my head at him in exasperation, he started ranting that he had said sorry.

Then from that road joined a main road. Car coming hurtling down with left indicator on, to turn into road I was leaving. Something made me wait rather than pulling into road, fucker kept going past me. If I had pulled out because he was indicating would have been run into.

People just fly around, always in a rush, always selfishly thinking of themselves. No idea how to be patient and allow enough time to get from A to B, no concept that there may be other vehicles around them.

When I went to driving school over 20 years ago, we were taught:
1 angry (unsafe) driver will make 10 more people angry = 11 angry drivers on the road. Do not let the angry driver affect your own driving/don't become one of the 10.
Sadly I think a lot of angry drivers today have been affected by other angry drivers on their route and sunken to the same level. Same as they did 20 years ago, but as there's a huge increase in traffic since then it is an increase.

I definitely think that there are more aggressive, impatient knobheads on the roads than ever before.

I drive to work in a major city - it's rare that I get to work without having witnessed someone doing something mad or dangerous.

Like the twat who decided that the long line of traffic going up a hill in a 20mph zone was simply too slow for him so he overtook 5 cars before having to force his way back into the line or have a head-on collision on the wrong side of the road. I mean, surely your journey isn't that urgent or important?!!

I've also noticed that people seem to think using indicators is on a voluntary basis...

I've found that driving my 'mum' car means I'm open season for aggressive male drivers in certain brands of car! I drive at the speed limit and people still drive up my arse or aggressively and dangerously over/undertake. There is a serious lack of patience and a sense of entitlement from some drivers that nobody should dare to be driving on the same road as them.

It's OK if the motorway traffic is crawling as you can just stop if you run out of road and keep indicating, waiting for someone to let you like a normal junction, but if they're doing about 50 and nobody will let you on, what are you supposed to do when you have very nearly run out of road

Stop!!! You are meant to stop and wait until there is enough space to get in from a standstill. You sound like you just force your way in when there is no space potentially causing a pile up. Yes, people are arseholes for not letting you in but you still bloody stop it you run out of road fgs!!