To think the Highway Code is ignored by most people, who then make up their own rules to suit their driving?

[SavoirFlair]

I’m fully expected to be flamed for positioning myself as the “perfect driver” which I’m not (I’m always trying to improve my roadcraft) but hey, here goes..

Does anyone else agree or has noticed that the Highway Code is completely ignored by most folk on the roads. And it’s forgotten soon after passing one’s driving test, because folk make up the rules that suit them first rather than other road users?

classic examples of this are

Middle lane drivers the Highway Code states “Keep in the left lane unless overtaking. If you are overtaking, you should return to the left lane when it is safe to do so”. This rule is completely ignored in most motorways I travel on. You have these comical at best drivers who sit in lane 3 of 4, at 70mph with no sense of relative speed, and refuse to move over. The reason we have smart motorways is because so many people pick their own personal lane for “their” space, or are terrified of lorries or whatever. Meanwhile traffic builds up, people get frustrated, was ever thus. Also I don’t hold truck with “overtaking and weaving in and out all the time is more dangerous”. Go and do Pass Plus then, learn how to use a motorway properly

Signalling on roundabouts Every single day I see someone approaching a roundabout in the right hand lane to turn right, no signal.. they go round 270 degrees towards the right exit, then suddenly at the last min stick a left signal on. WTF?

also annoying are the folk who take the “racing line” on a two lane roundabout and cut you up as you’re going straight.

but the worst without a doubt is those who are approaching, as if to go straight on, no signal, then dive off to the left … meanwhile I’m sitting here, could have gone. But no.. as long as they’re alright.

Running engine while stationary We all know this one, plenty of threads on it. But the law and Highway Code is completely irrelevant to folk who insist their little ones would have a small fit without it

Mobile phone usage Again the Highway Code is completely irrelevant to the dozens of school run folk I see looking down, flicking, checking things while driving THEIR children let alone endangering ours

Giving way when parked cars or an obstruction is on your side This is now a free for all in most places I drive in. as it happens, I was driving forwards past parked cars on the right, occupying the single lane space, when a school run mother came swiftly round the corner into the same lane. I waited for her to reverse as she only had one car length to reverse and I had passed 8 cars by then. Nothing. Complete stand-off. Shouting, swearing, gesturing at me.. in the end for my own sanity I reversed so I could get on with my day. What do I get for it? “You could see I was trying to get into that gap…. No I wasn’t… shut the fuck up bitch”.

so my point stands.. is the Highway Code completely irrelevant to most people. And we just seem to make up whatever suits our driving needs?

Undertaking baffles me. Surely everyone knows not to do it... but they do!

It's annoying as anything when the person in the lane to your right is going ridiculously slowly and holding you back - i can see why people would rather undertake in those circs rather than change multiple lanes just to overtake. But that goes hand in hand with people being middle lane hoggers.

Undertaking is not in and of itself an offence, although it can constitute dangerous driving. Lots of people don't seem to understand this and view any passing on the left as illegal.

If you are progressing in the inside lane which is clear and you pass a slower vehicle in the middle lane on its left and maintain your position in the inside lane, that is not illegal. The vehicle driving in the middle lane even though the inside lane is clear is committing an offence I believe which would mean a fine / points.

Similarly if you are in a queue of traffic in two lanes and the inside lane is making faster progress meaning you pass vehicles in the outside lane on their left, that is not illegal.

However, if you came up behind someone in the middle or outside lane and moved to a lane on your left deliberately to get in front of them, that would constitute dangerous driving and could land you with a fine / points.

i can’t really get upset about undertaking. Maybe it’s because I don’t do enough motorway driving to see negative consequences of it. Much bigger issues for me are:

1. driving whilst looking at phone- see this every single day


2. Aggressively overtaking cyclists leaving the tiniest of gaps. I see a lot of drivers who see the same clips as I do and comment thinking driver is not at fault even when they obviously are.


3. signal issue on roundabouts people have mentioned already drives me nuts!


4. people parking badly/on double yellow lines and obstructing the road. There seems to be no will to fine people for this. I keep thinking you could hire someone to hand out these fines in certain neighbourhoods and you would make back their wage in a week. They could rotate round various schools as well and make a lot there


5. idling engines. I wish this was enforced more


6. giant cars like rangerovers on unsuitable roads. I wish people needed a permit for these monstrosities which made them need to justify why they needed it. So many times I’ve had to push my car into a hedge because there isn’t space for us to pass but there would be if we both drove normal size cars.

There is little preventative traffic enforcement, many Police forces have got rid of their Traffic departments or cut them back.

So we have "civilian" Highway Officers on motorways and automatic speed cameras on other roads.

But perhaps the biggest problem is drivers sense of entitlement, for this i'd like to see repeat tests, not a full driving test but something on-line & taking into account any driving convictions since the last test, they would do a full test.

Would be a good source of revenue for the Govt too...... ring fence it for road repairs?

The only rule you need to remember is to drive on the assumption that every other road user is a fool or an imbecile.

Assuming other people are following the rules of the road is downright dangerous.

I’d like to see much more severe punishment for bad driving. People should lose their license much more easily

and much more severe punishment for driving without a license.

Having taken each of my dc to a driving course for under 17s thats affiliated to the institute of advanced driving I learnt we learnt a lot about defensive driving so I get enfuriated when people enter my stopping distance because they haven't observed the traffic and left it until the last minute to force their way out.

We have a load of fuckwits who insist on parking on a corner despite yellow lines, which means that you get into the habit of turning on the wrong side of the road as you need to avoid them.
Someone recently had a go at my husband because he had passed 4 cars on his left before she came around a bend and refused to move back half a car length to allow him space to pass, instead expecting him to reverse past 4 cars and back around that blind corner onto a main road because it was her right of way, technically yes, but in reality stupid. He didn't reverse as that would have been dangerous but the venom from her was ridiculous.

For reasons that aren't clear to me, driving is noticeably really bad in London. It's not just about congestion - where I live is very congested but you don't see the same level of bad driving. I see people do things that I just don't encounter elsewhere, for instance people - not everyone, of course, but not a tiny minority either - drive through red lights as a matter of course. I drive into London from the east on a relatively regular basis (I used to do it a lot more often) and as soon as you hit Stratford it's like everyone has lost their minds!

Similarly if you are in a queue of traffic in two lanes and the inside lane is making faster progress meaning you pass vehicles in the outside lane on their left, that is not illegal.

Yes, the highway code specifically says this is ok in congested conditions. I'm talking about undertaking for no reason.

In most cases, if someone’s able to undertake then it’s the vehicle being undertaken that’s at fault.

Since a section of the M6 was changed from 3 lanes to 4, the vast majority of drivers avoid the new inside lane completely for some reason.

We actually passed someone yesterday who was chugging along in the lane next to the outside lane on a 4-lane stretch, must’ve been doing 55mph. It’s insanely dangerous, not to mention infuriating.

It can go the other way, in my town there's a particular roundabout and some residents like to argue that they should be in the left hand lane to go straight on.
However markings and signs say otherwise and they feel they should ignore the road markings and blindly follow the highway code, doesnt work like that unfortunately so always have to be wary.
Funnily enough for a town with a lot of roundabouts it seems you can't drive round one without seeing someone in the wrong lane or honking of horns!

But you do have to be mindful of exceptions. You mentioned the racing line at a roundabout. We have a local roundabout that is marked as right hand turn in both lanes…it always flummoxes non local drivers who don’t read the sign that says ‘use both lanes for AXXX’.

I’ve seen an increase in the numbers of cars who just sail through red lights. I guess everyone is just in such a hurry all the time.

“the Highway Code is completely ignored by most folk on the roads. And it’s forgotten soon after passing one’s driving”

if anyone really believed that surely they wouldn’t risk being on the road themselves. Virtually all drivers comply with the most critical elements of the code - stop at red lights, give way to pedestrians at a zebra crossing etc. Many drivers do treat less critical elements as optional which can be annoying but I would guess that almost all drivers do this to some extent. Everyone thinks the risks they are taking are justified whereas the risks they wouldn’t take, but that others do, are reckless.

Yup, as a pedestrian this is terrifying. One arsehole nearly hit my pushchair a few weeks again. Crossing at the lights, he just came through, he stuck his hand out of the window in that apologetic manner so he knew what he was doing. Incomprehensibly there was traffic on the other side so he didn’t even get anywhere. Luckily for me, this gave me enough time to het to the other side of the road and snap a pic of his Rev and report him for dangerous driving. I never heard nowt back from the police after their initial response but I do hope they found him and gave him a talking to at least.

Someone undertook me yesterday.
I had pulled into the middle lane to go past slower traffic when everything started to break, so I slowed to keep my stopping distance meaning I didn't immediately go past the traffic on the left.
A car pulled into the left, undertook me, pulled into my space meaning I was almost in their boot and then proceeded to break to slow to match the speed of those in front.

I then had to slow to leave more space before there was a safe gap I could pull into in the outside lane to make progress.

You forgot the use of hazard lights.

so yes please put them on if you find you are a hazard but by me they are frequently turned on to state the driver intends to do something. Who knows what? Turn, stop, break down.. the list of possibilities is endless. Frequently they are planning to slow stop and park. A sodding indicator would have suffice and given more clue as to what tue driver was planning.

on the upside I now treat them as the unpredictable mobile hazard they are.

Re the motor way middle lane hogging- equally as bad are the ones so averse to being in the middle lane they swerve round the motorway at 90mph with a complete inability to read the road or make use of a stopping distance.

yanbu!

People driving up your arse, where there is a line of traffic ahead and nowhere to pull over and let them pass. What’s the fucking point.

Driving in someone’s blind spot making it impossible to change lanes (a particular issue on the motorway near me to come off at my junction).

Parking on corners, parking on double yellow lines, parking on pavements, parking across from junctions so there’s no room to get out. Morons.

I don't think re-tests would help. People don't stick to the rules mentioned in the OP because they are selfish and it doesn't benefit them to do so, not because they have forgotten the rules. They'd be perfectly capable of doing them for a test, and then would immediately revert to their normal ways. I follow all those rules. Not because I'm an amazing driver, just because I'm not a selfish arse.

Yep. Sat on a jury for a dangerous driving case once and was in disbelief at some peoples perceptions of what constituted safe driving.

I see a lot of posts on Facebook/next door/ even here about the behaviour of cyclists etc but as a pedestrian if I posted online about every incident of being nearly taken out by cars that don’t stop on a zebra crossing or at a red light, or having to walk in the road around parked cars on the pavement, I’d never have time to do anything else.

re motorway driving perhaps there should be lanes for speed like in swimming therefore negating the need for daft overtaking then going back to the inner lane where people happy to go 50 mph remain.

Beat me to it with that one. People just blatantly in the wrong. Perhaps some people just don't realise how import the HC is.

No. Safe speeds are determined by the road conditions, weather and visibility, levels of traffic, the individual driving and their vehicle. Not by which lane you're in.

Lucky to have a sign! Amazes me how many lane markings are just painted on the road. That's where the cars go!

How are they undertaking if there is no middle lane hogging happening?