To think that drivers have become incredibly impatient post Covid?

[Sausagenbacon]

3 times today I've had the car behind me sounding their horn. Obviously the driver doesn't think I should have been sticking to the 20 mile and hour speed limit. The 3rd time was when I waited for someone to come onto a roundabout before me - they had priority. But no, the person behind had to sound their horn, so that they could join the traffic queue immediately afterwards.
I hardly ever heard people sounding their horns before covid, now people do it all the time.
What's wrong with them (or you, if you're one of them)?

If your driving is a danger to other people they're right to use their horn and warn you of that.

Anyway, I've said my piece. I'm out of this one.

Hopefully today is better for you OP.

no, I don't think they're angry. I think they are dicks with an inflated sense of self importance.
You're a bit desperate to talk about discrepancies between speedometers. FWIW mine is digital.

@Sausagenbacon it all depends on the roundabout, here if you didn't enter the roundabout if someone was on it you could never leave town! 6 exits nobody indicates except for first left and last right!

so you genuinely believe that it's dangerous to stick to the speed limit? Weird

We really, really have to stop blaming everything on covid. I've heard it all now blaming bad driving on covid. There was endemic bad driving long before covid! Driving standards have been falling for years, probably decades.

The only link with covid is that the incidence of bad driving is exponential (like covid spread was). That's because the more people observe bad driving, arrogance, beeping, going through red lights, speeding, etc., and see for themselves that there's ZERO enforcement, the more they do the same themselves!

Add into that, piss poor road design, poor traffic light sequencing, unnecessarily low speed limits, barely visible road markings and signage, and you've the perfect storm for an epidemic of bad driving.

Oh, and add in loads of incompetent drivers (the kind who stop at roundabouts BEFORE thinking/looking whether it's safe to proceed), elderly drivers who shouldn't be on the roads, people on their phones whilst driving, people driving at 25 in 40/50 mph zones, those that carry on driving at 30 completely unaware the speed limits changes between 20,30 and 40 along that road, etc. It's amazing that driving behaviour isn't a lot worse than it is really when there are so many numpties on the road who are oblivious to other traffic, signage, conditions, driving rules, etc.

If you think driving is bad in the UK, you should try driving in some other countries!

Back to the OP, if you've been beeped 3 times in one day, sorry, but you're the problem. I can't remember the last time I was beeped at all - must be a few years. I do remember being beeped about 5 years ago when I wasn't concentrating and found myself in the wrong lane, and didn't check properly before starting to pull into the other lane, where there was already a car alongside me - he quite rightly beeped at me, and I fully deserved it!

I'm all for compulsory re-testing every 10 years or so along with getting the police to start policing the roads again. Policing used to be done by "normal" police, but now they ignore driving offences and it seems only the dedicated "traffic" police will deal with offences usually during "campaigns" against specific things, you have to be doing something really, really, bad to get a routine patrol to stop you these days. A couple of decades ago, you;d get stopped for a light out, or going through a red traffic light, or just if you were driving badly to be given "words of advice" - that doesn't happen anymore.

I’m off out in the car in the Bristol direction this morning. I hope I don’t encounter the drivers you did @Sausagenbacon it sounds like (making an assumption here) they were just impatient.

I've noticed some people are more impatient but I've also noticed that a lot of drivers have become less competent.

Driving down a main road with cars parked on both sides but plenty of room for 2 cars. The amount of cars driving in the middle of the road is bizarre. Same with those who break every time a car comes the other way

All the judgment about drivers braking at every approaching car/around every bend is frustrating because I drive an electric car with regenerative braking, which means you’ll likely see my brake lights come on every time I ease off the accelerator. I’ve had drivers beep behind me before, clearly frustrated by my brake lights even though I’m not actually slowing down that much. I wonder whether the cars in question were also electric. I think EV design needs to think more about this, or we need a PSA about how electric cars brake differently so that people don’t jump to road rage every time they see brake lights.

I do a lot of driving in the countryside, narrow roads and loads of bends.
If you know the roads you know where every blind bend is or where you might encounter horses or tractors etc.
People not from the area won’t so I do cut them some slack for driving more slowly and braking more than the locals would.
Am I supposed to be honking my horn at them?

One day a few years ago I got a phone call that would change everything. My mum went into hosp for a minor procedure and when the phone rang I assumed it was her telling me she was ready to be picked up but no, it was a doctor telling me she'd unexpectedly gone into cardiac arrest and died.

We needed to know what had happened so on auto pilot jumped in the car and went up to the hospital where we had the worst conversation of our lives, were handed her wedding ring, watch and bag and then left the hospital. On the way home, I stopped at some traffic lights and for a nanosecond missed they'd turned to green and the driver behind me went utterly ballistic at the 3 second delay to their day. He then tried to dangerously overtake me in annoyance and nearly caused an accident.

Prior to that I'd say I'd always been an impatient driver myself but this cured me. None of us know exactly what's going on inside a car or a person's life, or if they're on their way to a funeral or driving home after a traumatic breakup. Yes, dawdlers irritate me but I just safely manoeuvre out of their way and not use any emotional energy in getting cross. Not worth it, nor do I know what's going on with them.

Thank you @Sparklingbrook that’s very considerate of you! My absolute least favourite roads to drive on are unfamiliar winding country roads with narrow lanes and NSL. There’s no way I can get myself to drive at 60 not knowing what might be coming up at any given moment. I don’t mind being overtaken in the slightest by locals who clearly know the roads well but it’s upsetting when people get impatient and frustrated. Sorry I’m not going to risk hurtling myself around a corner into the back of a tractor so that they can get home a few minutes earlier!

Maybe you have a manual speedometer and they had a digital one - so what looked like 60mph was actually 56.

Surely this is only relevant if you think it's normal to get angry at someone driving 56 in a 60...

I understand 'road rage' and getting angry if someone has done something dangerous or reckless, but if you're getting angry because you're feeling impatient then YOU'RE the danger on the road, and you need to get a grip tbh

Good point @Sparklingbrook - I also think the reverse is true as well. Often I get impatient people behind me irritated by how slow I'm taking certain parts of the road. The reason I'm going slower is because I know that certain portions have bad visibility and may well have horses or slow moving farm vehicles round the corner. I normally assume they're not from the area as if they were, they'd know about the accidents that have been caused by drivers thinking because it's a NSL road they should be going 60 at all times. But of course, it could also be arrogant fellow locals that just think they know better.

I also get people annoyed at me when I slow right down before turning down a side track - if I can't see down the road due to hedges or whatever else, and I know there's often horses and walkers around, I'm not just going to blindly bomb round the corner and hope for the best!!

This never happens to me or dp.
You must be a ditherer, post covid there are lots about. I'm office bound so only really commute, but dp drives during the day from customer to customer. His observations are that there are drivers dithering. He compensates for this extended journey time by adding an extra £50 to his call-out charge.😂

I'd say that where Covid lockdowns is relevant is that the months of significantly quieter roads amplified the habits of very impatient, hasty drivers who got used to no one being in their way, no one to indicate for, and no one to slow them down. Reduced driving also made another cohort of drivers more hesistant as they were on the road less. Many people have de-skilled at processing complex environments, and with some people reaching the end of their driving life (vision, dementia...), may have not had that picked up by professionals with delays in health care.
These problems existed before 2020, but I think they have increased since.

I had a short there and back drop off to do yesterday evening. I drove at the 30mph speed limit both ways. I was tail gated both ways. That wasn't on me.

As another PP mentions, this year has seen an increase in people driving slowly for fuel efficiency.
This is a problem when someone decides that 40-45 mph is plenty on NSL dual carriageways and motorways and pushes out heavy goods vehicles into overtaking and obstructing the traffic flow. I've had times of doing about 65mph in lane 1, rapidly catching a 43mph vehicle ahead and having to break sharply because there wasn't a safe oppotunity to overtake in lane 2 with the 75-80mph traffic. It creates far too much difference in speed between slower and faster flowing traffic, even for those within the speed limit. A truck is easier to anticipate and adjust for as you know it'll be doing roughly 55mph. A modern car doing 10mph below that in good conditions is a hazard.

My gem of shite driving 2022 goes to the bloke that randomly swung around my car (lane 2) from lane 1 in a U-turn to go onto the opposite side. Fortunately I have sharp reactions and emergency stopped in time. The road was otherwise empty, and had a retail park and roundabout a few hundred metres ahead where he could have turned safely.

I don't think its Covid, unless long CV wrecks concentration?

But what i have noticed is that normally, rises in petrol prices force people to drive more slowly.... i ve particularly notice this as i cycle a lot.
However and this also makes me wonder how many really are affected by the cost of living rises... people are if anything driving faster than ever! or trying too and there seems to be no reduction in traffic volumes either... whether thats on the roads of at local cafe's at the weekend, car parks packed as ever before.

I don't think it is covid, probably just the mounting pressure regarding cost of living/Christmas/war/politics. It's all a bit grim at the moment and it's likely to show in peoples behaviours.

I haven't really noticed a change myself though but I travel in rush hour and it has always been bad for this sort of thing.

I think people have got angrier on the roads recently - I’d put it down to people being worried about their bills and mortgages - and just using their driving style to take it out on other people . I had someone overtake me at a red temporary traffic light yesterday and have had a lot of people tailgate me doing 30 in 30 lately

Many years ago I had a wonderful gadget. You stuck it on the windscreen. It had 3 buttons - one to get the sound of a machine gun, one an explosion and I forget the third. It was a wonderful stress reliever. When another driver did something annoying you simply pressed a button. The other driver had no idea, so it didn’t prompt retaliation but it felt good.

No, I said I have difficulty focusing not that it's impossible and poor spacial perception doesn't mean that I'm too close to other cars either. I've been driving for many years now without issue and drive within my abilities, hence not going out at night. However, I do not appreciate impatient people dangerously tailgating or aggressively overtaking when I'm taking corners a little more cautiously or driving at 55mph rather than 60.

I've noticed if there are a lot of hazards such as twisty road with blind spots, kids crossing etc. People are too lazy to keep a safe distance and negotiate hazards themselves, so instead they drive right up close behind you so you will negotiate the hazards for them. Such crap driving skills

This is bloody amazing and I want one 😂

Driving has got worse over recent years but I don’t think you can blame covid. I was stuck behind an elderly driver the other day who drove between 14 and 19mph all the way through the 60 road. Winding road so no chance to overtake. He should not have been driving.

But I do think that if you are incapable at driving your car at more than half the speed limit, you’re too nervous to be on the road.

And I suspect in your case OP that you were probably driving at 15 rather than 20, hence the beeping. Not that it makes it right, but I could understand people getting impatient.

I think some people would be very unhappy at having to stick to a 20 mph speed limit and would beep if the person in front was sticking to it.