What is happening with driving

[Kidsfortea]

Just as title tbf.
I followed a driving instructor car back from my fathers today. Only one person in it so assumed it was the instructor. Realise I could be wrong.
Never once did the driver indicate and we ended up in the same village so quite a few junctions. Speeding along 30mph roads.
Is this why so many drivers ignore the Highway Code? They are just never taught it!

He or she could have been on their way to an extremely urgent hospital appointment for all you know in a literal life or death situation, so you shouldn't judge. And if they really were "speeding" down 30mph roads and you were able to follow them all the way home, that indicates that either you too were speeding, or you're exaggerating.

Tiny flaw in your logic. If learners drive like they won't pass their test.

How does that stop you indicating? I've had to drive DS to hospital in an emergency before and resisted speeding because ultimately it increases the risk of having an accident which seems foolish. I expect the excuses people make such as this and judging others for daring to judge others for their shitty driving explains a lot about standards.

Driving instructors are the worst drivers IME.
Including relatives who have been driving instructors.

They just have to be good at telling other people how to drive properly.

Not exaggerating. As I said we ended up in the same village. Them a fair bit earlier than I!
Do we no longer bother indicating any more these days then.
Everyone who drives does enough to pass a test obviously 🙄.

I've been driving for years, and indicating comes so naturally to me I don't even have to think about doing it, it is second nature.

I would have to actively decide to not indicate.

Perhaps the indicator lights were broken and they were driving to the location to get them fixed. The fact is, there are a lot of scenarios that could have taken place. For all the OP knows, the driver could have been a carjacker speeding to get away having stolen the car and nothing to do with the driving instructing company at all.

Jesus @Keyansier, did you get a new trampoline for Christmas to help you make those leaps?

I had an instructor who was an absolute boy racer. I scrapped that and changed to a better instructor. A woman funnily enough.

No, I was just saying that it's not fair to assume that driving standards have gone down on the basis of how one driver (who may not even be an instructor anyway) was driving on that particular occasion, especially when there are lots of reasons why. I've sped in a car before, with good reason, but if anybody saw me on the road that day and I happened to be in an instructor car people might have thought the same.

Was it you driving Keyansier? 😂😂

I don't do villages, so definitely wasn't me!

"Perhaps the indicator lights were broken"

😁This is my favourite.

More likely to create a life and death situation driving like that... it's not an excuse. Unless you're driving an ambulance or police car

Driving standards across the country are absolutely shocking and have deteriorated since lockdown.

The only way bad drivers are caught now is reporting via dash cams as there aren't enough police available to monitor roads.

But bloody cyclists ...

I think you’re generalising. I’ve not been driving for long, but I do everything as I was taught, including mirrors, signalling etc. I’ve had people tailgating me and overtaking me at multiple points on a 30 road when I was in fact, doing 30. I’ve had people stop right behind me on hills so they’re almost touching my bumper. Someone reversed into my stationary car the other day because she didn’t see me (I had just turned on the ignition after defrosting my car and waiting to leave my parking space). She hadn’t actually bothered to scrape her rear windscreen at all 🙄. It’s scary to be on the roads at the moment, but I promise, we do learn the Highway Code on lessons!

@Keyansier I've followed ambulances on blue lights on many occasions (with my daughter as the patient) and it was made very clear that I still had to stick to the Highway Code and not to try and keep up with them. Urgent hospital appointment or other such emergency is not an excuse.

FWIW I know my son's old driving instructor 's wife sometimes drives his car so not necessarily the instructor driving - although it's not a very good advert whoever was driving.

I always tell people I know locally if I've spotted them going over the speed limit through our village past the flashing sign.

My driving instructor had four sons who borrowed her car when she wasn't working. Could be that.

Controversial for Mumsnet I know but driving standards in general are way better than they were 20 years ago

Perhaps the blinker fluid needed topping up.

I’ve come across a few instructors doing that too. I was also thinking what is going on lol

I have a theory that driving instructors experience so much crap driving/so many mistakes from learners and yet don't die/crash that they become complacent and think that it doesn't matter if you make tons of mistakes.

Which is kind of true - you aren't THAT likely to crash if you make a single mistake, because in order to crash you have to be in the wrong place AND somebody else has to coincidentally be in that place AND you need to not notice in time to take evasive action AND they need to not notice in time to take evasive action.

Road design takes this into account, so anywhere that people are likely to end up in the wrong place has plenty of signage/road markings/space to avoid mistakes and also will usually have good visibility as well in case anybody does get something wrong. And a lot of modern cars will have things like emergency brake assist, and ABS is also standard now so braking is much more effective (and a lot of the "visibility rules" date from before ABS was common).

Add to this airbags and seatbelts and other safety features designed into cars, even if you do crash these days you are likely to walk away.

It's still not a good idea to drive like an idiot, because you're massively increasing the chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and/or being too close to somebody else who is to take evasive action. But I think that the average person is afraid of making a mistake when driving because we tend to assume that one mistake will lead to instant death, whereas driving instructors know that the majority of bad driving won't lead to anything bad happening at all and there's a significant amount of luck involved as well.

If an instructor taught their pupils to drive like that they wouldn't pass and so wouldn't have a job for long. My test was about 5 years ago now and was very stringent.

In a few days time, I will have had my license for 7 years and have been driving that entire time. Even in the short amount of time I've been driving (compared to people who have been driving for decades) I have seen a decline in driving standards.

Not so much with the indicating as mentioned in the OP but my issue is the amount of drivers driving over the lines onto my side of the road. They do it around corners and on the straights, just driving over the lines the whole time so there's not enough room for me to get through unless I put my car into the hedge. These are on A and B roads so not little country lanes and it really became common after lockdown I found. I've also noticed that I've not seen this behaviour as much recently, but perhaps poor driving standards emerged post-covid when people who hadn't driven for months hit the roads again?

Agree, @larchforest - it's so automatic that I realised I was indicating to turn into my own garage in my own driveway the other day!