New driver, I misjudged a gap. Shaken

[anxiousmumy]

Turning right at a busy junction.. I misjudged the gap. The car from the right honked me continuously. It was close, but I felt like they sped up rather than slowed down but still my fault . It's one of those horrible junctions where sometimes you have to edge out or you're sat there for 15 minutes. I had a car up my rear end gesturing angrily at me and jusr felt pressured. I feel so bad and wish I could apologise to the driver.
I am worried they might submit the dashcam footage and I could lose my license. Has anyone else ever done this? Did you get better?

No matter how long a person has been driving or how many miles they drive, mistakes will always happen occasionally. Anyone who says they never make a mistake is a dangerous driver as they clearly have so little self awareness.

I have been driving for many years and for 10 years worked as a sales rep doing over 60k miles a year, still occasionally make mistakes. Luckily nothing bad has happened but mistakes nonetheless. Sometimes I have had to take evasive action to avoid the consequences of someone else's mistake (or arrogant/aggressive driving). On occasion someone has done the same for me.

I actually appreciate the occasional near miss/heart stopping moment (although I definitely prefer not being the one who has caused it). It helps me remember that there is potential danger out there and stops me being complacent about driving.

Keep driving, and don't ever take it for granted or think you have nothing left to learn. If everyone drive with due care and attention and didn't let frustration get the better of them, the roads would be far safer.

Without the footage we don’t know if you’ve misjudged it or not. I’ve sure been in the position where a car has sped up- closing the gap - but I’d committed to moving and they’d committed to speeding up. Boom . Two cars getting to the same place.

The “Ashley Neil” make it a non event does not work all the time . Your other driver here could and should have slowed down as much as they could and the relentless honking does no one a favour because (a) the honest mistake makers are mortified anyway - don’t honk (b) the could not care less don’t care and the (c) the I’m right you’re wrong don’t learn a anything so don’t honk.

but yes in time …

• you get better at judging traffic :
• you get better at sitting it out until you are sure of the gap:
• when you encounter entitled drivers who refuse to help out you are leas upset :
• when You make an error you pause and reflect. You’re already doing this one and the others will come in time . Don’t let it ruin your confidence- on a different day with a different car you possibly wouldn’t have noticed …

I think we’ve all been here. Don’t feel bad and don’t worry about losing your licence. As a previous poster suggested I’d get some P plates until you’re a bit more confident, but the only advice I can offer is to take no notice of anyone trying to rush you or making rude gestures. Be confident that you’re safe in your manoeuvres no matter how long they take and the bozos will just have to wait.

I always think the times I have actually had to react quickly to avoid an accident, I haven't had time to also get to my horn to beep it. So if they had time to beep they had time to react, and just fancied playing the big man and honking.

And never be bullied by somebody impatient behind you at a junction- I have to turn out of a busy junction on my drive home everyday - sometimes you wait ages. I got beeped once I think just because they got fed up, I had definitely not been hesitant. Some people of just knobs.

Don't let the experience knock your confidence, it's hard when you're first out on the roads on your own but it gets better and you learn when to nip out and when to wait.

My dad always told me that the day you pass your test is the day you begin to learn how to drive and I think he is 100% right.

Today was a lesson. Learn from it. There will be others.

Everyone misjudges a gap occassionally, but that will reduce very quickly as you gain experience. There is a good chance that part of the problem was the other driver was driving way too fast, reducing the time you had to pull out. You have to learn to take bad driving on the part of others into account, but you will get used to that.

The important thing is not to feel under pressure no matter what happens. Take your time, look both ways multiple times and only pull out when you are confident that it is safe.

Personally I am not a fan of P plates. If I see L or P plates I always treat the driver generously, but often I see other drivers pull out in front of them or get impatient with them, presumably because they assume they will be held up by a less experienced driver. Driving brings out the worst in too many people.

Hey OP, I've been driving for many years now, but every now and again we all encounter a near miss, be it our fault or someone else's. I find it's very easy to get caught up in the worst case scenario thinking and play out scenes in your head of all the alternate endings!! But I've always found it useful to ground myself back in the reality - it didn't happen / I didn't crash - and then ask myself what I've learnt from that experience and how this is going to make you a better driver. E.g. that particular junction you were on ---- how would you handle it differently next time? Could you just turn left instead and find somewhere else to turn around if you are not feeling confident?
Take it as a valuable lesson as a new driver - not to feel pressured by other drivers, to be more careful to check the approaching driver's speed, etc.

Without wanting to sound patronising I think it's really sweet that you're so worried about this - it just shows that you're a nice, conscientious person.

That said, 100% put it from your mind. Every single person driving makes occasional judgement snafoos and you're new! Nothing happened and nobody was hurt. Call it a learning experience.

Your judgement will get better with time. There was no collision, you won’t be in trouble.

The biggest thing to learn here, is that a junction takes as long as it takes. I have, more than once, misjudged a gap and 9/10 it’s because I was feeling harassed by the person behind me. Ignore them. As a pp said, flip the rear view mirror if you need to.

37 years driving here and a confident driver but I still hate turning right and will in fact go out of my way to avoid right hand turns if possible.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, you’ll learn from this.

Although there are mechanisms to submit dashcam footage without a collision, there's no way that driver is submitting anything. Making a mistake a pulling into a gap causing another driver to brake is poor/careless driving, and something you should learn from, but (possibly) accelerating into a closing gap and using the horn to intimidate other road users is dangerous driving. If the other driver drove as you describe, they'd have to be very stupid to submit footage of themselves committing an offence.

Think about how you could have driven differently to avoid something similar happening again, and then forget about it. Carrying the worry about with you won't help you in any way. The bright side is that you know you made a mistake. I see drivers all the time who are oblivious to their lack of skills (and therefore other people taking evasive action).

We all make mistakes when driving, nobody got hurt so try not to worry. Sometimes it's good to learn these lessons so that you don't repeat them. As time goes by your confidence will build and you will be fine just keep going you got this

One of the best skills to learn as a new driver is being able to tell aggressive drivers to fuck off (from within the safety of your own car where they can't hear you, of course) when they are trying to pressurise you into doing something you're not sure about.

We all come across this problem - I had it the other day when I was indicating right and the person behind me was leaning on his horn, desperate for me to pull forward into a yellow-hatched box junction despite the long queue of traffic crossing it without a break in the opposite direction so that I'd inevitably get stuck and incur a hefty fine. I mentally stuck two fingers up and stayed exactly where I was till there was a break in the traffic allowing me to turn.

Just learn from this one, OP, and don't let the next bully push you against your own judgment.

First things first… get out and drive somewhere… like now. Don’t let this build up in your head! Go drive somewhere, anywhere it doesn’t matter.

Second… good news. It sounds like you got this out of the way early in your driving career. Check that box, learn from it, and move on.

You will learn as you drive more that some people are just impatient and unreasonable!

I had someone behind me honk at me for stopping at the back of a queue of traffic the other day. I'm not sure where he thought I should go!!

Just use it as a learning experience. Don't worry about other drivers!

Just ignore them , and grow a thicker skin .

Maybe from his point of view I was just being reckless and he was at the speed limit. I don't know. I'm only going from what I do - if I see someone edging out at a busy junction, I'll brake gently to anticipate them coming out. He definitely didn't seem to brake at all. He didn't have to brake to miss me or swerve, my car was in the other lane as he came past but only by a second so I did cut it way too close.
I learnt in a fast car and this has crap acceleration, it always takes longer than I think to pull out.

To other posters - I have P plates, I'm in the Midlands. Hopefully it it did get reported I could do a course instead of having points.

Part of me wishes I'd never learnt as the anxiety it's causing me is making me ill. I will go through a green light and gaslight myself into worrying if it was red, I doubt myself going on filter arrows, I go past speed cameras and worry I got the speed limit wrong or I was going 1mph over, I've gone the wrong way into a pub and convinced myself I'll get fined. Don't even get me started on massive busy spiral roundabouts where the name markings are rubbed off on the lanes and the boards are hidden by trees.

Thanks for your reassurance

OP, I understand completely- I’m also an anxious new driver and started a thread the other day as I was so shaken up by my own mistake! I’m also finding that driving is causing me massive anxiety, but all the advice I have had is that I just have to get over it and keep driving and it will get better. Your last post made me smile as I also worry about exactly those types of things 😊and I can worry for days! You are not alone

OP, I stopped and started lessons from the age of 18 to 25 because I was nervous. Passed my test at 25 and didn't drive again until I was 29.

I have been driving regularly for about five years now and I know it's infuriating when people say "it just takes practice" but they're right. One day you'll be pootling along in the sunshine and you'll realise you're enojoying it. I still use sat-nav and I have to look up routes on Google street view before I go somewhere new but I'm a world away from the driver I was in 2019. I once cried in a panic because I was in the wrong lane and nobody would let me in, and driving on the motorway would leave me with sweat patches under my arms.

You'll make mistakes, you'll learn from them. Your reaction to mistakes/unexpected situations on the road will also change and you'll take it in your stride. I said this on another thread recently but I'll say it again: don't be bullied into a manoeuvre until you are comfortable. I have to turn right out of a similarly busy junction near my work and there's no way I'm driving into oncoming traffic just because Billy Big Balls is practically in my boot, frothing at the mouth.

Honestly don't worry about it, you have nothing to apologise to them for. Almost certainly they were speeding. You are only supposed to use your horn in an emergency, which it clearly wasn't, because they didn't even slow down. They used it to intimidate you, so fuck 'em.

I think everyone feels like this when they have only just passed their test - easily frazzled by other drivers pressuring them. You made the mistake because you panicked and pulled out when it wasn't safe.

The only way through it is to never allow yourself to be pressured again. I had someone tailgate me all the way down a very long one way street the other day, because I dared only be doing the speed limit. Towards the end he started beeping and eyeballing me in the mirror because I'd slowed down even more - it was school finishing time with kids all over the place, darting out from between parked cars. He evidently cared more about being able to do 40mph down a road than he did about the kids' safety. I don't, so I slowed down. Better an angry, pathetic man than a dead/injured child.

Moral of the story is there are arseholes everywhere on the road. You will eventually find them mildly irritating and sometimes amusing - gesticulating and getting so angry over having to wait 2 minutes. Don't be pressured, especially by a person honking when you have visible P plates - they evidently have the brain capacity of an average potato, at best.

Oh and you won't lose your license. If this was a thing there'd be no cars left on the road - we all make mistakes!

I was honked at from behind by a moron at a very busy huge roundabout. It pissed me off. I got out and walked back to him and asked if he wanted something! He waved his arm at me and told me to get back in my car I said I thought he wanted me..so I ambled back and drove off when the road was clear. Took twice as long for him to move, probably not a recommended move but he was a chump.