I live in a city centre (Edinburgh if anyone is interested). DH and I rarely drive. He cycles, I walk or take the bus. I now have a 9 month old and so am frequently walking with a pram. I'm not sure how much of it is just me being more alert with the baby and how much is things genuinely getting worse (a bit of both I think) but the driving near us is shocking to the point I'm genuinely actually concerned for my baby's safety. I go out at least once a day (usually more) and can't remember the last time I went on a walk without seeing several incidences of dangerous driving. Today, for example, one van suddenly accelerated through a left turn (at which I had priority and was about to cross) without indicating, one car raced around a corner into a road I was already crossing, one driver was obviously using his phone whilst driving, and one car was sitting at a light blocking the pedestrian crossing and dropped kerb.
I witness people using their phones at the wheel frequently. We live near a pretty nasty (but well signposted) junction that people make illegal turns at all the time. Pavement parking is still a massive problem despite the new laws (I do report when I see it) and so I'm often having to walk out into a road with the pram with poor visibility. People speed. People fly around corners (and then have the nerve to be cross that I'm already in the road). People misjudge timings and end up blocking the pedestrian areas of crossings, making it difficult to get a pram past. We have several crossing with very short pedestrian light cycles and drivers start revving and even speeding when the light changes, even though I'm still crossing (I'm really not slow at all).
In addition, pavements are frequently cluttered (road signs, bins, cars) and narrow and pot-holey anyway, so I often have to walk into the road. Crossing lights are frequently broken so I have to guess when I can go. We are inundated with delivery drivers on e-bikes who race on and off the pavement at speed (one nearly hit me when I was pregnant by racing round a corner onto a very narrow pavement - I had to leap back into the road).
As well as this terrible driving, I have noted people are really hostile, and so I rarely actually point out bad driving. I do occasionally give a look to people stopped and doing something obviously wrong (usually on phone or sitting in a crossing) but I am far more likely to receive an aggressive shrug back than for the person to look contrite and change their behaviour. DH recently knocked on the windows of a man using a phone at a traffic light (he was genuinely concerned the man would start up without realising there were children crossing infront) and he let out a torrent of abuse at DH!
I'm feeling so down about it. Our local councillor is brilliant and very invested in safe travel and I do report bad parking when I can but generally feel nothing will change. Has anyone experienced this? I don't know anyone who would ever drive like this but obviously it is really common.